COVID Vaxx Plus Infection Leads to Higher Incidence of Severe Heart Failure

A single center retrospective cohort study conducted among cardiology patients at a Madrid hospital between March 2020 and March 2023 (n = 949) found a positive association between the occurrence of a major adverse cardiovascular event at 6 months after a heart attack (i.e. myocardial infarction) and being COVID vaxxed prior to the heart attack (i.e. myocardial infarction). They also found that among patients with ST-elevated myocardial infarction, COVID vaxxed patients who received their last dose within 30 days of their heart attack were more likely to have severe heart failure or cardiogenic shock (13.7%) than unvaxxed patients (7.9%). In patients younger than 65 years of age, 4.8% of unvaxxed patients, 14.3% of patients vaxxed 30 days or more before admission and 11.8% of patients vaxxed less than 30 days before ST-elevation myocardial infarction suffered severe heart failure or cardiogenic shock. They also found that vaxxed patients that had anti-nucleocapsid positive serology on admission had an increased risk of ST-elevation myocardial infarction. The authors conclude:

Patients with prior SARS CoV-2 infection who had detectable (anti-nucleocapsid) antibodies and received one or more doses of vaccine had significantly higher Spike-specific IgG levels and were more likely to develop severe heart failure or cardiogenic shock after STEMI (ST-Elevated Myocardial Infarction). This association was independent of age and was even more pronounced in younger patients in a subgroup analysis. The median time from vaccination to MI (myocardial infarction) in the present study was 4.7 months (1.9–7.8), and slightly longer in patients with STEMI (5.3 months, 2.5–9.4).

Although the study cannot delineate the chronological order of infection and COVID vaxx for any vaxxed patients admitted for heart attacks it should be remembered that every vaxxed person has been infected by now. By October 2022, over 70% of the population had been infected after multiple omicron sub variants including two-thirds of the population with hybrid immunity from infection and vaxx. The authors hypothesize that an enhanced immune response from both vaxx and infection could have resulted in a higher incidence of severe heart failure. Haralambieva and colleagues found that the first booster dose significantly increased hormonal responses to the most virulent variant. Wuhan-Hu-1 specific anti-spike antibody titer levels increased 16x after boosting but had low cross reactivity to then circulating omicron BA.1. and BA.2. variants. Tsang and colleagues conducted serological research on 60 adolescents (12 - 17 years of age) hospitalized for vaxxed induced myocarditis, 10 age matched patients who suffered non-cardiovascular related SAEs and 10 healthy control patients (n = 80) and found that the myocardial injured patients had more than 5x higher cytokine serum levels compared to healthy controls as well as a higher prevalence of a particular subset of natural killer cells that directly correlated with cardiac troponin t serum concentrations. They also found that patients with a certain alleles in their genotype for natural killer cell activity were genetically predisposed to natural killer cell hyper-activation.