CDC: COVID Vax Not Linked to Sudden Deaths in Young Adults

The hunt for a signal of excess sudden cardiac deaths among young people after COVID-19 vaccination left Oregon health officials empty-handed, they reported.

Investigators searched death certificates for Oregon residents 16-30 years old who died from cardiac or undetermined causes of death from June 2021 to December 2022 and tried to match these deaths with mandatory statewide records of mRNA COVID vaccination, according to Juventila Liko, MD, and Paul Cieslak, MD, both of the Oregon Health Authority's Public Health Division in Portland, in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Among the 24 male decedents with an mRNA COVID-19 vaccination record, two died within 100 days of having received the vaccine: one recorded as dying of congestive heart failure attributed to hypertension, and the other had an undetermined cause of death.

As for the 16 female decedents logged as having received at least one mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose, just one died within 100 days of vaccination. The immediate cause was recorded as undetermined, albeit related to chronic respiratory failure with hypoxia attributed to mitral stenosis.

Meanwhile, out of the 1,292 identified deaths of young people in the state, COVID-19 was cited as the cause for 30.

"These data do not support an association between receipt of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and sudden cardiac death among previously healthy young persons. COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for all persons aged ≥6 months to prevent COVID-19 and complications, including death," study authors concluded.

Oregon residents over 16 years of age became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination on April 19, 2021. That month, reports of myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination, particularly among young male vaccine recipients, began to appear in the voluntary Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

This rare complication had not been reported in clinical trials leading to the authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines (Comirnaty and Spikevax, respectively).

Multiple studies subsequently described myocarditis associated with COVID vaccines as mostly mild. Detailed records showed that affected vaccine recipients tended to be men and boys who were typically able to recover after a few days in the hospital.

Nevertheless, skeptics remained concerned about possible vaccine-related cardiac fatalities in teenagers and young adults. These fears were flamed by reports of sudden deaths among professional athletes and cardiovascular events in this age group in 2022.

The present study from Oregon did not show evidence of these risks.

Liko and Cieslak acknowledged that their analysis did not account for any potential vaccine-associated cardiac deaths occurring more than 100 days after COVID vaccination. Additionally, Oregon's population may be too small to detect rare events such as sudden cardiac death among young people.

Comment