WASHINGTON –
Unsubstantiated claims about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines spread in the hours and days after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during Monday’s game, revealing just how widespread vaccine misinformation is three years after the pandemic began.
Even before Hamlin was carted off the field in Cincinnati, posts racking up thousands of shares and millions of views began circulating online, claiming without evidence that complications from the COVID-19 vaccines had caused the health emergency.
Although cardiologists say it’s too early to know what caused Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, they suggest a rare type of trauma called commotio cordis as among the possible culprits. Doctors interviewed by The Associated Press said there was no indication that Hamlin’s vaccination status played a role and said there was no evidence to support claims that a number of young athletes have died as a result of COVID vaccinations.
Peter McCullough, a Dallas cardiologist and outspoken vaccine critic, expanded on the theories in a Fox News segment hosted by Tucker Carlson on Tuesday, speculating that “vaccine-induced myocarditis” may have caused Hamlin’s episode. Although the Bills are not saying whether Hamlin has been vaccinated, about 95 percent of NFL players have received a vaccine against COVID-19, according to the league.
In his Tuesday segment, Carlson claimed that McCullough and another researcher found that “more than 1,500 total cardiac arrests” have occurred among European athletes “since the beginning of the vax campaign.”
But Carlson cited a letter in which the authors’ evidence was a dubious blog listing news of people around the world, of all ages, dying or experiencing medical emergencies. The blog does not prove a link between the incidents and the COVID-19 vaccines; it also includes in its count reported deaths from cancer and emergencies of unknown cause.
“It’s not a real study, but he cites it like it’s a real study,” said Dr. Matthew Martinez, director of sports cardiology at Atlantic Health System at Morristown Medical Center. “Anyone can write a letter to the editor and then cite an article that lacks academic rigor.”
Many social media users have also shared hoax videos purporting to show athletes collapsing on the field due to COVID-19 vaccines. However, some of the cases shown have proven to be due to other causes.
Although anti-vaccine influencers insist that sudden cardiac arrests during sports games are unprecedented, cardiologists say they have seen these traumatic events throughout their careers and long before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There have always been cases of athletes with sudden cardiac death or cardiac arrest,” said Dr. Lawrence Phillips, a sports health expert and cardiologist at NYU Langone Health. “I haven’t noticed a change in their prevalence in the last few years compared to earlier in my career.”
In fact, Phillips said, these rare medical emergencies are the main reason doctors and activists have spent years campaigning for defibrillators to be on hand at sporting events.
That pressure and the implementation of emergency action plans improved outcomes after cardiac events on the field of play, although the number of such events remained “remarkably stable,” Martinez said.
Martinez, who has worked for the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and the Major League Soccer, said he has investigated but has not seen any signals that COVID-19 or vaccines are causing an increased rate of cardiac events among athletes.
His research shows that among professional athletes who had COVID-19, rates of inflammatory heart disease were about 0.6 percent — indicating no increased risk compared to other viruses.
Online posts mentioning Hamlin and vaccines jumped into the thousands within an hour of Hamlin’s collapse, according to an analysis conducted for the AP by Zignal Labs, a San Francisco-based media intelligence company.
It’s not surprising that misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccines have increased since Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, given how much vaccine misinformation has spread since the start of the pandemic, said Jeannine Guidry, a University of Virginia professor who researches health misinformation and vaccine hesitancy.
High-profile public events like Hamlin’s collapse often create new waves of misinformation as people scramble for explanations. For people concerned about vaccine safety, Hamlin’s sudden collapse served to confirm and vindicate their beliefs, Guidry said.
“It happened to a man in the prime of his life, on prime-time television, and people watching didn’t immediately understand why,” she said. “We want to have clear answers that make us feel more secure. Especially after the last three years, I think it comes from fear and uncertainty.”
Such unsubstantiated claims of vaccine injury increased last month after the death of sports journalist Grant Wall, who died of a burst blood vessel in his heart while covering the World Cup in Qatar. His death was not vaccine-related.
Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
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