Former Pentagon health official Dr. Terry Adirim testified that she learned in spring 2021 of myocarditis cases among young male service members after COVID-19 vaccination, months before the Defense Department imposed its military-wide vaccine requirement.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
WASHINGTON — A former senior Pentagon health official involved in implementing the military’s 2021 COVID-19 vaccination requirement testified that she was informed months before the mandate about cases of myocarditis occurring among service members after vaccination.
Dr. Terry Adirim, who served as acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs during the Biden administration, made the statements during an August deposition released Sept. 16 by Feds For Freedom, an organization of federal workers that has challenged government COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Adirim said she could not recall the precise date of the briefing but placed it in spring 2021, shortly after she joined the Defense Department. She said physicians from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center informed her that they had observed what they considered a safety signal involving myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.
“It was five years ago, but what I recall is that they were reporting to me and members of my staff that they had noted a signal,” Adirim testified. “There were service members, young males in their early 20s, who had myocarditis. I recall them saying that it was after the second dose and there were mild cases of myocarditis.”
According to The Epoch Times, The briefing involved 23 service members diagnosed with myocarditis following vaccination, according to testimony described in the deposition.
The timing places Adirim’s awareness of the cases before Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for service members in August 2021.
By June 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was publicly reviewing an elevated risk of myocarditis following mRNA vaccination, particularly among adolescent and young adult males and most frequently after a second dose. The committee concluded June 23 that the benefits of vaccination outweighed the identified myocarditis risk.
Adirim testified that by the fall of 2021 she understood there was a causal association between COVID-19 vaccination and myocarditis but continued to support requiring vaccination for service members.
She said her recommendation was based on her review of scientific studies, the Food and Drug Administration’s assessment of the vaccines and her judgment regarding the relative threat COVID-19 posed to military personnel and readiness.
“My understanding is that the risk of COVID far, far away [sic], this very small number of side effects due to the vaccine, that it was causing disruption to our troops being able to perform their national security mission, and that the disease itself was far worse than any of the small number of mostly minor side effects,” Adirim said.
Adirim testified that nearly 100 service members had died from COVID-19 and thousands had been hospitalized, while saying she did not know the corresponding total number of military personnel who had experienced vaccine-related adverse effects.
The Defense Department was publicly emphasizing COVID-19’s effect on military readiness at the time. In May 2021, Adirim appeared at a Pentagon briefing in her position as acting assistant secretary for health affairs, and by June she was warning that the Delta variant posed a threat to unvaccinated and partially vaccinated military personnel.
Austin announced Aug. 9, 2021, that he intended to seek mandatory vaccination by mid-September unless an FDA-licensed COVID-19 vaccine became available sooner. The Pentagon said at the time that the three vaccines then in use were being administered under emergency use authorization.
That changed Aug. 23, when the FDA granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, marketed as Comirnaty, for people 16 and older. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine also continued to exist under an emergency use authorization for specified uses. The FDA said the approved product met its standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality.
Austin issued his military-wide vaccination directive immediately afterward. The Defense Department announced Aug. 25 that mandatory vaccination would use vaccines receiving full FDA licensure, while service members who voluntarily received vaccines under an FDA emergency use authorization or World Health Organization emergency listing would also count as fully vaccinated.
Adirim subsequently signed a Sept. 14 implementation memorandum addressing the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA product and licensed Comirnaty vaccine.
That memorandum said the two products had the same formulation and, citing FDA guidance, directed Defense Department health providers to use Pfizer-BioNTech doses distributed under the EUA interchangeably with Comirnaty for purposes of vaccinating service members under Austin’s mandate.
The distinction became a subject of litigation and objections from service members who argued they were being compelled to take doses labeled or distributed under an EUA despite the Defense Department’s description of the mandate as applying to an FDA-licensed product.
Feds For Freedom cited that history following publication of Adirim’s deposition.
“Service members were told they were receiving a licensed vaccine but instead were given EUA vials. For those who legally refused the shot, careers ended. Secretary [Pete] Hegseth has stated that the vaccine mandate was ‘unlawful as implemented,’” Stephanie Weidle, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “Adirim’s memo was the implementation. An investigation into Adirim is overdue.”
That statement reflects Feds For Freedom’s position regarding implementation of the mandate. FDA records show Comirnaty received full approval Aug. 23, 2021, and federal regulators described the licensed Comirnaty and Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine as having the same formulation.
The myocarditis issue was also evolving during the months preceding the mandate.
CDC researchers reported in July 2021 that the elevated risk was concentrated particularly among younger males after mRNA vaccination. Of 323 cases among people younger than 30 that met the agency’s myocarditis definitions at the time, 96% had been hospitalized. CDC characterized the acute clinical courses as generally mild, with 95% of those hospitalized and having known outcomes discharged by the time of its review and no deaths among that group.
Myocarditis can nevertheless produce chest pain, shortness of breath and heart rhythm symptoms, and medical guidelines call for restrictions on strenuous exercise while the heart recovers. CDC has acknowledged that severity varies among patients. Longer-term follow-up later found that most patients were considered fully or probably fully recovered, while a portion continued to report symptoms months after onset.
The material accompanying Adirim’s deposition also cited prior reporting that federal officials had received information about post-vaccination myocarditis months before the issue received broad public attention and pointed to cases in which myocarditis was listed on death certificates following vaccination.
Those issues are separate from determining causation in any individual death. CDC has recognized a rare causal association between certain COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis, particularly among adolescent and young adult males, but historical federal reviews also reported that most identified patients recovered and that the overall risk-benefit assessment favored vaccination at the time.
Adirim declined to comment on the newly released deposition.
Her testimony was taken as part of litigation stemming from her own termination from the federal government, according to Feds For Freedom.
The military COVID-19 vaccine requirement ultimately remained in effect until January 2023, when Austin rescinded the August 2021 and November 2021 vaccination requirements after Congress directed the Pentagon to end the mandate.
The newly released testimony provides additional detail about what a senior Pentagon health official knew about the myocarditis signal before the military vaccination requirement was imposed and how she weighed that risk against COVID-19 deaths, hospitalizations and military-readiness concerns when recommending vaccination.
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