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Fact Check: Yes, a study of Thai teens did find one-third experienced heart effects after COVID vaccination

by Aug 23, 2022Health Freedom, Special Reports2 comments

Thomson Reuters Building in Canary Wharf, London (Photo by Reubentg, Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)
A hoax Reuters “fact check” article on adverse heart effects after COVID-19 vaccination conceals truth while hypocritically spreading misinformation.

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reuters fact check

FACT CHECK

CLAIM: “Study of Thai teenagers did not find one third experienced heart effects after COVID vaccination”

VERDICT: False

Introduction

On August 8, 2022, a study was published titled “Cardiovascular Effects of the BNT16b2 mRNA COVID‑19 Vaccine in Adolescents”. Conducted by researchers in Thailand, the study was published on Preprints.org, an online publication for studies that have not yet undergone the peer review process. The authors focused on “cardiovascular effects, particularly myocarditis and pericarditis events”, after receipt of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine. As stated in the abstract, “Cardiovascular effects were found in 29.24% of patients,” which is approximately one in three Thai adolescents who met the criteria for inclusion in the study.

The researchers also observed “one case of myopericarditis, four cases of subclinical myocarditis, and two cases of pericarditis” among the 301 study participants, bringing the total number of cases of diagnosed myocarditis or pericarditis to seven. That equates to 2.33 percent, or 1 in 43 adolescents.

On Twitter on August 13, Dr. Simone Gold, the founder of an organization named America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), shared the link to the preprint study with the comment:

BREAKING: A new study has found cardiovascular adverse effects in around a third of teens following Pfizer vaccination, and heart inflammation in one in 43, raising fresh concerns about the risks of vaccination for young people.

This is beyond concerning.

As of this writing, that tweet has garnered over 20,000 likes, 11,000 retweets, and 662 quote tweets.

On August 18, Reuters published a “Fact Check” article purporting to debunk Gold’s viral tweet. The article is titled “Study of Thai teenagers did not find one third experienced heart effects after COVID vaccination”.

Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter in turn rely on such “fact check” content from mainstream media sources to suppress certain information about COVID‑19 vaccines on the ostensible grounds that social media users need to be protected from exposure to alleged “misinformation”.

However, far from demonstrating that Dr. Gold’s comments are false or misleading, it is Reuters in this case that has grossly misrepresented the findings of the study. In furtherance of its own deceptions, the Reuters “fact check” also intentionally mischaracterizes Dr. Gold’s tweet. A close examination of the competing claims about the study reveals that it is Reuters in this case that is spreading demonstrable falsehoods.

Reuters’ Strawman Argument #1

The Reuters “fact check” article begins:

A study of 301 teens in Thailand found mild and temporary heart rhythm changes after a second dose of the Pfizer‑BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine among one in six teenagers, not one-third as social media posts claim. The study also saw possible signs of heart inflammation in just seven of those teens with rhythm changes and confirmed myocarditis in only one of the seven.

Reuters then denies that the findings of the study are a cause for concern. Reuters argues that social media posts making the “claim” that “a third of participants experienced heart effects” are “missing context”.

The context Reuters is referring to is the conclusion by the study’s authors that they “found the risk of these symptoms to be not as low as reported elsewhere, but in all cases, symptoms were mild with full recovery within 14 days.”

The article next points to Dr. Gold’s tweet as an example of a social media post spreading the “claim” with its “missing context”.

However, what Gold reported is correct: the study did observe heart effects following administration of the second dose of Pfizer’s COVID‑19 vaccine in nearly one-third of adolescents in the study. Again, that is shown right in the study abstract.

“Cardiovascular effects were found in 29.24% of patients…”

Reuters’ denial of that fact is dependent on a deliberate misdirection. Its supposed “fact check” rests on the fallacy of strawman argumentation.

The strawman argument is a common propaganda device frequently used by mainstream media “fact checkers” to prevent the public from learning truths that don’t align with the government’s policy goal of achieving high vaccine uptake, including with booster shots administered due to the known rapid waning of vaccine-induced immunity.

As another recent example, a hoax “fact check” article from PolitiFact claimed that it wasn’t true that the recent admission by Dr. Deborah Birx that she knew the vaccines were not going to viral prevent transmission was contrary to her earlier claims about vaccine effectiveness. Social media posts spreading the claim that she “changed her tune” were spreading “false” information, according to PolitiFact.

Yet, some of PolitiFact’s own cited sources prove that Birx did initially claim that COVID‑19 vaccines would provide durable sterilizing immunity that would prevent transmission and thereby enable the population to achieve “herd immunity”. Thus, it isn’t a “claim” that Birx changed her position. It is an observable fact from the documentary record. PolitiFact’s counterclaim, by contrast, is a demonstrably willful lie.

Instructively, PolitiFact omitted Birx’s repeated claims about the vaccines being able to induce “herd immunity” and instead meaninglessly argued that she never said they would provide “complete” or “full” immunity. Finding no instance in which Birx described the vaccines as providing 100 percent immunity, therefore, PolitiFact rated the claim that she changed her position as “False”.

