Israeli health officials said Tuesday there is a likelihood of a connection between receiving a second dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine and the onset of myocarditis in young men aged 16-30.

Israeli health officials found a probable link between the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccine — which the country has relied on almost exclusively in its vaccination drive — and dozens of cases of heart inflammation in young men following the second dose, the Health Ministry said Tuesday.

After the ministry received reports of heart inflammation, including myocarditis, following recent COVID vaccination, a panel of experts was appointed to investigate the issue. The panel included public health experts specializing in epidemiology, members of the National Center for Disease Control and academics from the Tel Aviv University, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Haifa University.

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Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle that can lead to cardiac arrhythmia and death. According to researchers at the National Organization for Rare Disorders, myocarditis can result from infections, but “more commonly the myocarditis is a result of the body’s immune reaction to the initial heart damage.”

According to a study by Israeli health officials, there were 275 cases of myocarditis identified between December 2020 and May 2021, including 148 cases that occurred within a month after vaccination. Of those 148 cases, 27 occurred after the first dose and 121 after the second dose. About half of the cases involved people with previous medical conditions, Bloomberg reported.

Many of the cases were reported among men 16 to 30, and most often in 16- to 19-year-olds. Most of the patients were discharged from the hospital in less than four days, and 95% of the cases were considered mild.

“There is a likelihood of a connection between receiving a second dose of vaccine and the onset of myocarditis in young men aged 16-30,” the group of experts concluded. “The connection is stronger in young people aged 16-19 compared to other ages and it decreases as age increases.”

The new analysis “is very suggestive of a causal nature” between the vaccine and myocarditis, said Dror Mevorach, head of internal medicine at the Hadassah University Medical Center who was tasked with leading the panel. “I am convinced there is a relationship.”

“It does suggest that this is, at least statistically, a real phenomenon,” said Peter Liu, a cardiologist and chief scientific officer of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.

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Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/pfizer-vaccine-linked-heart-inflammation/