Men under 40 at high risk of cardiac death after COVID vaccines, data shows

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo announced new guidance on messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines on Oct. 7, specifically recommending against administering mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to males aged 18 to 39.

Messenger RNA is the technology utilized by both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, the most administered vaccines in the U.S. and a number of other countries.

The new guidance follows a Florida Department of Health analysis to evaluate vaccine safety, the department said in a bulletin.

The statewide analysis of vaccinated Florida residents aged 18 years or older found an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related deaths among males aged 18–39, within 28 days of mRNA vaccination.

“Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks,” the Florida Department of Health noted.

Given the high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination with mRNA vaccines “is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group,” the department said.

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“As such, the State Surgeon General recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines,” it said. “Those with preexisting cardiac conditions, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, should take particular caution when making this decision.”

“Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed — these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians,” Ladapo said in a statement, referring to the analysis.

In the new guidance, Florida’s health department said it also “continues to stand by” its guidance for pediatric COVID-19 vaccines it issued in March.

That guidance recommends against COVID-19 vaccination for healthy children and adolescents aged 5–17.

It now also recommends against COVID-19 vaccination among infants and children under five years old.

The analysis from the Florida Health Department that informed Ladapo’s latest recommendation had sought to “evaluate the risks of all-cause and cardiac-related mortality following COVID-19 vaccination.”

Residents in Florida aged 18 years or older who died within 25 weeks of having received a COVID-19 vaccine, since the start of the vaccination roll-out in the state — Dec. 15, 2020 — were included.

People were excluded from the study if they had a documented COVID-19 infection, had a COVID-19-associated death, had received a COVID-19 vaccine booster, or had received their last COVID-19 vaccine after Dec. 8, 2021.

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The last criterion was put in place to make sure that each person was followed up after 25 weeks.

The study found that COVID-19 vaccination “was not associated with an elevated risk for all-cause mortality,” but “was associated with a modestly increased risk for cardiac-related mortality 28 days following vaccination.”

It also noted that the risk for both all-cause and cardiac-related deaths was “substantially higher 28 days following COVID-19 infection.”

As such, the study concluded that people should weigh the risk associated with mRNA vaccination with the risk associated with COVID-19 infection.

The analysis was a self-controlled case series, or SCCS, which is a study design originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety, the department stated.

Younger populations, especially young men, have been observed to experience these conditions at much higher than expected rates, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention previously suggested.