You're not angered that you were advised to give this to a 15 year old with no upside even after he was hospitalized for 2 weeks as a result?!
I am being as honest as I can be with regards to our feelings on this. I can't say we are angry about that incident at all. I think I can say we are not happy about not having been provided with all of the information before he got his shot. Frankly, I don't even remember if the data was available (I do think it was, BTW). Remember, at the time, only about 700 cases.
Of course, the outcome might have had something to do with the lack of negative emotions. I can probably admit our position today would be massively different had we had to face a range of negative outcomes post-hospitalization. These can range from life-long afflictions to death.
"I think I can say we are not happy about not having been provided with all of the information before he got his shot."
You pretty much hit the nail on the head here and is my biggest gripe about this whole fiasco.
I'm not sure about your situation now, but if this disease recurs and you feel like your kid's heart doctor has no idea what they are talking about, I recommend either Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic. I don't have Facebook, but I've been told there are many support groups for this disease as well there.
Good luck to you, and my prayers go out to you and your family.
According to this study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35456309/ there is no increase in Myocarditis cases among unvaccinated people who have contracted Covid-19. This study tracked 196,992 people which is a huge number, so the data here is quite good and clear. Contracting Covid-19 does not put you at increased risk for Myocarditis, the same cannot be said when evaluating a population that simply received the vaccination.
It's a decent data point but not conclusive.
> We estimated extra myocarditis events to be between 1 and 10 per million persons in the month following vaccination, which was substantially lower than the 40 extra events per million persons observed following SARS-CoV-2 infection.
and they include a brief literature review:
> Our findings are consistent with those from a case-control study of 884,828 persons receiving the BNT162b2 vaccine in Israel21. That study observed an association with myocarditis in the 42 days following vaccination (risk ratio of 3.24), but no association with pericarditis or cardiac arrhythmia. Two further studies from Israel add to our observations by providing clinical review to ensure robust case ascertainment22 and reporting investigations and outcomes in individual patients with myocarditis following the BNT162b2 vaccine23. Witberg et al.21,22 observed a small excess in events 3–5 days following the second dose of BNT162b2 vaccine, but most were mild presentations and just one classified as fulminant22. Mevorach et al. observed an incidence ratio of 5.34 for myocarditis in 5,442,696 persons following BNT162b2, although this was attenuated when restricted to the 136 definite and probable cases of myocarditis23. Risk of myocarditis was restricted to males under the age of 40 years and only observed following the second dose. Similarly, two studies from the United States have reported an incident rate ratio of 2.7 for myocarditis in the 10 days following the second dose of both mRNA vaccines24 and an estimated 6.3 and 10.1 extra cases per million doses in the 1- to 21-day period following the first and second dose of both mRNA vaccines, respectively, in those younger than 40 years25.
And conclude:
> In summary, this population-based study quantifies for the first time the risk of several rare cardiac adverse events associated with three COVID-19 vaccines as well as SARS-CoV-2 infection. Vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 in adults was associated with a small increase in the risk of myocarditis within a week of receiving the first dose of both adenovirus and mRNA vaccines, and after the second dose of both mRNA vaccines. By contrast, SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a substantial increase in the risk of hospitalization or death from myocarditis, pericarditis and cardiac arrhythmia.
It checks for the myocarditis infection from COVID-19, but it doesn't actually control for vaccination status. The people studied either are believed to have been COVID-19 infected, or had been vaccinated, but there was no designated unvaccinated control group.
In which case, you are potentially using "breakthrough cases" of COVID-19 causing Myocarditis to make your point (assuming they would be the same pre- and post- vaccination), rather than a definitive look at people who did not get the vaccine and how they fared. All the study proves is that COVID-19 infections cause increased Myocarditis... in vaccinated people. If you assume that COVID-19 has the same Myocarditis effect in vaccinated and unvaccinated people, it works; but if you accept that maybe the effects of COVID-19 are different in vaccinated people, it could fall apart, which is why the study about how Myocarditis doesn't seem to effect the 160,000+ unvaccinated people studied still has value.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA....
Risk of myocarditis following infection before vaccination was 11.14 [95% CI, 8.64–14.36] greater than the risk of vaccination, and risk of myocarditis following infection after vaccination was 5.97 [95% CI, 4.54–7.87] greater than the vaccination itself.
Easier to digest press release:
https://newsroom.heart.org/news/myocarditis-risk-significant...
The German vaccine watchdog issue a warning letter because there were roughly 300 cases in total reported for the approx. 200m doses administered until May 2021 in the entire EU.
Myocarditis/pericarditis are very rare and the effects for young people were mild.
Moreover, clinical myocarditis and pericarditis are only tips of the iceberg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vveMHtVk_mY
People who have no significant symptoms can still have troponin in their blood, indicating damage.
More often than not it goes away on its own, but the sad thing is there is no surefire way to treat either condition. I've been to the best pericarditis/myocarditis doctors in the world, and I'll let you in on a secret - even these people don't know. Docs will throw Ibuprofen, Colchicine and steroids at it, maybe an experimental drug, or sometimes will just take that portion of the pericardium out. If it's myocarditis, well then, hopefully the medication works.
Like I said, the damage is irreversible. A year or two have passed for some of these kids. Many of them won't experience the long term effects until much later in life, or when it recurs. Just like the scar forms on the outside of the body, scarring forms on the areas damaged in the heart. A young person's heart isn't going to feel the immediate effects, but over the course of 10/20/30 years, quite the opposite.
I'm not anti or pro COVID vax as there is no reason to be tribal here, but there was definitely a more pragmatic path than simply vaccinating everyone. The logical side of my head says these kids were unjustly exposed to a risk they never should have been exposed to. It just doesn't make any sense why a healthy kid should take a vaccine when they could still spread COVID. We were all in the dark about this at that time, but the lack of debate and long term studies should have at least raised some kind of flag for people, especially the average Hackers News user. You cited 300 cases in 200 million like it's no big deal, but that is not justification for the 300 families or parents who voluntarily or forcefully exposed their children to this vaccination. Even if it's just a blip, it's 300 too much, not to mention all the cases across the world.
And again: becoming exposed to Covid without vaccination has even higher risk for myocarditis.
https://www.pei.de/EN/newsroom/dossier/coronavirus/coronavir...
Still I thing the whole thread of discussions shows that people are afraid of something which isn't such a big deal.