As the world scrambled to roll out Covid-19 vaccines in 2021, millions of South Africans received mRNA jabs with confidence — unaware that top US health officials were sitting on growing concerns about serious heart-related side effects.
A damning new report by US Senator Ron Johnson reveals that American authorities were alerted to a potential link between the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and conditions like myocarditis and pericarditis as early as February 2021, yet delayed warning the public for months.
Implications for South Africa
Now, as South Africans report similar complications, questions are being raised about whether local authorities were also kept in the dark — and what that has meant for informed consent.
As many South Africans continue to report post-vaccine complications, the findings have reignited concerns around the adequacy of information provided to the public during the country’s rollout.
For those who experienced symptoms like heart inflammation, the silence from health authorities now feels like a betrayal.
According to the 54-page interim report, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were aware of “large reports of myocarditis” among young vaccine recipients, but only moved to update the vaccine safety labels in late June 2021.
This means millions of people across the globe — including in South Africa — received mRNA shots without being informed of these potential risks.
“Even though CDC and FDA officials were well aware of the risk of myocarditis following Covid-19 vaccination, the US administration opted to withhold issuing a formal warning to the public for months about the safety concerns,” the report states.
What is Myocarditis?
Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, inflammation of the sac around the heart, can cause chest pain, irregular heart rhythms, and in rare cases, long-term cardiac damage.
Myopericarditis, a combination of both, has also been reported. While these side effects are rare, they appear more frequently in young males and often emerge shortly after the second dose of the vaccine.
South Africa relied heavily on Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine during its national rollout. The US report raises concerns about whether international partners like South Africa received the necessary data to make timely and transparent decisions about public health messaging.
If US authorities withheld warnings, were local health departments in a position to issue appropriate guidance — or were they operating under incomplete information?
One pivotal moment came on 28 February 2021, when an Israeli health official contacted the CDC and FDA to flag 40 cases of post-vaccination myocarditis in young people.
Despite the warning and Israel’s significantly higher vaccination rate at the time, the US chose not to act publicly for several more months.
During this silence, frontline doctors who attempted to raise red flags about the potential risks were reportedly censored or discredited. “Around the time of internal CDC deliberations over myocarditis,” Senator Johnson writes, “his office received a growing number of letters from doctors and other healthcare professionals who experienced suppression and censoring of this information they were experiencing.”
Eventually, on June 25, 2021, the FDA added warnings to the Pfizer and Moderna labels about the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis. But by then, millions of people — including many South Africans — had already been vaccinated without that knowledge.
The report’s release comes just a day after the FDA announced tighter requirements for booster shot administration, adding further fuel to the debate about transparency, trust, and accountability in the global vaccine effort.
This report is not just about what the US did or didn’t do — it’s a global wake-up call about the need for honesty and accountability when it comes to public health, especially when the stakes are life and death.
Lifestyle
