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June 14, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The vaccine advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will convene an emergency meeting this week about heart-related side effects possibly linked to COVID-19 vaccines.

The meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), scheduled for June 18, will address reports of heart inflammation in young men who received a second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, the Epoch Times reported.

The CDC announced the emergency meeting last week, following reports of an unexpectedly high number of heart inflammation cases tracked by vaccine safety monitoring systems. The announcement comes two weeks after Israel’s Health Ministry said that such side effects were probably connected to vaccination.

In a meeting on Thursday, the CDC admitted that hundreds of reports of rare heart conditions, myocarditis or pericarditis, have been submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), an injury tracking system run by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

226 cases among people younger than 30 may fit the agency’s working definition of post-vaccine heart inflammation, CDC deputy director Dr. Tom Shimabukuro acknowledged on Thursday. Though most patients have recovered, 41 continue to experience symptoms, 15 remain in the hospital, and three are in intensive care, Shimabukuro told members of the FDA’s vaccine advisory group.

“I think the myocarditis is something that needs to be looked at closely because we’re likely seeing the tip of the iceberg,” Dr. Michael Kurilla, director of clinical innovation at the National Institutes of Health, said during the meeting, according to the Epoch Times.

“Because we’ve all discussed at fair length the concern about myocarditis and other side effects, which seem to generally be worse after the second dose, I think we need some studies on single dose and whether that might be adequate going forward,” pediatrics professor Dr. Mark Sawyer, of the University of California, San Diego, added.

Federal regulators have not yet recommended halting COVID-19 vaccination, including for young people, over the concerns, although the CDC previously recommended a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine over blood clot issues in April.

Johnson & Johnson’s jab again was dragged into controversy again last week when the FDA ordered the company to discard 60 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, citing contamination risks.