More shots through the heart: post-V myocarditis mortality multiple times higher than expected

I previously wrote about the, er, coincidental rise in excess deaths, especially circulatory/cardiovascular related deaths, in Japan during the booster campaign in Feb/March 2022.

Shot through the heart? Post-booster excess deaths in Japan (updated 8 October)

Adding more weight (or pumping more blood) to the shot-through-the-heart hypothesis is a new preprint. Whereas previous studies have looked at rates of post-vaccine myocarditis occurance, this study looks at rates of post-vaccine myocarditis mortality.

Specifically, Watanabe and Hama used Japanese data to calculate myocarditis mortality rate ratios (MMRRs) by age group (but not sex) and the overall standardised mortality ratio (SMR) for myocarditis with symptom onset within 28 days of vaccination up to 5 August 2022. They included data on 38 reported post-vaccine myocarditis deaths: 25 males and 13 females. They then compared the observed rates with the expected rates based on 2017-2019 myocarditis mortality data in Japan.

They found observed MMRRs were 4.03, 6.69, and 3.89 times higher than expected in people aged 20-29, 30-39, and 40-49. The overall SMR for myocarditis was 2.01: 38 deaths vs. an expected 19.35.

Interestingly, even for people over 60, MMRRs were also higher than expected, and the SMR was 1.65.

So far, so bad. But it gets worse. Watanabe and Hama attempted to account for a phenomenon that confounds observational studies of vaccine safety and effectiveness: the healthy vaccinee effect. Basically, people at death’s door or who have very serious underlying conditions are far less likely to get vaccines than healthy people, which can greatly distort results without adjustment.

Using an Israeli study as a reference*, Watanabe and Hama calculated approximate healthy vaccinee effect-adjusted MMRRs (adMMRRs) and adjusted SMR (adSMR) by dividing MMRRs or SMR by 0.24 without 95% CIs.

Estimated adMMRRs and adSMR were about 4 times higher than the MMRRs and SMR.

There is also the issue of under-reporting post-vaccine deaths and other adverse events. This is particularly true for Japan because, unlike in other countries, adverse events can be reported to the government by vaccine makers and medical institutions but not by the injured party or their family.

There is obligation to report all post-vaccination deaths, therefore only those cases where a physician suspected association to vaccination are reported and disclose by the MHLW [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare]. In the United States (US), 610 million doses of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine had been administered until 31 August 2022, and about 16 000 post-vaccination deaths had been reported, while in Japan, only about 1500 post SARS-CoV-2 vaccination deaths had been disclosed against 200 million doses of the vaccine until 14 February 2022. If post-vaccination deaths were reported on a par with the US, this could be about 3.5 times higher.

One thing Watanabe and Hama didn’t point out was that various studies have found the Japanese to have higher rates of various adverse events than Americans after mRNA vaccines, although it’s not clear whether this extends to myocarditis.

Post-vaccine adverse events in Japan: evidence of racial differences?

But despite all the brightly flashing safety signals, the injection campaign goes on. And now the 30 million Japanese over 60s who got their fourth jabs in July and August will soon get the chance to get their fifth!

Interval between booster doses to be shortened from 5 to 3 months

Some wits have compared getting the Covid jabs to playing Russian roulette. But that’s unfair. In Russian roulette, there’s a limit to the number of shots you can take.

*In the main paper, the also calculated MMRRs and adSMR based on data from the UK’s Office of National Statistics that shows even lower all-cause mortality among the vaccinated in Jan/Feb 2021. However, the ONS seem to have obtained these results by misclassifying newly vaccinated deaths as unvaccinated deaths. See Prof Norman Fenton’s explanation here.