Covid study linking vaccines to rare side effect of myocarditis was wrong, researchers admit

A research study that linked a very rare side effect to the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines has been withdrawn by researchers after they made a major mathematical error. The Canadian study attracted headlines after it suggested there was a 1 in 1,000 risk of people developing myocarditis or inflammation of the heart after receiving the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. But the paper’s conclusions were wrong, and the calculation flawed. The numbers used by the researchers, from the Ottawa Heart Institute, underestimated the amount of vaccines delivered in Ottawa over a two-month period with the result being 25 times smaller than the true figure. They had initially based their estimate on a total of 32,379 vaccines doses and 32 cases of myocarditis, when in reality more than 854,000 doses had been given between June 1 to July 31. The study’s findings have been used by anti-vaccination websites and social media accounts in Britain, the United States and Canada.