No truth to anti-vaxxers’ claims linking COVID vaccine and sudden cardiac arrest: study

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The COVID-19 vaccine does not cause sudden cardiac arrest in young people, according to new research that dispels a persistent and unsubstantiated claim from anti-vaccination activists.

Researchers from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute examined more than 2000 instances of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Victoria before and during the pandemic, and found no change in the median monthly rate of cardiac arrest among those aged under 50.

New research shows that there is no association between the COVID-19 vaccination and sudden cardiac arrest.Credit: James Brickwood

Dr Liz Paratz, a cardiologist at the institute, began the study, which has been published in the journal Circulation, after being besieged by abusive emails from anti-vaxxers following the publication of separate research linking the coronavirus vaccine to rare complications such as myocarditis.

“They said I was a child-killer participating in state-sponsored genocide,” she said.

It didn’t stop there. A US Republican senator accused the cardiologist of a cover-up and the producer of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight asked Paratz to share her database so it could be examined more closely.

“We realised that there was this intense interest in whether vaccinations were causing sudden cardiac death,” Paratz said.

A cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly stops beating.

The Heart Foundation says 20,000 sudden cardiac arrests occur out of hospital in Australia every year, and the survival rate is just 10 per cent.

It can be caused by genetic mutations, a blockage of the coronary arteries or a weakness in the heart muscle. In about 20 per cent of cases, the cause is unknown.

Using data from a registry set up to investigate cardiac arrests among Victorians aged under 50, Paratz looked at 2242 instances of cardiac arrest from April 2019 to the end of March 2022.

She divided the data into three periods: before the onset of COVID-19 in Australia, during the pandemic but before the rollout of a vaccination program, and following mandatory vaccination.

No variation was seen in the median monthly rates of cardiac arrest – it ranged from 61 to 63 deaths per month – or myocarditis, where there were just 13 cases over the three-year study period.

Previous research has linked the coronavirus vaccine to rare complications such as myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) and pericarditis (swelling of the membrane around the heart). But it has also found that COVID-19 infections are much more likely than vaccines to cause these heart complications, and when they do occur, they are more severe.

Paratz said the majority of myocarditis or pericarditis episodes associated with the vaccine were mild, and her research showed they had not led to a rise in deaths.

“This is an incredibly reassuring amount of data for people who’ve been vaccinated,” she said.

“Extrapolation can be the enemy when you say, ‘vaccinations may cause a cardiac issue, therefore, cardiac deaths are going to go up’ … we’re not seeing that borne out. ”

Paratz also examined the deaths of 38 people who suffered cardiac arrest within 30 days of their COVID vaccination. No differences were observed in the underlying causes of their deaths when compared with age-matched data, and no one in this group had myocarditis.

Professor Jason Kovacic, the executive director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney, said the research convincingly showed there was no increase in sudden cardiac death linked to the COVID vaccine.

Kovacic, who is also a senior cardiologist at St Vincent’s in Sydney, said he had also observed this clinically.

He has treated a handful of people with vaccine-related myocarditis and said they had all made a complete recovery following a short stay in hospital.

He has also treated patients with heart issues linked to COVID infections and said they had spent much longer in hospital, and some had never recovered.

“I am aware that there’s been a couple of people around the world who have had a serious cardiac issue related to vaccination,” he said.

“But there’s no question the vaccination has saved many, many lives, is very effective, and has been the thing that has helped us get out of this pandemic.”

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