CBS News’ medical expert has claimed that the unprecedented spike in the number of young people suffering sudden heart attacks is due to a lack of masking and a failure to keep up to date with vaccinations.
Celine Gounder, the network’s medical contributor, argues that otherwise healthy young people who died suddenly from fatal heart attacks in the past couple of years only have themselves to blame.
Gounder, the editor at large for public health at Kaiser Health News, spoke to CBS News about a recent national study conducted by doctors at Cedars-Sinai Hospital.
The study shows a massive spike in cardiac arrests and heart attacks during the pandemic across all age groups.
Researchers highly soaring numbers of heart failure-related deaths in the 25- to 44-year-old age group in particular.
Previously, this younger demographic of adults was not regarded to be at high risk of cardiac arrest.
The researchers analyzed data from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai and published in the Journal of Medical Virology,
The study found that heart attack death rates “took a sharp turn” and spiked during the pandemic.
Heart attack deaths notably soared during the Omicron phase of the pandemic when mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were ubiquitous.
Dr. Yee Hui Yeo, the first author of the study, said, “The dramatic rise in heart attacks during the pandemic has reversed what was a prior decadelong steady improvement in cardiac deaths.”
The researchers recognized that “infections such as the flu can increase risk for heart disease and heart attack.”
However, they noted that “the sharp rise in heart attack deaths is like nothing seen before.”
The study ultimately showed that there were 143,787 heart attack deaths in the year prior to the onset of the pandemic.
But in 2020, this number increased by 14% to 164,096.
According to Cedars-Sinai, the “excess in acute myocardial infarction-associated mortality has persisted throughout the pandemic, even during the most recent period marked by a surge of the presumed less-virulent Omicron variant.”
The comparable rise in heart attack deaths was most prominent in the youngest group.
By 2021, “the ‘observed’ compared to ‘predicted’ rates of heart attack death had increased by 29.9% for adults ages 25-44, by 19.6% for adults ages 45-64, and by 13.7% for adults aged 65 and older.”
Cedars-Sinai appeared keen to attribute the spike in heart attacks to multiple factors, including trends that long predated the pandemic, but failed to mention the vaccines.
Among the possible reasons given were that COVID-19 may have accelerated preexisting coronary artery disease or that chronic stress brought on by job loss and other financial pressures set them off.
Yeo noted, “There are several potential explanations for the rapid rise in cardiac deaths in patients with COVID-19, yet still many unanswered questions.”
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is among the agencies and experts that have acknowledged a link between the Covid vaccines and heart issues.
The connection was completely ignored by the “experts” at CBS, however.
Gounder joined CBS News’ Tony Dokoupil and Lilia Luciano last week to discuss the study’s findings.
“So the 25- to 44-year-olds — you saw this 30% increase in the risk of death from heart attack,” said Gounder.
“And that really is quite striking.
“That’s not a group, an age group, in which you normally see heart attacks, much less dying from a heart attack.”
Dokoupil said, “You look at the years prior to the pandemic and the typical rate of heart attack death in that age group, and then you see it increase and you wonder, what’s the new variable?
“And so the pandemic is that the new variable?”
“That’s right,” answered Gounder.
She continued by reiterating the researchers’ point that heart attacks were actually on the decline in the years leading up to the pandemic.
When answering why younger people in particular suffered a spike in fatal heart attacks, Gounder admitted that there was no confirmation that many of the deceased had COVID-19 to begin with: “We don’t know for sure.
“And in fact, these death certificates are probably not even capturing the fact that [the victims] had Covid.
“They’re really just saying that you died from a heart attack or not.”
“What we do know, however, is that younger people were less likely to protect themselves against Covid than older people, less likely to mask, less likely to take other mitigation measures, and they were also further back in line to get vaccinated,” Gounder claimed, without evidence.
“Those might have been a factor here.”
6/ How does COVID cause heart🫀attacks?
COVID causes inflammation & blood clots, which may trigger or accelerate the development of coronary artery disease, including in young people.
— Céline Gounder, MD, ScM, FIDSA 🇺🇦 (@celinegounder) February 14, 2023
A recent study cast doubt on the benefits of one of Gounder’s recommendations.
As Slay News reported, British epidemiologist Tom Jefferson, co-author of the Cochrane Library’s report on masking trials, noted in the Spectator that masking is ineffective against Covid.
“Interestingly, 12 trials in the review, ten in the community and two among healthcare workers, found that wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to influenza-like or COVID-19-like illness transmission,” Jefferson said.
“Equally, the review found that masks had no effect on laboratory-confirmed influenza or SARS-CoV-2 outcomes.
“Five other trials showed no difference between one type of mask over another.”
The Telegraph reported on another study that found young men were “six times more likely to suffer from heart problems after being jabbed than be hospitalized from coronavirus.”