From Colds to Commotio Cordis, Medical Pundits Reaching to Rule Out Role of COVID Vax in Health Issues

A cold forced a middle-aged cable news reporter, a vegetarian, yoga-practicing and non-smoker, to run seven miles. “three to four times a week” to the hospital with heart inflammation — twice — for several days each.

A type of cardiac arrest that was overwhelmingly caused by a projectile placed to the chest of high school athletes almost killed a pro-football player who was playing in a routine tackle on national TV.

Celebrity health crises over the past month have prompted quick and sometimes far-fetched explanations by media and the medical community. These explanations seem to avoid the popular fear: the COVID-19 vaccination injury.

MSNBC host Yasmin Vossoughian spoke to viewers Saturday About the “health scare” This kept her off the air for many weeks without explanation.

Vossoughian developed intermittent chest pains on Dec. 20, which spread to her shoulder 10 jours later. Vossoughian was then diagnosed with pericarditis. “brought on by a virus, a literal common cold,” She said. The 44-year-old needed her heart to drain, so she spent four nights at the hospital.

Vossoughian was transferred to NYU Langone and returned home on Jan. 4. Three days later she was feeling better. “a flutter” she had myocarditis in her heart, and she was admitted again. She was admitted to hospital for five days more, where she underwent additional tests. “it was still just the cold doing all this,” She spoke.

Vossoughian stated that she drinks occasionally but abstains on doctor’s orders. Her condition has been improved. “continued to wax and wane,” And she is on medication indefinitely.

Greg Katz, NYU Langone’s cardiologist explained to Vossoughian what an “overactive immune response” The cold had caused her heart problems. According to him, doctors have seen such problems in the past. “a little bit more this year … it’s rare, but it’s not the rarest” “very unpredictable.” 

Katz speculated “the season is a little bit more virus-heavy than usual” Due to social distancing and masking during the pandemic, immune systems are underexposed. 

Not to be missed: Vossoughian, who is just a few years younger than the post-vaccination myocarditis/pericarditis high-risk group of under-40s, has not been mentioned. This was known by the CDC at the time COVID vaccines were authorized. The conditions were not taken into consideration in post-vaccination surveys.

She said that she was vaccinated against COVID in April 2021. Her employer, NBC Universal, ordered workers last summer to show proof of full vaccination to return in person.

Former New York Times drug industry reporter Alex Berenson said Vossoughian has hosted “segment after segment lauding the mRNAs with the most extreme vaccine fanatics around” on her program and even did a segment on how teenagers can get vaccinated against their parents’ wishes.

Neither MSNBC’s press office nor Vossoughian’s Instagram account, the only way Just the News could find to contact her directly, responded to queries about what non-cold explanations, if any, doctors may have given her.

NFL safety Damar Hamlin and his doctors have stayed tight-lipped on what they think caused his on-field collapse during the Jan. 2 Buffalo Bills-Cincinnati Bengals game. Hamlin didn’t address it in a Jan. 28 Instagram video, and family spokesperson Jordon Rooney did not respond to Just the News queries.

That silence has energized doctors and pundits all month long to remotely diagnose commotio cordis, which might be unprecedented in Hamlin’s situation.

“Commotio cordis most commonly results from an impact to the left chest with a hardball (e.g., a baseball) during sports activity,” according to the healthcare exam prep company StatPearls. It said the condition is reported fewer than 30 times a year, mostly in young athletes playing sports, with “very few” cases older than age 20.

A 2013 review in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found just 7 cases of commotio cordis among 243 high school and college football fatalities reported to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research from 1990 to 2010.

Those who quickly diagnosed Hamlin from afar include CBS News medical contributor David Agus, who had no football example of it at any age, and CNN medical analyst Jonathan Reiner, who shamed “antivaxxers” for speculating that a vaccine caused the collapse.

While Just the News couldn’t find any information about Hamlin’s vaccination status, and the NFL never had a player mandate, the league claimed in March that 95% of players were vaccinated.

Post-vaccination myocarditis is disproportionately associated with young men and can have long-term effects, as the CDC recently acknowledged, contrary to the condition’s frequent portrayal as “mild” and temporary.

In a case series for the European Society of Cardiology’s journal in 2021, French cardiologists said they had done the first review of the “impact of direct chest trauma in at-risk sports or activities in patients with a history of myocarditis.”

They studied “two cases of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmia secondary to non-penetrating blunt chest trauma” during rugby matches. 

A 26-year-old with a “history of viral myocarditis 10 years prior” lost consciousness after a “typical intensity” hit and suffered “rapid and regular palpitations.” He required a “subcutaneous implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.” 

A 22-year-old with “no known notable history” died after a direct chest hit. “An autopsy identified a myocardial sequela of fibrosis with no acute inflammatory remodelling compatible with a previous myocarditis,” the researchers wrote, recommending screening and prevention to reduce the risk in contact-sports athletes.

In a Tuesday article from UT Health Houston on sudden cardiac arrest in young athletes, Houston Rockets’ team cardiologist John Higgins said the “mechanical energy” from the helmet hit to Hamlin’s chest “disrupts the heart’s electrical impulses and causes commotio cordis,” no different from “an object like a baseball or hockey puck.”

UT Health Houston quickly responded to a Just the News query but did not answer whether Higgins was confirming the diagnosis or just explaining the mechanism by which it could happen.

On this week’s “Talking With Docs” YouTube program, Canadian cardiologist Mike Heffernan said commotio cordis was “most likely” due to a “perfect storm” of conditions on the field but said he’s only aware of hockey and baseball examples.

Interventional cardiologist Sanjay Verma gave a lengthy explanation why he believes with “100% scientific and clinical confidence” that’s the wrong diagnosis for Hamlin’s hit and what followed at the hospital.

“In football, Commotio Cordis is documented with helmet to left chest, not with shoulder pads to chest,” he wrote. “Shoulder pads are well designed to absorb the shock of the shoulder’s force onto the opposing player.”

The American Medical Association’s chief science and medical officer also expressed skepticism of commotio cordis in a MedPage Today video. Mariell Jessup said the condition was not only “very unusual” but primarily associated with “trauma to the chest with a ball” in male adolescents whose “chests haven’t developed as much.” She suspects “underlying, unsuspected cardiomyopathy” in Hamlin, possibly inherited.

Cardiologists told MedPage Today that commotio cordis should be the diagnosis of last resort. It would be “dangerous” to fixate on that diagnosis and “miss something else that might be able to recur and cause another cardiac arrest,” University of California San Francisco cardiac electrophysiologist Zian Tseng said.

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