Adverse Cardiovascular Events Data Following mRNA Shots

A summary of data

On March 20, 2025, Mead et al published a comprehensive analysis of data on adverse cardiovascular events following mRNA shots in the International Journal of Cardiovascular Research & Innovation. This 43 page paper is an excellent synopsis of four years of data complied from nine major sources with 341 referenced articles. I encourage everyone to read the study, but because of its length, I’ve attempted to summarize below.

The article offers compelling and concerning evidence the shots should be withdrawn from the market, though it likely significantly underestimates the true extent of the issue. A large passive surveillance study of health outcomes in children (ages 5-17, n=>3 million) who received the Pfizer mRNA shot between December 2021 and June 2022 found the number of cases of both myocarditis and pericarditis was high enough to meet CDC’s criteria for a safety signal. This method of data collection, passive surveillance, is known to underestimate actual cases. Myocardial injury may be far more common as symptoms are often mild and nonspecific, escaping passive surveillance and observational studies. Further, children with subclinical myocarditis who are non-verbal and can’t express symptoms of chest pain are likely escaping detection.

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Nine Major Sources of Data

Nine different data sources have all shown mRNA shots significantly increase the risk of adverse cardiovascular events:

1. Reanalysis of Pfizer and Moderna trials. Five studies retrospectively analyzed the data from initial Pfizer and Moderna trials and found a 45% increased risk of cardiovascular death after the shots.

2. Confidential post-EUA safety data. Data, only obtained through a lawsuit, showed as of August 2022 Pfizer had accrued data for over 1.6 million adverse events, 127,000 of those were cardiac. Serious cardiac events were twice as common as non-serious events. The majority of cardiac events were in previously healthy people under 40. Males outnumbered females 4:1.

3. Prospective studies. Three studies looked at cardiac events following the 2nd or 3rd shots. The overall rate of myocarditis in young adults was 2.5% after the 2nd or 3rd dose.

4. Autopsy findings. 44 studies looking at 325 autopsies following mRNA shots showed 74% were directly or significantly associated with the shots. The average time of death was 14.3 days after the shots and average age was 55.8 years.

5. Military data (DMED). Incidence of myocarditis in 2021 was more than double that of each of the preceding five years.

6. US Life Insurance Data. In the general population, excess mortality increased by 32% in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2021. Amongst policy holders of group life insurance, who are younger, well-employed and die at 1/3 the rate of the broader population, excess mortality increased by 40% in the same time frame. Excess mortality increased 36% for people aged 25-34, 50% aged 35-44, and 52% for the 45-54 age group, with an overall average increase of 46% of excess deaths in ages 25 - 54. The spike in excess mortality corresponded with the onset of mandates. Insurance analysts have described these increases as “catastrophic” and “unparalleled” in scope. Between March 2021 and February 2022, an estimated 61,000 excess deaths occurred among Americans under 40 years old, comparable to the total US servicemen fatalities during the Vietnam War.

7. VAERS. This is a passive surveillance system limited by underreporting and variability in reporting quality. A study from Harvard showed less than 1% of adverse events experienced in the general population are submitted to VAERS. The underreporting factor for mRNA vaccine-related myocarditis is estimated to be 57 - so every incidence estimate from surveillance studies could be multiplied by 57 to achieve a more accurate number. Myocarditis cases reported to VAERS following rollout of the COVID shots were 223 times higher than the combined average for all vaccines over the previous 30 years, translating to a 2500% increase in reported cases. Youths accounted for 50% of these cases, and males comprised 69%. 76% of cases reported to VAERS required emergency medical care and 3% died. Risk of myocarditis was significantly higher after the 2nd dose, particularly in younger individuals. As of March 2025, there were 1,662,426 reports of injury in VAERS, of which 25% were considered serious. Compared to flu shot, COVID shots are associated with 118 times more reports to VAERS and 6.2 times more types of adverse events. The wider range of adverse events correlates with immune system dysfunction. The increase in adverse events is not due to an increase in number of shots administered. A comparison of adverse events per million doses administered between flu and COVID shots shows 25 times more adverse events reports and 200 times more myocarditis reports following COVID shots compared to flu shots.

