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DEAR DR. ROACH: I read your recent column on COVID shots. Why do you still recommend these terribly dangerous vaccines and the boosters, in light of the overwhelming evidence that they’re causing heart attacks, strokes, miscarriages, cancers, blood clots and more? -- R.V.
ANSWER: People need to be very careful where they get their information from. There are many opinions that you’ll be exposed to from friends, family and co-workers, as well as online and in traditional media. Oftentimes these won’t be stated as opinion but as established facts. Sometimes people will relate anecdotes (“my friend got a COVID shot and had a heart attack three weeks later”), which might be true but can’t be used to determine the risk of the vaccine.
Scientists don’t rely on opinions or anecdotes; they perform large studies and get objective data. There are now several large studies from across the world (England, Sweden, Malaysia and Catalonia), and the results are consistent with study sizes in the tens of millions. COVID vaccines are very safe.
Blood clots, heart attacks and strokes are significantly lower among those who’ve been vaccinated compared with those who weren’t. Generally, the more vaccinations a person received, the lower their risk. This isn’t because the vaccines prevent heart disease or blood clots, which can lead to strokes; it’s because getting a COVID infection is very dangerous and dramatically increases the risk of these bad events.
Because the vaccines reduce the number and severity of COVID infections, the risk for vascular events is smaller. The benefit is particularly strong for higher-risk people, such as older adults and those with existing heart disease.
You asked about miscarriages, but miscarriage rates are double in women who are affected with COVID compared with those who weren’t. Safety studies didn’t find an increase in miscarriage rates in vaccinated women, and some studies showed a decrease in pregnancy loss -- largely because of decreasing COVID infections, which are the real risk.
COVID infections aren’t associated with malignancies based on studies with tens of thousands of patients that didn’t find an increase in cancer risk. It’s true that in the years following the most active part of the pandemic, there was an increase in people with more advanced cancers. This is thought to be due to the fact that people weren’t seeing their primary care providers and weren’t getting the appropriate screening. There wasn’t an increase in cancer risk among the vaccinated.
I’ve heard other claims, and it’s hard for me to believe that people actually credit some of the suppositions I hear about the vaccination. It’s true that these vaccines have the potential for side effects. For example, there was an increase in blood-clotting events with the adenovector virus vaccine, but there’s none with the mRNA vaccines (such as those made by Pfizer and Moderna).
mRNA vaccines do have a small increase in the number of myocarditis events, especially in young men. However, this number is small. Since the risk of myocarditis is high among people who were infected with COVID, once again, the vaccinated group has a lower overall risk. In the United States, states and counties that have a lower vaccination status show a much-higher risk of overall death rates than their neighbors. Vaccination is an important part of this.
Having had this conversation with many people, I know that there will be some people who will dismiss all of the research as “fake” or claim that researchers were “bought off.” I can only answer that I know some of the many researchers who’ve studied this and know how dedicated they are. If there potentially was a serious danger signal to the vaccines, they’d want to alert the world.
Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth@med.cornell.edu. (c) 2026 North America Syndicate Inc.
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