FDA commissioner claims Biden administration hid heart risks of COVID-19 vaccines from public
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, has said in an interview that the Biden administration withheld data from the public about the risk of myocarditis associated with certain COVID-19 vaccines.
“We have done more to study myocarditis and to go back and look at deaths of people, of children from the Covid vaccine,” Makary told NBC News. “Internal data submitted on myocarditis, we found that the Biden administration was sitting on data on myocarditis in young people, and it was not made public.”
Members of the Trump administration, particularly HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have been focused on the cardiovascular risks of these vaccines for quite some time. The FDA finalized new warnings about the risks to be added to certain vaccines, for example, and then an internal agency memo claimed that 10 children died due to the vaccines.
The FDA memo upset many healthcare policy experts familiar with these vaccines. In fact, several former FDA commissioners wrote an editorial about these claims for The New England Journal of Medicine.[1]
“As former commissioners of the FDA—who collectively guided the agency’s oversight for more than 35 years, through myriad public health crises—we are committed to medical product safety and identifying new medical evidence with the speed, rigor, and openness that the public should expect,” wrote first author Robert M. Califf, MD, a cardiologist and two-time FDA commissioner, and colleagues. “We are deeply concerned by sweeping new FDA assertions about vaccine safety and proposals that would undermine a regulatory model designed to ensure that vaccines are safe, effective, and available when the public needs them most.”
Additional information about myocarditis and COVID-19 vaccines
Acute myocarditis and other related conditions have been seen in a small number of patients after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination. The long-term impact of this risk has been the subject of many clinical studies and debates over the years. Click here and here for more details.
While the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and other U.S. healthcare organizations have consistently supported patients receiving COVID-19 vaccines, some critics have remained adamant that even the smallest risk of these side effects is too high.
Michael has more than 19 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.