The committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines will hold an emergency meeting next Friday, June 18, to discuss cases of heart inflammation possibly linked to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, is collecting more data on COVID-19 vaccines for its meeting next Friday.
The conditions, known as myocarditis and pericarditis, are rare, with only 573 cases out of over 130 million Americans who have been vaccinated. That is a rate of about 0.0004%. Still, officials have said the case numbers are higher than they would have expected.
“It’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison because, again, these are preliminary reports. Not all these will turn out to be true myocarditis or pericarditis reports,” said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a CDC vaccine safety official, according to CBS News.
ACIP last held an emergency meeting over the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and its link to rare instances of blood clots. In that case, the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was temporarily paused while ACIP investigated. The pause was lifted in late April.
The CDC has been investigating the possible link between heart inflammation and vaccines since the Israeli government reported on it in early June.
Author: David Hogberg, Healthcare Reporter
Source: Washington Examiner : CDC panel to hold emergency meeting on heart inflammation cases linked to COVID-19 vaccine
