Data from death certificates in one state over a year and a half.
That's what a CDC study is basing its claim that COVID vaccines have nothing to do with teen and young adult cardiac arrests and sudden deaths.
There's more.
This study used Oregon death certificate data for those who died of a "heart condition" between the ages 16 to 30. That was around 1,300 certificates.
Note that kids under 16 were left out while individuals over 25 were pulled in.
The certificates were pulled for over a year; June 1, 2021 through Dec. 31, 2022. The study says 1 million "teens and young adults" in Oregon got vaccinated during that same time period.
“The data do not support an association of COVID-19 vaccination with sudden cardiac death among previously healthy young persons,” the CDC said.
The study's authors only looked at individuals who received an mRNA Covid vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna and passed away within 100 days of vaccination.
There were 40 deaths of persons that had received mRNA Covid vaccine, but the study only includes three in its year and a half time period. Two of the deaths were linked to "pre-existing" chronic health conditions.
The cause of the third death was marked as "undetermined natural cause," by the medical examiner with toxicology tests showing negative results for alcohol, cannabis, methamphetamine, or other illicit substances. Bonus: The medical examiner said there was "uncertainty" if the shot was responsible for the third death.
In a nutshell, the study concludes that because none of the death certificates said there was a vaccine link, therefore none of the deaths are vaccine related.
Are they kidding? This is like a science version of PolitiFact.
More To The Story
A related CDC piece of news, CDC Director Mandy Cohen is not doing much to bolster trust in her agency as she declared her agency will move forward on data-sharing "without Congress."
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s mpox outbreak, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen is updating the agency’s data-sharing strategy for the next two years — with a focus on what the agency can do without congressional help.
Republicans have been reluctant to hand more power to the CDC after the pandemic, with that distrust contributing to a number of issues, including a failure to reauthorize the 2006 pandemic preparedness law, which expired last September.
The new policies outlined in the 2024-2025 public health data strategy do not necessarily require congressional authorities, instead focusing on encouraging partnerships between hospitals and local public health systems.
“I am being super practical about this. I love you, Congress, and we work with you very closely, but I am working with the assumption that there is not going to be some major new supplemental package of dollars coming our way this year,” Cohen said at the Kaiser Permanente Health Action Summit in Washington on Thursday.
North Carolina readers may be unsurprised by this as Cohen was Secretary of NC's Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) during the pandemic and may recall the restrictions she and the governor imposed on citizens were done through executive orders mainly without Council of State approval.
Now, data-sharing can be vital when it comes to a public health emergency.
Data is not always reliable - just look at the revisions to deaths the CDC has recently admitted to as due to "logic errors."
Cohen's track record with data when she headed up the response in NC was less than stellar as well.
At one point, NC was the worst in the nation for data reporting of "excess deaths" to the CDC.
Under Cohen, the COVID dashboard was almost never up to date, it kept changing criteria, and it hid data through various links showing the vast majority of those who tested positive had recovered.
The lack of decent data was so bad the legislature had to order NCDHHS to turn over more info. Even the White House was "concerned" by NC's "lack" of testing data.
Speaking of data errors. Quick flashback:
Not to be forgotten - the video that surfaced of an interview showing her laughing about how she made up restrictions based on what friends were doing in other states.
The video made national news as President Biden had just tapped her to become CDC director.
Also what happened to those 24 media outlets that sued NCDHHS, and Gov. Cooper for COVID data?
So, while this "data-sharing" is not necessarily a bad idea, it should not be forgotten that it was "science" and "data" that kept a nation locked down for months, kept kids out of schools, shuttered businesses, stopped worship services, and kept children masked longer than any other portion of the populace.
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