The clip in which the research was cited, containing serious flaws, has been viewed more than 2 million times.
GB News has been criticised for giving a platform to misleading and inaccurate research linking Covid vaccines to heart attacks, in a clip which has received more than 2 million views.
Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra appeared on GB News to discuss the link between mRNA COVID vaccine and an increased risk of heart attacks. However, the research he cited has been criticized by Full Fact, an independent fact checking organisation.
Dr Malhotra told GB News: “What this research has shown is that markers associated with increasing the risk of heart attack and probably even progression of underlying heart disease in people who have already got some heart disease. There’s been a significantly increased risk from 11% at five years, the risk of heart attack, to 25%.”
They looked into Dr Malhotra’s claims and said the following: “The research he cites as evidence has serious flaws.
“Dr Malhotra failed to mention that the journal which published an abstract of the research has issued an “expression of concern” about it, noting that it contains “potential errors” and “may not be reliable”.
“The research was presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) in the form of a poster (a format used to present summary findings of research at conferences) and only the abstract has been published in an open-access format.
“The AHA asserts that it’s not clear if the results are due to chance or some other factor. A further issue is that the study doesn’t actually measure the risk of heart attacks directly, but the PULS score. There’s little evidence on why this might be a reliable metric to measure the risk of heart attacks.”
The statement from Full Fact further adds: “The author is not clear that only anecdotal data was used, meaning there may be an element of selection bias, affecting the legitimacy results. And in addition to all this, the research has not been peer-reviewed.”
The report concludes: “All of the above means the work cannot be used as a basis upon which to build the argument that Covid-19 vaccines increase the risk of heart attacks, as Dr Malhotra went on to say on GB News.”
GB News and Dr Malhotra have been approached for comment.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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