I skimmed through the study, but didn't read the whole thing. It appears that they called it vaccine related if it happened within 42 days of being vaccinated. What would the normal incidence be for unvaccinated people in a typical 42 day period? And what is the incidence for people who get infected with covid? Without those to compare with its hard to know what to think about these numbers.
I don't have numbers at hand at the moment, but the expectation is that its background rate is effectively zero in the absence of viral illness (COVID or otherwise), and presumably VRM is still lower compared to COVID-induced cardiac events.
However, the latter point doesn't make this finding trivial; there was considerable debate during the pandemic, whether people who had recently contracted COVID (and thus had natural immunity already) should have the vaccine as scheduled anyway, on account of it "being harmless", with early evidence of VRM dismissed as conspiracy theories and fearmongering. I recall many people who declined the vaccine on that premise and were still labelled "antivaxxers" on that basis (which I thought was rather sad at the time).
Furthermore, in many countries this policy was further enforced via "vaccine passports", meaning people with natural immunity still had to vaccinate regardless, in order to be able to go outside and conduct their business as normal, effectively putting people at unnecessary risk purely for the sake of administrative convenience.
Therefore this is a clinically significant finding in my view. Not sure why the article got flagged so quickly on HN...
Look at this user's submission history - nothing but inflammatory political posts, almost nothing related to technology.
This is one of the only aggregation websites yet to turn into the typical Twitter/Reddit screaming chamber, disappointing to see users actively try to push it in that direction.
> nothing but inflammatory political posts, almost nothing related to technology
Ironically HN almost seems like one of the better discussion venues for all of these incendiary (and possibly off-topic) posts, because:
> This is one of the only aggregation websites [that has] yet to turn into the typical Twitter/Reddit screaming chamber
HN occasionally has downvote wars, but overall it seems to have done pretty well, even while comment sections on other sites (Ars Technica...) devolved into screaming chambers.
Apart from whether this messenger specialises in "inflammatory political posts" the fact remains that this specific message potentially "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", especially given the way potential side effects of SARS2 vaccination have been made close to impossible to discuss without being labelled and pushed to the sideline. Assuming that the "European Heart Journal" is immune to being labelled as "anti-vaxx" and other similar epithets their decision to publish this article should give pause to those who attempt to silence any discussion on this subject.
I for one would really prefer more tech content. On certain days I barely see any interesting one, and while the discussion on non-tech topics can at times still be interesting, it is often prone to the typical ego-disease of IT people (I’m also guilty of that), who overestimate their knowledge on foreign topics.
I still think that a tagging system would greatly benefit the site.
1.08 in 100,000 cases of vaccine related myocarditis (VRM), 2.16 deaths per 1,000,000.
Hard to take much meaning away from that without understanding the risk posed by not vaccinating.
If vaccines can prevent long COVID or "post viral syndrome," that's another potential cost benefit analysis. (which would make sense from a laymen perspective, killing k random cells seems bad, but killing N random cells seems strictly worse).
This is true, but misses an important exception: people who received vaccines despite demonstrating natural immunity at the time of vaccination.
Indeed I'd be interested to know of those episodes of VRM, how many of them had recent COVID, and whether these individuals had worse outcomes. I suspect you'd find these individuals were put at increased risk, for no clear increase in benefit.
> Hard to take much meaning away from that without understanding the risk posed by not vaccinating.
What's the benefit from vaccinating otherwise healthy young men against Covid? Not people in risk groups, but healthy young men.
It should be obvious that if your clinical trials cannot rule out major adverse events in 1 in N, you shouldn't vaccinate populations in which the benefit occurs in less than 1 in N.
> If vaccines can prevent long COVID or "post viral syndrome, that's another potential cost benefit analysis.
It looks like this is part of a growing body of evidence that suggests that the risks outweigh the benefits of vaccination for young people.
It's also worth noting that the incidence of post-vaccination myocarditis (from this study; 1.08 per 100k people) is significantly lower than the 2014 rate of myocarditis: 8.6 per 100k people [1]. Additionally, the risk of myocarditis from a covid infection is signfiicantly higher than the risk of myocarditis from the covid vaccine.
That being said, especially since the danger of covid is much less for young people, and the risk of the covid vaccine causing myocarditis is much higher for them, there's a growing push to stop vaccinating young people against covid. I think the CDC continues to quash its credibility by trying to sweep this under the rug, rather than presenting the facts--that there is risk, and there's a cost-benefit analysis.
> I think the CDC continues to quash its credibility by trying to sweep this under the rug, rather than presenting the facts--that there is risk, and there's a cost-benefit analysis.
