Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday asked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to apologise for blaming the wave of cardiac arrests in Karnataka — specifically in Hassan district — on COVID-19 vaccination, after an expert panel ruled out any basis for this assertion. A government-formed panel concluded there is no one factor behind the reported rise in sudden cardiac deaths. Instead, it characterised the phenomenon as being multifactorial in nature, with behavioural, genetic, and environmental risk factors involved.
The BJP asserted that the Chief Minister should offer an unconditional apology for levelling what it termed as a "baseless allegation." Describing Siddaramaiah's statement as "irresponsible," Union Minister Pralhad Joshi observed that leading national institutions such as the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and AIIMS-Delhi have all made it clear that there is no scientific evidence establishing a link between COVID-19 vaccines and heart attacks.
"Siddaramaiah is deliberately making such statements because the vaccine was developed during Prime Minister Modi’s tenure,” Joshi said in Hubballi. "They assumed the pandemic would politically damage the Prime Minister—people would suffer and turn against him. But PM Modi handled COVID with sensitivity and care.” Joshi said that because the Prime Minister was widely credited with managing the pandemic effectively, the opposition was resorting to unfounded claims.
Also read: 23 heart attack deaths in 40 days in Hassan; vaccine link probed
"While NCDC and AIIMS debunked any association of vaccines with cardiac occurrences after ICMR, now the Karnataka state government's own Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology— a well-known institution not only in the state but in India as well—has also shown no correlation," Joshi added. He mentioned that the panel, chaired by Dr Ravindranath, Director of the Jayadeva Institute, was constituted by Siddaramaiah himself to investigate any likely connection between COVID vaccination and cardiac deaths. "The panel has clearly declared that COVID vaccines are not responsible for heart attacks. Will Siddaramaiah apologise now? I strongly denounce his statement," Joshi further added.
BJP spokesperson Dr CN Ashwath Narayan also attacked Siddaramaiah, saying that his remark was intended to discredit Indian-developed vaccines and insult the Prime Minister. "He questioned the effectiveness of a vaccine which has saved millions of lives, without specifying a scientific ground. Chief minister must apologise to the people of the state for giving false information," Narayan said.
The observational study from Jayadeva Institute didn't find a connection between previous COVID-19 infection or vaccination with premature cardiovascular disease. "Most of the studies and reports from around the world did not identify any causal relationship between COVID-19 vaccination and sudden cardiac events. On the contrary, vaccination has been found to confer long-term protection against cardiac complications," observed the panel.
Siddaramaiah recently said that a series of heart attack deaths in Hassan district might be linked to the COVID-19 vaccines. He, further, said that vaccines were "hastily" approved. His remarks prompted sharp criticism from Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.
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