AccScience Publishing / BH / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/bh.5747
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Cardiac adverse events post-vaccination

Darrell O. Ricke1*
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1 Artificial Intelligence Technology Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, Massachusetts, United States of America
Brain & Heart, 5747 https://doi.org/10.36922/bh.5747
Submitted: 1 November 2024 | Revised: 11 January 2025 | Accepted: 27 February 2025 | Published: 14 March 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Some vaccine recipients experience cardiac adverse events (AEs) following immunization (AEFIs), which include background events and vaccine-associated AEs for certain vaccines. A small subset of AEs experienced by vaccine recipients is documented in the United States Vaccine AE Reporting System (VAERS). This study retrospectively analyzed VAERS to identify associations for cardiac AEFIs. The analysis considered factors such as vaccine type, vaccine source, vaccine recipient gender, and infant age. Multiple patterns of cardiac AEFI associations were detected: (i) bradycardia and cardiac arrest for infants under 1 year of age, (ii) arrhythmia for COVID-19 and human papillomavirus vaccines, (iii) atrial fibrillation for COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus vaccines, (iv) myocarditis and pericarditis for anthrax, COVID-19, smallpox, and typhoid vaccines, and (v) chest discomfort, chest pain, palpitations, and tachycardia for multiple vaccines. Gender differences were observed for both myocarditis and palpitation AEFIs. Significant differences in bradycardia and cardiac arrest AEFI normalized frequencies were observed for the same infant vaccines from different manufacturers, suggesting possible manufacturing contaminants as potential causative components. In conclusion, delaying specific vaccines until infants are 1 year old, selecting alternative vaccine options, or reducing or eliminating causative components could reduce infant bradycardia and cardiac arrest AEFIs. Mathematical age relationships could model both male and female myocarditis AEs for COVID-19 vaccines, potentially applicable to other vaccines, suggesting shared etiologies. In addition, several vaccines were associated with correlated cardiac AEFI signals for chest discomfort, chest pain, palpitations, and tachycardia. The etiologies of these AEFIs could be attributed to elevated histamine levels.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Arrhythmia
Atrial fibrillation
Bradycardia
Cardia arrest
Myocarditis
Palpitations
Pericarditis
Tachycardia
Funding
This work is supported by the Department of the Air Force under Air Force Contract (No. FA8702-15-D-0001). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Air Force. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, publication decisions, or manuscript preparation.
Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest.
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Brain & Heart, Electronic ISSN: 2972-4139 Published by AccScience Publishing
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