If true, I don’t blame them. One thing they have learned this pandemic is the modern public doesn’t process nuance - see the usage of masks. If they broadcast this, a huge chunk of the population will think they should not vaccinate, COVID deaths will surge and more people died from COVID than vaccines induced myocarditis. Best to keep their mouths shut until more studies are completed and they have enough data.
"Some people are dead" sounds bad, but if you think about it some "people are dead" from lack of vaccine mandates too. So you really have to do the math, and the math is actually pretty clear on the whole. Then you can get more sophisticated and break it down by age group.
There's actually been a lot of discussion on hn around whether or not the safety controls constitute a fairly strong bias.
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
- Frank Herbert
amanaplanacanal|2 years ago
tpoacher|2 years ago
However, the latter point doesn't make this finding trivial; there was considerable debate during the pandemic, whether people who had recently contracted COVID (and thus had natural immunity already) should have the vaccine as scheduled anyway, on account of it "being harmless", with early evidence of VRM dismissed as conspiracy theories and fearmongering. I recall many people who declined the vaccine on that premise and were still labelled "antivaxxers" on that basis (which I thought was rather sad at the time).
Furthermore, in many countries this policy was further enforced via "vaccine passports", meaning people with natural immunity still had to vaccinate regardless, in order to be able to go outside and conduct their business as normal, effectively putting people at unnecessary risk purely for the sake of administrative convenience.
Therefore this is a clinically significant finding in my view. Not sure why the article got flagged so quickly on HN...
dmart|2 years ago
This is one of the only aggregation websites yet to turn into the typical Twitter/Reddit screaming chamber, disappointing to see users actively try to push it in that direction.
musicale|2 years ago
Ironically HN almost seems like one of the better discussion venues for all of these incendiary (and possibly off-topic) posts, because:
> This is one of the only aggregation websites [that has] yet to turn into the typical Twitter/Reddit screaming chamber
HN occasionally has downvote wars, but overall it seems to have done pretty well, even while comment sections on other sites (Ars Technica...) devolved into screaming chambers.
the_third_wave|2 years ago
kaba0|2 years ago
I still think that a tagging system would greatly benefit the site.
hayst4ck|2 years ago
Hard to take much meaning away from that without understanding the risk posed by not vaccinating.
If vaccines can prevent long COVID or "post viral syndrome," that's another potential cost benefit analysis. (which would make sense from a laymen perspective, killing k random cells seems bad, but killing N random cells seems strictly worse).
tpoacher|2 years ago
Indeed I'd be interested to know of those episodes of VRM, how many of them had recent COVID, and whether these individuals had worse outcomes. I suspect you'd find these individuals were put at increased risk, for no clear increase in benefit.
oldgradstudent|2 years ago
What's the benefit from vaccinating otherwise healthy young men against Covid? Not people in risk groups, but healthy young men.
It should be obvious that if your clinical trials cannot rule out major adverse events in 1 in N, you shouldn't vaccinate populations in which the benefit occurs in less than 1 in N.
> If vaccines can prevent long COVID or "post viral syndrome, that's another potential cost benefit analysis.
That's a big "If".
18744916|2 years ago
It's also worth noting that the incidence of post-vaccination myocarditis (from this study; 1.08 per 100k people) is significantly lower than the 2014 rate of myocarditis: 8.6 per 100k people [1]. Additionally, the risk of myocarditis from a covid infection is signfiicantly higher than the risk of myocarditis from the covid vaccine.
That being said, especially since the danger of covid is much less for young people, and the risk of the covid vaccine causing myocarditis is much higher for them, there's a growing push to stop vaccinating young people against covid. I think the CDC continues to quash its credibility by trying to sweep this under the rug, rather than presenting the facts--that there is risk, and there's a cost-benefit analysis.
[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05951-z [2]: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.... [3]: https://openheart.bmj.com/content/9/1/e001957
worrycue|2 years ago
If true, I don’t blame them. One thing they have learned this pandemic is the modern public doesn’t process nuance - see the usage of masks. If they broadcast this, a huge chunk of the population will think they should not vaccinate, COVID deaths will surge and more people died from COVID than vaccines induced myocarditis. Best to keep their mouths shut until more studies are completed and they have enough data.
dgeiser13|2 years ago
gfodor|2 years ago
[deleted]
zug_zug|2 years ago
timmytokyo|2 years ago
drewcon|2 years ago
Alone that is an entirely unuseful realization.
We need adjusted hazard ratios to make rational comparisons.
zug_zug|2 years ago
[deleted]
generalizations|2 years ago
There's actually been a lot of discussion on hn around whether or not the safety controls constitute a fairly strong bias.
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” - Frank Herbert
ex3ndr|2 years ago
amanaplanacanal|2 years ago
> 21 deaths (4.4%), and 1 heart transplantation (0.2%).
rashkov|2 years ago