   

   *Note the high rate of reports for the 0-4 age group despite roll-out beginning long after the older age groups. The highest rates are seen for the older age groups which is not surprising since they were first in line to receive shots.

8. Case report data. From May 2021 to November 2024, there were six times as many case reports of myocarditis (241) linked with the shots as those linked with COVID infection (39.)

9. Sudden death in athletes. Prior to 2021, the average number of cardiac arrests per year among professional athletes was 29. This increased 10-fold to 283 per year in 2021.

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   Risk Factors

   The authors identified the following factors for increased risk of adverse cardiac events following the mRNA shots:

1. Males age 12 - 24 had the greatest risk of myocarditis following the shots, 7 times higher than females.

2. 2nd dose of mRNA increased risk of myocarditis 5-fold in ages 12 - 17, 4-fold in the general population. Moderna was twice the risk as Pfizer.

3. Moderna has 3 times the concentration of mRNA as Pfizer but in their booster, mRNA was decreased by half.

4. Ongoing boosters result in T cell exhaustion, antibody class switching to IgG4, leading to decreased protection from infections and increased autoimmune disease.

5. Product quality failures - contamination of the product with double stranded RNA, bacterial DNA templates and DNA plus improper handling (product had stringent cold temperature requirements) - cause inflammation.

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   Refuting Three Common Misconceptions

1. MYTH #1: COVID infection causes more cases of myocarditis than mRNA shots.

   1. Diagnosis of both myocarditis and COVID in hospitalized patients was financially incentivized and resulted in false positives, leading to an overestimation of COVID-related myocarditis.

   2. At the same time, the true number of COVID infections in the general population was underestimated due to under-testing and asymptomatic infections. The denominator for calculating the rate of myocarditis was falsely low, leading to a falsely high incidence of myocarditis.

   3. 70% of studies on adverse events following mRNA vaccines do not stratify data by age or other confounding factors, thus diluting the data for high risk individuals (men under 40) and overestimating the risk for low risk individuals (older women.)

   4. Difficult to directly compare risk of myocarditis following infection versus risk following shots because of greater difficulty in defining number of infections compared to defining number of injections.

   5. Athletes are more likely to be over-diagnosed with myocarditis as lab tests and imaging studies following strenuous exercise can suggest myocarditis but are not viral-induced.

   6. Vaccination status was underestimated. “Fully vaccinated” required 2 shots and at least 14 days following the second shot. Any adverse event occurring after the first dose or within 14 days of the second dose was classified

      as occurring among the “unvaccinated.”

   7. Myocarditis after COVID infection in adolescents is not increased according to multiple studies. Open SAFELY study, 1.7 million children. No infection-relation myocarditis. Only children who received the mRNA shots developed myocarditis.

   8. Scandanavian study looking at 23 million males ages 16-24 showed four times more mRNA vaccine-related myocarditis events after the second Pfizer dose than infection-related myocarditis events. After second dose of Moderna, there were 13 times more mRNA vaccine-related myocarditis events than infection-related myocarditis events.

   9. English study (Stowe, 50 million) showed more likely to end up hospitalized with myocarditis if vaccinated. Admission rates in males were double that of females and rates increased sharply in ages 12 - 19.

2. MYTH #2: Myocarditis following mRNA shots is mild and transient.

   1. Up to 14% risk of sudden death in children and young adults following myocarditis.

   2. Damaged cardiac muscle cannot regenerate and heals with a permanent scar, disrupting mechanical and electrical integrity of heart, increasing likelihood of arrhythmias and premature death.

   3. FDA study reported approximately 60% of youth hospitalized with myocarditis following mRNA shots had persistent signs of myocardial injury six months post-vaccination.

