348% increase in Cardiac Arrest rate, 35% increase in Stroke rate, Pop.=4.5 million

Israel's '21-'22 leap in morbidity has not yet been addressed nor explained

Hebrew version לקריאה בעברית

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Cardiac arrest diagnoses, rate per 1 million. Source: Clalit Health Fund

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Stroke diagnoses, rate per 100k. Source: Clalit Health Fund

Data sources:
1. Number of diagnoses: FOIA response from Clalit, Israel’s largest health fund.
2. No. of clients in the health fund per year: Israel National Insurance (Bituach Leumi).

Clarifications attached to the data (from Clalit health fund, translated):

1. Information involves only Clalit members, in all hospitals.
2. ‘Stroke’ includes both ischemic and hemorrhagic types.
3. There is an under-usage of Cardiac Arrest as a diagnosis during hospitalization and the use of this code is not clear.
4. The data represents the no. of hospitalizations per year, not the no. of patients hospitalized.
5. ‘Vaccinated prior to the event’ i.e. at least one vaccine.

Note that the data is raw. Any attempt to connect the vaccination status to cardiac arrest and stroke or death due to the forementioned causes is not based on this data, and requires full, organized research in accepted methodology which will enable isolation of the vaccination parameter from many other parameters that could influence the presence of ca and stroke or death due to the forementioned causes, including bias due to vaccination of specific populations, existence of comorbidities etc.
Without conducting such full, organized research, no conclusion can be drawn from the attached findings.

Regards,
Noa Danai
Manager, Knowledge & Information Management Division
Clalit Freedom of Information Act Trustee

Background

The original FOIA request (Freedom Of Information Act) sent by attorney Ori Shabi on May 30th, 2023 to Clalit health fund asked the following:

1. How many cardiac arrest cases of all types occurred to the health fund’s clients in each year between 2017-2022, and how many of those had died?

2. How many stroke cases of all types occurred to the health fund’s clients in each year between 2017-2022, and how many of those had died?

3. Additionally, during 2021-2022 how many of those were previously vaccinated against Covid-19 incl. vaccination in process (i.e. received at least one dose).

The response, sent on July 5th, contained the following data:

FOIA raw data

As mentioned somewhat unclearly in the remarks received from Clalit (clarification #3), the absolute number of cardiac arrest diagnoses may be significantly lower than expected (see raw data). There are no further explanations at this time.

Discussion

In addition to the data presented by the graphs above, the table also includes no. of deaths during hospitalization due to ca and stroke (see raw data table). On 2017-2019 the avg. deaths were practically zero for both diagnoses. By 2022 the no. of deaths climbed unexplainedly from zero (or close to zero) to 51 (ca), and to 154 (stroke). The British Heart Foundation also reports alarming signals involving heart conditions and stroke.

Possible causes

Prof. Retsef Levi’s article and the list of references at the end provide a good starting point for discussion on possible causes leading to the observed critical rise in cardiac arrest events.

The CDC and FDA had already raised a safety flag regarding a possible link between ischemic stroke and Pfizer’s bivalent Covid-19 vaccine (rollout Sep. 2022) based on the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) system, although recommendations to the public have not been changed.

Conclusion

It is impossible to establish a causal link between vaccination and ca / stroke strictly from the data received. Most of the elderly population was vaccinated and a high rate of vaccinated cases is to be expected. A follow-up FOIA request is being processed in order to better understand the effects on different age groups.

Full, in-depth, unbiased research is urgently required to investigate the rise in both diagnoses. Clalit, Israel’s largest health fund, has the data, the expertise and the funding to conduct such research.

The Ministry of Health, the official authority in charge of monitoring vaccine safety in Israel, is not monitoring cardiac arrest cases in real-time and has not received the data for 2021-2022 yet, as of May 22, 2023. Below is their statement, taken from another FOIA:

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