The Claim
Anti-vaccine campaigners claim that athlete deaths and injuries are rising in numbers due to the COVID-19 vaccines. This narrative started after NFL football player Damar Hamlin suddenly experienced cardiac arrest during a game where he ended up having to be hospitalized.
Who’s behind the information?
Reading up on this topic I found that the primary source of this false narrative came from an anonymous website called “Good Sciencing”. This website is a small team of investigators, news editors, journalists, and truth seekers, now backed up by others, who are discovering pieces of information that they can investigate. This website counts all deaths, from all age groups, that are listed in the media reports that have anything to do with sports. It says even experts have looked and paid attention to patients fitting this narrative, so they could do their research on it. None of the information on the website is accurate. From this website, people have started to believe this claim, anti-vaxxers forming an unreliable image even backing up this claim showing an image that gave information comparing numbers of deaths to sudden cardiac arrest deaths among athletes.
Also, Damar Hamlin, foot-ball player on the Buffalo Bills suffered a cardiac arrest during the game and Fox News encouraged the faulty information that COVID-19 vaccinations were causing an increase in athlete deaths.
Look Into the Evidence & Experts or Do A Keyword Search
This is a list of reliable evidence from journals that show the false claim or contradicts the false claim that athlete deaths are surging due to the COVID-19 vaccine.
According to a study published in European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, the investigators noted that sudden death in athletes are related to underlying cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Jonathan Drezner, director of the University of Washington’s Center for Sports Cardiology, said there is “no scientific evidence” that either COVID-19 or the mRNA vaccines have increased sudden cardiac arrest, often referred to as SCA, among athletes.
In August 2023, a recent study published in British Journal of Sports Medicine published a finding that indicated that athletes engaged in intensive activity are not at increased risk for hear complications following vaccinations.
Our rating
The claim is not legit whatsoever. Anti-vaxxers made up the claim to make the vaccines seem more harmful than they were already making them out to be. The data and images the website was making were inaccurate and deaths and the vaccine information didn’t correlate.