That’s a useful example of the strawman argument: nobody on social media was claiming that Birx had previously said that the vaccines would provide 100 percent protection, or whatever else PolitiFact might have meant by its use of the unscientific terms “complete” or “full” immunity.

Rather, commentators were accurately recalling how Birx had previously claimed that the vaccines would stop transmission and create “herd immunity”, which is a scientific term with a defined meaning.

The inescapable logical corollary of Birx’s more recent statement that she knew the vaccines would not prevent transmission was that she had willfully lied to the public by initially claiming that they would. PolitiFact employed its strawman fallacy to help conceal that reality from the public. Reuters employs the same propaganda device in its “fact check” of Dr. Gold’s tweet.

As Reuters explains, “Before receiving the second vaccine shot, each participant had a physical exam, a heart ultrasound called an echocardiogram, heart rhythm measurements by electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) and blood tests to look for heart-related biomarkers including Troponin-T and CK-MB, both markers of damage to heart muscle.”

“Among cardiovascular effects detected only by ECG,” Reuters argues, “54 participants . . . had rapid heartrate or abnormal heart rhythm.” That equated to 18 percent, or “roughly one in six, not one in three” as claimed on social media.

“…one in six teenagers, not one-third as social media posts claim…”

Thus, the claim that Reuters sets out to debunk is that 29.24 percent of study participants had cardiovascular effects diagnosed by abnormal ECG.

But that is a strawman argument.

Dr. Gold did not claim in her tweet that roughly one in three were found to have abnormal electrocardiogram results. Rather, she accurately reported that “cardiovascular adverse effects in around a third” of participants.

Reuters’ argument that Gold is wrong depends on its implicit claim that participants whose heart effects were detected by ECG were the only participants found to have cardiovascular adverse effects. But that is false. Abnormal ECG results were not the only criteria used by the study authors for diagnosis of cardiovascular effects.

In fact, the definition of “cardiac manifestation” specified in the study included ten other criteria in addition to an abnormal ECG, and only one of the eleven criteria were required for the definition to be met.

As explicitly stated right in the study abstract, cardiovascular effects were observed in 29 percent of participants, which does in fact round to one in three study participants.

Reuters lies by omission by withholding that fact from its readers and resorting to dishonest strawman argumentation in an attempt to obfuscate the truth.

Reuters’ Missing Context

The Reuters article claimed that social media posts such as Dr. Gold’s tweet expressing concern about the study’s findings are misleading because they are “missing context”.

Specifically, the accusation against Gold is that she did not relay in her tweet the study authors’ conclusion that all patients experiencing cardiovascular adverse events following vaccination had “mild” symptoms and fully recovered within two weeks.

However, Reuters demonstrates hypocrisy here because its own argument is missing critical context.

In the study’s conclusion, the sentence appearing immediately before the one quoted by Reuters describes chest pain as “an alarming symptom” in patients receiving the second dose of Pfizer’s COVID‑19 vaccine.

That same concern is expressed in the discussion section of the paper, where the study authors additionally note that, although nearly all the patients in their study recovered within a week or two, the “long-term outcomes of COVID‑19 vaccine have not been described”.

The study authors further expressed the concern that, “Although clinical symptoms spontaneously resolved rapidly in all patients, the potential for cardiac fibrosis vaccine-related myocarditis remains unknown.”

Therefore, contrary to Reuters’ attempt to characterize the study’s findings as no cause for concern, for which characterization Reuters depends on the observations of the study’s authors, the authors themselves expressed the concern that the vaccine-related adverse events experienced by adolescents could potentially result in long-term harms.

“Although clinical symptoms spontaneously resolved rapidly in all patients, the potential for cardiac fibrosis vaccine-related myocarditis remains unknown.”

Furthermore, it is recognized in the medical literature that myocarditis is potentially deadly even when subclinical, meaning that the patient does not present with symptoms of the heart inflammation. Subclinical myocarditis is a recognized cause of sudden unexpected deaths in young athletes.

To support its dismissal of the concerns expressed on social media about the study findings, Reuters quotes one “Dr. Eric Han”, whom Reuters does not otherwise identify. “To the trained observer,” Han opined, “there are no shocking findings in this study.”

However, there is certainly plenty of room for disagreement with this doctor’s opinion. It is certainly not unreasonable for Dr. Gold and others to express concern on social media about the study’s finding that 1 in 43 adolescents were diagnosed with heart inflammation following the second dose of COVID‑19 vaccine.

Indeed, contrary to Reuters’ dismissive characterization, the authors of the study themselves expressed concern about the potential for long-term harms from these adverse cardiovascular events, urging that “Long-term surveillance with follow-up cardiac imaging, especially cardiac MRI in patients with vaccine-related myocarditis, is required.”

Reuters’ Strawman Argument #2

The Reuters “fact check” article acknowledges that seven study participants “had elevated biomarkers of heart muscle injury or inflammation”, but it argues that “only one” was “formally diagnosed with myocarditis”. The study authors “confirmed one case of myocarditis (heart inflammation) in the 301 students—not one in 43 as suggested in social media posts.”

However, Dr. Gold did not claim in her tweet that 1 in 43 participants were formally diagnosed with myocarditis. She rather reported that 1 in 43 were diagnosed with “heart inflammation”, which is true.

