Are Athletes Dropping Dead?
It seems like anti-vaxxers are coming up with new misinformation daily to agitate their stance. And almost certainly — they know it is misleading. At least they are not retracting things when it is clearly shown to be false.
Worse, thousands are sharing this information on social media uncritically, without fact-checking things — making it seem like the “evidence” is everywhere. Take the latest meme about athletes dropping dead around the world as a result of taking the vaccine.
The video in question, was eventually flagged by Facebook as false news, and I won’t post a link to it here. But basically it combines ominous music with short clips of athletes collapsing while doing various kinds of sports — in what seems to be cardiac distress. Then it’s insinuated these individuals were experiencing the consequence of taking the covid vaccine.
Numerous fact-checking organizations have debunked this claim for a number of obvious reasons, including this piece at Politifact. To quote Matthew Martinez, a “sports cardiologist” who works with professional athletes in many different sports, “To date, I am not aware of a single covid vaccine-related cardiac complication in the professional sports”.
Danish soccer player, Christian Ericksen, is shown collapsing in June of this year — but has since issued a statement making it clear he wasn’t vaccinated at the time. Similarly, basketball player Keyontae Johnson, shown collapsing, did so in December of 2020 before the covid vaccines were authorized. And his family has issued a statement making it clear, it wasn’t a covid related incident. Young athletes can suffer cardiac issues for multiple reasons, including excess exertion, dehydration, and heat stroke among others. And “we have no data to suggest that the frequency of sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death in athletes is higher now than it was in the past”.
This article debunks another pseudo-study highlighting recent athlete deaths supposedly due to the vaccine. In this case, the fact checking document reviews each cited example explicitly and shows in pretty much every case there was 1) no evidence it was covid related, or that 2) the real cause was some other health condition. In fact, 3) the article doesn’t even confirm these athletes were vaccinated!
Pedro Feliciano, for example, an MLB pitcher who died in November had retired 7 years period, after being diagnosed with a small hole in his heart in 2013. Similarly, John Meadows a professional bodybuilder who died in August, had a heart attack previously in May of 2020 (before the vaccines) and publicly announced he had a serious blood problem creating clots. And Vin Curry, a defensive end for the Jets developed a rare blood disorder he later said was hereditary. C.J. Hunter, a retired Olympic shot putter died of unknown causes in November, but was known to use illegal performance enhancing drugs, and in fact was banned from the sport for two years as a result. Jimmy Hayes, a hockey player was found dead as a result of a drug overdose. To throw these kind of examples around and suggest it is proof the vaccines are dangerous is almost surely deliberate disinformation.
This is not to say, there is no risk associated with the vaccine. Kjeld Nuis, a speed skater shown in the video, did have a heart problem one week after receiving the vaccine — but quickly recovered and was back in training within days. He did not say it was related to the vaccine but it’s certainly possible (source).
The CDC has been upfront from the beginning that there are potential side effect to any vaccine, just that the risk that comes with natural infection is far greater. In an interesting study published at the NIH, incidents of myocarditis in the military following a covid vaccine were analyzed. The results? After administering 2.8 million doses of the vaccine, 23 male patients developed chest pain. And 8 were diagnosed with myocarditis. All of them recovered. So it shouldn’t surprise us that one or two athletes might have mild side effects — after all over 94% of the NFL are vaccinated, 95% in the NBA, and more than 99% in the NHL. If in all of these thousands, one athlete has a confirmed mild reaction, should we really be alarmed?
Remember, that the same spike protein created by the vaccine to bolster our immunity is present in any covid infection, only multiplied many times over. One of the athletes cited as having myocarditis was Alex Stalock, a goalie for the Oilers. But ironically, he developed it after testing positive for a covid infection — before being vaccinated! Which just illustrates my point. Even if a tiny percentage do have a reaction to the vaccine (less than 1 in 100,000 per the NIH study) covid itself causes death in as much as 1% of the cases (source). Meaning you are 1000 times as likely to die from covid as to have a mild reaction to the vaccine. Granted, we’re comparing healthy soldiers here, to the general population — but the point is clear, the covid vaccine is far safer than covid itself.
It is one thing for a person to not want to be vaccinated for moral or religious reasons. But it is completely lacking in integrity to use (and recycle) fabricated and fallacious evidence to try and bolster your position. Isn’t it better to make decisions based on sound evidence, than to make up evidence that suits your decision?
There’s little question the popularity of disinformation like this shows major cognitive bias at work in our world. But the Bible warns us of this kind of thinking, and Christians should have no part in it. To quote Proverbs 21:2, “every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts”. Not realizing our natural tendency as humans to seek out information that supports our views combined with a carelessness about validating it, is not true Christianity.
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