   4. 96% of the myocarditis cases reported to VAERS prior to June 11, 2021 and meeting the CDC’s definition were hospitalized.

   5. Case fatality rate of myocarditis following shots ranges from 2.9% to 25.46%.

   6. mRNA-generated spike protein has activity in adrenal chromaffin cells, over-expressing enzymes driving noradrenaline production with increased myocarditis risk.

   7. Remdesivir damages cardiac cells.

   8. Both modified mRNA and mRNA-derived spike protein have been detected in the hearts of individuals who died following mRNA shots and in cases of mRNA vaccine-related myocarditis (not seen with infection.)

   9. Direct cardiotoxicty of mRNA shots shown in rats (not seen with infection.)

   10. Even cases classified as mild can cause persistent cardiovascular complications, including chronic cardiac dysfunction and arrhythmias.

3. MYTH #3: In terms of cardiovascular events, risk-benefit analysis favors mRNA shots.

   1. Serious adverse events 1 in 800 after Pfizer shots (vs 1-2 per million after other vaccines.) (Fraiman et al)

   2. Greater than 4-fold increase risk of adverse events after Pfizer shots, 2-fold increase risk after Moderna shots, than risk of hospitalization with COVID infection. (Fraiman et al).

   3. 2.2% risk of myocarditis among adolescents (ages 13-18) following mRNA shots is substantially higher than the 0.06% myocarditis risk associated

      with infection in the same age group.

   4. Many of the risk-benefit analyses are fraught with conflicts of interest. BARDA awarded Moderna over $2 billion, and the government pre-purchased hundreds of millions of doses. Risk-benefit analysis, conducted by the FDA, concluded the benefits of the shots far outweigh the risks, but showed significantly lower rates of myocarditis in young men compared to other studies, did not account for prior infection, did not account for incidental hospitalization (admitted for something not related to COVID but tested positive), and did not stratify risk-benefit by age.

   5. When Bourdon et al reanalyzed FDA’s risk-benefit model to include prior-infection protection, incidental hospitalizations, and evidence-based assumptions, they found the shots posed an excessive risk of hospitalizations for mRNA-related myocarditis in males aged 18-25 years.

   6. Krug et al. estimated the risk of myo/pericarditis in healthy 12-15-year-old boys after the second mRNA dose was 2.8 times higher than their 120-day risk of COVID-19 hospitalization. For girls, with or without comorbidities, two doses were not beneficial if there was a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

   7. Infection fatality rate (IFR) from COVID in children and young adults is near zero (0.0003% at 0-19 years, 0.002% at 20-29 years.)

   8. Bardosh et al. estimated the implementation of booster mandates in universities may result in a net harm for younger adults, projecting at least 18.5 serious adverse events for every COVID-19 hospitalization averted.

   9. Most post-marketing studies do not stratify by age and gender, hence are unable to adequately assess risk in adolescent males, the segment of the population known to be at greatest risk.

   10. Reliance on ICD-10 coding and troponin levels in hospitalized patients has led to widespread misclassification of infection-related myocarditis.

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Other Concerns

• mRNA distributes widely throughout the body with systemic production of the spike protein. Spike protein has been found in the body over 700 days post-injection.

• mRNA may convert cells into “viral protein factories” without a mechanism to halt ongoing production. Continually produced spike protein may cause chronic, systemic inflammation and immune dysfunction.

• N1-methylpseudouridine stabilizes mRNA sequences and enhances error rates during reverse transcription, potentially leading to harmful genetic alterations.

• Manufacturing process introduces billions of bacterial DNA fragments into each dose. DNA impurities have been found to surpass the permitted threshold by several hundred times, and in some instances, by over 500-fold. Bacterial DNA could possibly integrate into the human genome via insertional mutagenesis.

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  Take Action

  Share this data with your state senators and representatives and ask them to sign our pledge calling for the mRNA shots to be pulled off the market.