Do COVID vaccines cause sudden death in adults?

A member of Peter McCullough’s anti-vaccine team claims they have written six peer-reviewed studies that prove COVID vaccines cause heart damage that can make a person die years later.

“Peer-reviewed” means other experts checked the article before it was published. But some journals check more carefully than others.

Some journals, called predatory journals, may publish weak studies without a strong review. So, if something is peer-reviewed, that does not always mean it is trustworthy. In this case, most of the six articles were published in journals with weaker review standards. That does not prove the articles are wrong, but it means they should not be treated as strong evidence.

Also, none of the articles prove the author’s claim that COVID vaccines can cause people to die suddenly years later. The condition they are talking about is usually called Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome, or SADS.

A Lancet study does show that mRNA COVID vaccines can slightly raise the risk of two rare heart problems: myocarditis and pericarditis. Myocarditis means the heart muscle has inflammation. This can cause chest pain, trouble breathing, or a fast heartbeat. Pericarditis means the thin sac around the heart has inflammation. This can cause sharp chest pain. The pain may feel worse when a person takes a deep breath or lies down. These heart problems are rare. Most cases linked to the vaccine are mild and get better quickly.

One study found that men under 40 had higher rates of myocarditis after vaccination than after COVID infection. Myocarditis from COVID illness is more dangerous. COVID illness had a higher risk of heart failure or death than myocarditis linked to vaccination.

So, a fair statement would be that COVID vaccine-related myocarditis is real, rare, and should continue to be studied carefully. But these studies do not prove the much stronger claim that COVID vaccines cause heart damage that can make people die years later.