Joel Hirschhorn has one of WorldNetDaily’s greatest purveyors of misinformation and fearmongering about COVID and its vaccines. So it’s a bit of a shock to see him actually address the subject in a more straightforward and factual way. His Jan. 19 column didn’t start out promising, though:
Regular readers of this truth-telling publication already are well-informed about the many ill effects of COVID vaccines. But there is always more to understand as medical research keeps unfolding.
First, to summarize the ugly reality it is important to recognize what the great Dr. Peter McCullough has noted. Roughly 15% of vaccine recipients develop a health problem after taking a COVID-19 vaccine. Compared to decades of previous vaccines, that is a huge number that previously would have caused the government to take such a shot off the market.
Hirschhorn didn’t mention, however, that the percentage of people who catch COVID and have lingering symptoms is at least that high and arguably have more severe symptoms, such as loss of taste or smell. (He also didn’t mention that, contrary to his “great” description, McCullough is actually a even bigger misinformer.)
What followed, however, was a surprisingly straightforward summary of a study published in an actual, credible, peer-reviewed medical journal examining why some people, mostly young men, suffer myocarditis after receiving the vaccine, which the study attributed to spike proteins that evade detection. He did try to fearmonger a bit at the end:
Here is the key point: The spike protein they had in their bodies had evaded the apparently sufficient library of antibodies (from the vaccine or previous infection) that were supposed to neutralize it. Thus, it is possible that some persons do not make specific neutralizing antibodies after injection, and thus, the spike protein is able to circulate and damage the body, specifically the heart muscle and possibly other organs, including the brain. Other research has found that harmful impacts can happen many weeks or months after booster shots. Scars in heart muscle could explain serious impacts and deaths.
An actual medical expert, however, was much less alarmist:
In summary, this study shows potential age-related differences in the processing of vaccine-derived spike protein that may explain the relatively higher frequency of myocarditis in adolescents and young adults, and a potential role for unbound circulating spike protein in the myocarditis, which suggests that for patients in whom spike antigenemia is detected, administration of antibodies to spike protein could potentially prevent or reverse the pathology. However, given the relatively small number of participants analyzed in this study, these conclusions need to be confirmed in large cohorts.
That expert also noted that “myocarditis has also been observed in response to other vaccines, such as vaccines against influenza and smallpox, and non-mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.” Which tells you that the whole myocarditis thing is just a ginned-up scare tactic from anti-vaxxers.
Congratulations, though, to Hirschhorn for actually trying to stick to established facts. It’s not something WND is known for.