Children’s vaccines against coronavirus do not cause irreparable heart damage

It is false that anticovid vaccines cause irreparable heart damage in children, as claimed by social media posts based on testimonies from alleged experts who misrepresent scientific reports or official data to spread unfounded alarms against childhood vaccination.

They have been circulating for days in Latin America and Spain, both in Facebook like in Twitter, different publications that ask not to vaccinate children against COVID-19 to avoid irreversible heart disease. Among these messages, those that cite the American researcher Robert Malone as sources stand out.

Malone himself, who introduces himself as “Inventor of messenger RNA vaccines”, has recorded a video in which he denies that vaccinating children is of any benefit to them or their families and claims that, on the contrary, they can cause them “Irreparable damage”.

According to his argument, the vaccine introduces “A viral gene” in the child’s body to create spike proteins (“spike” or “S”) in his opinion “toxic“, that “Usually cause permanent damage”In the heart and blood vessels. In another recording, he argues that the possibility of minors suffering heart damage “It is six times higher with the vaccine than with the virus”.

FACTS: It is false that the anticovid vaccines cause irreparable heart damage in children. Cases of myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart muscle) among vaccinated minors are extraordinarily rare, mild with rapid recovery, and this disease is more common as a consequence of COVID-19 than after vaccination.

STATEMENTS WITHOUT ANY MEDICAL OR SCIENTIFIC BASIS

Asked by EFE, Dr. Ángel Hernández Merino, advisor to the Vaccine Committee of the Spanish Pediatric Association (AEP), explains that Malone’s claims lack any medical or scientific basis and even falsify the conclusions of a US study last July who hold the opposite of what he claims.

That report – still in the prepublication phase – concluded precisely that the risk of suffering myocarditis was six times higher among children infected with SARS-CoV-2 than among those who had received the vaccine.

ONE CASE OF MYOCARDITIS BETWEEN 100,000 OR ONE MILLION

As explained by the AEP, the cumulative incidence of infections by SARS-CoV-2 it is higher in children under 12 years of age than in any other group, and myocarditis associated with mRNA vaccines decreases with age.

Furthermore, it is “very likely” that this risk is below 12 years “Much less than after the vaccination of adolescents and young adults”, since the preparation for children has “Less amount of mRNA”.

In any case, the registered cases of myocarditis appeared only with a proportion of 1 to 5 per 100,000 vaccinated, more frequently in men aged 16 or over. “They are usually mild and with rapid recovery”, Dr. Hernández Merino points out, and they suppose “A lower risk than those of the natural disease to which the unvaccinated are exposed.”

This expert also highlights the latest data collected in the US by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): after more than seven million vaccinated children aged 5 to 11 years, there was only one case of myocarditis per million, also with slight evolution.

BENEFITS GREATER THAN THE RISKS, WHICH ARE SMALL

In practice, the most common side effects in children ages 5 to 11 are similar to those 12 years of age and older and include tiredness, muscle and headache pain, chills, and redness at the injection site. All of them “tend to be mild and moderate and improve a few days after vaccination”, as specified by the EMA’s Committee for Human Medicines (CHMP).

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also made comparative estimates of benefits versus risks for children in different settings and all of them have been favorable to vaccination.

Pediatricians defend the need to vaccinate children because, although they generally have COVID-19 mildly and the fatality is “Extraordinarily low”Sometimes it can get complicated and, furthermore, right now it is the age group with the highest incidence of transmission.

Therefore, their vaccination facilitates the reduction of the circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 and the appearance of new variants and contributes to group immunity, without forgetting that it also serves to achieve safe educational spaces that allow normalizing schooling and interpersonal relationships of the children themselves.

NEITHER INVENTED MRNA VACCINES NOR INJECT TOXIC PROTEINS

In his video, Dr. Malone assures that mRNA vaccines like Pfizer’s generate spike proteins “toxic“That cause permanent damage to the heart, but the reality is that these” S “proteins are neither toxic nor spread by the body in a harmful way, but are broken down shortly after vaccination.

Although Malone is presented as the inventor of mRNA vaccines, this achievement is the result of the work of hundreds of researchers over decades and there were only discoveries that made it viable as of 2004. His specific contribution was scientific articles in 1989 and 1990 showing in mice how mRNA wrapped in fat globules can produce certain proteins.