Senator Rand Paul, says the a study by epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, Ph.D., reported the risk of myocarditis in teenage boys after receiving a second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine was roughly 5 times greater than the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19.
The Republican senator disclosed this on Tuesday after the senate rejected his legislation to lift the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for young adults in the U.S Senate pages program for the third time.
The Senate Pages program, which pays young adults ages 16 and 17 to assist on the senate floor, requires applicants be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 — including all boosters.
Paul last week introduced the same resolution but it failed to pass. His first attempt, which also did not pass, was a broader resolution introduced on Sept. 7 that sought to remove COVID-19 testing, vaccination and masking requirements for pages.
A press release issued Wednesday by Paul’s office said Senate Democrats “for the third time” refused to “follow the science” and “unanimously objected” to the resolution.
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According to Paul, the requirement is politically motivated, not based on science, and puts healthy American young adults at risk for vaccine-induced myocarditis.
In a senate floor speech before the vote, Rand cited numerous studies that reported an increased risk of heart inflammation with each successive COVID-19 vaccination.
Paul said: “Why are we forcing these kids to do something that I would say is against medical advice to be a page in our program here?”
“How would you feel if your perfectly-healthy football player or band member is given the vaccine and comes home with heart inflammation?”
Rand pointed out that a study by epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, Ph.D., reported the risk of myocarditis in teenage boys after receiving a second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine was roughly 5 times greater than the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19.
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“So you’re asking yourself, ‘Well, can my kid go to the hospital or get the heart inflammation?’” Paul said. Both are rare, he said, but there is a greater chance of heart inflammation.
Paul noted that among healthy children and young adults, there is a “nearly zero” risk of dying from COVID-19.
The public knows this and has “largely resisted” vaccinating their children against COVID-19, he added.
The argument that young people be vaccinated to protect more vulnerable populations does not hold up, Paul said, because “No serious scientist now argues that COVID-19 vaccines stop transmission. No one.”
“They don’t want you to have the choice to keep your kids safe and make a decision whether or not your kid, who may well have already had COVID, needs yet another vaccine … They just want you to shut your eyes, be quiet and do as you’re told.”