“one case of myocarditis (heart inflammation) in the 301 students—not one in 43 as suggested in social media posts”

This is shown in Table 3 of the study, which shows “Characteristics of patients with elevated levels of biomarkers or positive lab assessments.” The table shows that one patient was diagnosed with myopericarditis, four patients with subclinical myocarditis, and two with pericarditis.

Myocarditis and pericarditis are both heart inflammation. Myocarditis refers to inflammation of the heart muscle, while pericarditis refers to inflammation of the outer heart lining.

The study abstract states, “Myopericarditis was confirmed in one patient after vaccination. Two patients had suspected pericarditis and four patients had suspected subclinical myocarditis.” Thus, while there was only one case of clinical myocarditis, all seven of these patients were diagnosed with heart inflammation.

Furthermore, in the discussion section, the study authors note that “Two cardiologists at different institutions worked together to confirm the diagnoses of myocarditis, myopericarditis and pericarditis.”

The study authors also state that, in contrast to earlier studies finding the incidence of COVID‑19 vaccine-related myocarditis/pericarditis to be very low, “our study found one case of myopericarditis, four cases of subclinical myocarditis, and two cases of pericarditis among 301 participants”.

“our study found one case of myopericarditis, four cases of subclinical myocarditis, and two cases of pericarditis among 301 participants”

Thus, the “incidence of myocarditis/pericarditis”—or heart inflammation—diagnosed among study participants was 2.33 percent, or 1 in 43—as correctly reported by Dr. Gold.

In sum, it is Reuters that is misreporting the incidence of heart inflammation among study subjects as being “1 in 301”. The faux “fact check” article deceives readers by reporting the one case of clinical myocarditis as though this was the only case of diagnosed heart inflammation, when in fact Dr. Gold is correct to point out that there were seven such cases.

Conclusion

The hoax “fact check” article from Reuters concludes with the “VERDICT” that Dr. Gold’s tweet is “False.”

“The study of teenagers in Thailand following a second COVID‑19 vaccination found that 18%—not one third—experienced any detectable cardiac effect, and that 1 in 301, not 1 in 43, had confirmed myocarditis.”

However, it is Reuters that is guilty of spreading misinformation here.

First, the claim that the study found adverse cardiovascular events in 18 percent participants, or about one in six, is false. As stated right in the study abstract, cardiovascular effects were observed in 29.24 percent of participants, which rounds to one in three, as accurately reported by Dr. Gold.

The study has since undergone peer review and was published in the journal Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease. The peer-reviewed version of the study likewise states in the abstract that “Cardiovascular manifestations were found in 29.24% of patients, ranging from tachycardia or palpitation to myopericarditis.”

The figure of 18 percent presented by Reuters only represented the number of participants with an abnormal ECG, which was not the sole criterion used by the study authors to classify adverse cardiovascular events, and which number was not the total number of participants observed to experience vaccine-related heart effects.

Second, Reuters argues against the claim that one in 43 study participants had confirmed myocarditis, but that is a strawman fallacy. Dr. Gold never made that claim. Instead of addressing what Gold actually reported, Reuters presents a counterpoint to an argument of its own manufacture, which it falsely attributes to Dr. Gold despite directly quoting her accurate reporting of the study’s findings.

Reuters lies by omission by willfully withholding from readers the fact that seven patients, or one in 43, were in fact diagnosed with heart inflammation, as accurately reported by Dr. Gold.

Third, Reuters attempts to characterize the study’s findings as no cause for concern despite the alarmingly high rate of heart inflammation observed in study participants. Reuters claims that expressions of concern about the high rate were “missing” the “context” of the authors’ statement about the cases of heart inflammation being mild and resolving within two weeks. However, that argument is itself missing context.

Specifically, Reuters withholds from readers the fact that subclinical myocarditis is recognized in the medical literature as potentially life-threatening and the fact that the authors of the Thailand study also expressed concern about the long-term effects of vaccine-related heart inflammation remaining unknown.

Consequently, this “fact check” article from Reuters is just another hoax, an exercise in political propaganda, not journalism. It is just another illustration of how the mainstream media’s “fact check” industry serves to censor truth while propagating official disinformation about COVID‑19 vaccines.

[Correction appended, August 25, 2022: As originally published, this article argued that Reuters’ furthered the deception that the only patients with adverse cardiac effects were those with an abnormal electrocardiogram (ECG) by claiming that participants with abnormal ECG were inclusive of all participants with elevated biomarkers of heart inflammation. I wrote that the study authors stated explicitly that none of the patients with diagnosed clinical or subclinical myocarditis had abnormal ECGs, but that is incorrect. Rather, the study authors said that none had abnormal echocardiograms. My error was due to a careless reading resulting in me conflating echocardiography with electrocardiography. I noticed this error upon a rereading of my article and have stricken that argument to correct the article. The other arguments and the conclusion that Reuters misinforms about the study findings stand.]

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  • John Vieira says:

    We have entered a ‘new dimension’ run by ‘fact checkers’ schooled in a Machiavellian culture…and are steeped in systemic ignorance/stupidity…

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