Taiwan Bans 2nd Pfizer Shot For Kids 12-17 Over Myocarditis Concerns
Taiwan has joined Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark on halting vaccines for young people due to concerns about myocarditis post vaccination. In those European countries it was the Moderna vaccine, in Taiwan it's the second dose of the Pfizer shot.
Taiwan is currently reviewing data and will make an announcement towards the end of the month whether or not they are going to lift the ban. Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are still recommending the Pfizer shot for young people, however.
Cases of myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, which is inflammation of the outer lining of the heart, have been reported in recipients of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in multiple countries. For example, in Ontario, Canada there were more than 100 hospitalizations of youth as of August 7th.
A recent study out of the University of California shows that the risk of myocarditis may be greater as a result of the vaccine than the risk of being hospitalized for COVID for boys ages 12-15. Children without comorbidities have a greater chance of dying from drowning, car accidents, and the flu than they do from COVID, which has a 99.97 survival rate. Is it ethical to vaccinate healthy children without comorbidities with COVID products given these facts?
This begs the question, how much more protection from severe COVID, death and hospitalization can COVID shots provide to children without comorbidities? Especially when they don't reduce the transmission of the virus. What about natural immunity? These are a few of multiple science based reasons why many parents are hesitant to vaccinate their children.
That being said, myocarditis/pericarditis as a result of the vaccine still seems to be rare.
Among the 1.1 million individuals aged 12-17 who have gotten their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Taiwan, there have been 17 reported cases of myocarditis or pericarditis, Central Epidemic Command Center spokesperson Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said Wednesday.
This does not account of the fact that vaccine injuries may be grossly underreported, which is something to keep in mind. Furthermore, if a child does not experience this "rare" adverse event, does it mean that their cardiovascular system has not been impacted at all in a negative way?
We don't have long term data or proper safety monitoring systems in place to know. If someone suffers a fatal or life-threatening event one year after vaccination as a result of the vaccine, the vaccine will most likely not be considered at all as a cause of the event. Even today, vaccine injured people are having a very hard time having their injury officially acknowledged as a vaccine injury.
This happened to a 12-year old girl during Pfizer clinical trials.