The State Comptroller's report published Tuesday criticized the state's handling of the coronavirus epidemic, including the fact that the Health Ministry did not receive or analyze reports of side effects of the vaccines and the lack of antigen kits.
Along with the criticism, the auditor pointed to an in-depth investigation of one of the side effects of the vaccine, myocarditis, thanks to the vigilance of Professor Dror Mevorach, who ran the coronavirus department at the Hadassah Medical Center and was the first doctor in the world to detect the disease among those vaccinated against the virus.
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Professor Dror Mevorach ran the coronavirus department at the Hadassah Medical Center
(Photo: Yuval Chen )
"A patient with myocarditis appeared during morning rounds," Mevorach said about the discovery process of the side effect. "I asked him about the specific things that happened in the two weeks before the visit and he told me that he had received a vaccine against the coronavirus. I thought we might investigate the possible connection. I followed cases of myocarditis that were hospitalized in Hadassah and to my surprise I discovered that nine out of the 10 patients I examined received a vaccine right before hospitalization. So, I had no doubt at that moment it was related to the vaccine. However, the Health Ministry took my message seriously and we set up a committee on the matter in a very intensive way and, as a result, we published three articles, which are milestones in the world literature and showed the clear connection between the vaccine, and especially a second vaccination among young men, and myocarditis. This is considered the main side effect related to the vaccine and which everyone agrees on, while there is no general agreement regarding other side effects."
One of the articles authored by Mevorach, director of the Rheumatology-Immunology Department at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. He said that he is currently conducting a follow-up study.
"I am following the phenomenon among more than 100 people to understand the phenomenon over time. The incidence is one in 5,000 or 6,000 vaccinated young people. Unfortunately, there was one death, but 90% of people recover well and 5% can have long-term complications." According to the doctor, his research continues to receive interest and attention around the world.
Given the information you have today, would you recommend blanket vaccination for all young people?
"I would recommend young people to get vaccinated, but warn them and better monitor them. Today I would be less enthusiastic about vaccinating young men, but at the time it was a more serious disease that put people at risk, and it made sense to give it. This is not the position of the Ministry of Health, but my position."
Could it be that we rushed to vaccinate everyone indiscriminately?
"We rushed to vaccinate comprehensively, and in the end it was necessary. The epidemic was at its peak all over the world, and these vaccinations saved millions. Today we have more information and things should have been done with discretion, but that does not mean that things were not done properly back then. There was a decision based on partial information and, as happens in these situations, precisely after the approval, additional things are revealed."
We also saw yesterday on social media that coronavirus deniers as well as vaccine opponents are getting a boost from this report. Can you address this claim?
"Ultimately, we want to create public trust. We are truly committed to the truth. We are not committed to selling Pfizer vaccines or even committed to the policy of the Health Ministry. We respect it, but we are committed first to the medical truth. The public has the right to know, so I did not hesitate when I saw this to say that there is a problem of myocarditis; it is relatively rare but it exists. A lot of people in the system are against the vaccine. We are not afraid of what will scare people, we are committed to the medical truth. The public's trust increases significantly and fewer turn to fake news, which unfortunately some people like. I don't know why they do it; This is a phenomenon in itself that can be studied."
Mevorach noted that he did not agree with the recommendation regarding a blanket vaccination for the fourth and fifth time. "I think that from the fourth and fifth vaccination, with the mutation of the disease, we should stop for a moment and not do anything just because the U.S. is doing it, because it took the U.S. a long time to realize that there is inflammation of the heart muscle as a side effect of the vaccine. There is a outline for the team for the treatment of epidemics. It is supposed to examine the pros and cons and invite people. I attended some of these meetings. The Health Ministry worked well on the issue of myocarditis. The report indicates that there are things that did not work, for example there were many women who claimed that it causes menstrual disorders and it was not treated in the first stage sufficiently or there was disdain for the claim itself. This is not the appropriate way to handle this. These claims should be respected and today there is more evidence that if the vaccine is given in the first part of the cycle, it causes an extension of the menstrual period and other issues. The claims about side effects should be respected."