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How the falsehood of athletes dying from COVID vaccines spread
Feb. 1, 2022 at 5:11 am
By
The Washington Post
“Of course, we’ve heard story after story. I mean, all these athletes dropping dead on the field, but we’re supposed to ignore that.” — Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in an interview on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” Jan. 27
Johnson made this comment after he asserted that there have been “more than 22,000 deaths reported in association with the [coronavirus] vaccines” — and then quickly adding “that doesn’t prove causation.”
We have explored before how Johnson routinely raises concerns about vaccines by citing data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a database co-managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. Anyone can submit a report to VAERS, and the reports are not verified. The numbers are basically meaningless.
In this instance, we are more interested in his comment about “athletes dropping dead on the field.” His staff says, as with his references to VAERS, that Johnson is just asking questions, not making factual claims.
“Senator Johnson stated he has heard stories of athletes dying on the field and those should be investigated,” spokeswoman Alexa Henning said. “The Senator’s point in raising these issues has always been that our federal health agencies should be concerned about reports on adverse reactions related to COVID-19 vaccines and they should fully investigate and make their findings available to the American people.”
She provided a link to a website called Good Sciencing, maintained by anonymous people, that has a blog post with the headline, as of Jan. 31: “577 Athlete Cardiac Arrests, Serious Issues, 352 Dead, After COVID Shot.”
Here’s the rub: This claim has been debunked repeatedly. The story of athletes dropping dead from coronavirus vaccines has its roots in mysterious Austrian websites with ties to that country’s far-right populist party, the Freedom Party. Those stories were then recycled by right-wing media in the United States and then eventually came out of the mouth of a U.S. senator.
As is often the case, a kernel of truth — some people have reported an inflammation of the heart muscle known as myocarditis after taking mRNA-based vaccines — has been exploited by purveyors of falsehoods. Medical research shows the risk of getting myocarditis from the coronavirus itself is about 100 times higher than getting it from a vaccine.
Let’s follow the misinformation trail.
On June 12, during the Euro 2020 match between Denmark and Finland, 29-year-old Christian Eriksen suffered cardiac arrest shortly before halftime. Almost immediately, there was speculation online that the midfielder, who had seemed healthy, had a reaction to a coronavirus vaccine — even though his club football team, Inter Milan, said he had not been vaccinated.
Lubos Motl, a blogger and physicist with a history of making false claims about coronavirus vaccines, tweeted that Eriksen had received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine 12 days earlier. He claimed his source was a radio interview with Inter Milan’s chief medic and cardiologist, an interview that never happened and was quickly denied by Inter Milan and Radio Sportiva.
Motl deleted his tweet, but it was amplified by other vaccine skeptics who did not delete their tweets, such as Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, and Brazilian journalist Allan dos Santos. (Their Twitter accounts were later suspended, as was Motl’s.) The false claim quickly spread to Facebook, in many languages.
One entity that jumped on the story was Report24, a German-language website based in Austria. A commentary by a staff member identified as “Willi Huber” cited another Berenson tweet to claim that Inter Milan actually had started vaccinating players in March. (In reality, the Italian team did not schedule vaccinations until July, according to Italian news reports, before the start of the new season.) “If Eriksen was vaccinated with the Pfizer/Biotech vaccine, a possible side effect would be myocarditis,” Huber wrote.
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Report24’s post caught the attention of vaccine skeptics in the United States.
On Nov. 4, the HighWire tweeted a translation of the Austrian article to its more than 100,000 followers. The HighWire is associated with the anti-vaccination group Informed Consent Action Network, which is headed by Del Bigtree, a major voice in the anti-vaccination movement.
Two days later, Granite Grok — run by what it calls “fire-breathing, right-wing, hard-charging, gun-toting, opinionated, outspoken, rabble-rousing, letter-writing, radio microphone stomping, Conservatives and Rational Libertarians” — also posted about the Report24 article.
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That same month, the website Good Sciencing jumped on the bandwagon, posting a list of nearly 200 athletes and almost 100 deaths — which quickly grew. On Dec. 6, the popular right-wing website Gateway Pundit reported on an updated Good Sciencing list that now claimed nearly 300 athletes had collapsed or suffered cardiac arrests after getting a coronavirus vaccine in 2021, with many dying. That list, apparently assembled in part with help from a closed “sudden injuries and deaths” Telegram messenger group, was fact-checked by FactCheck.org and found riddled with errors.
Nevertheless, the list circulated “like wildfire” among players in Europe’s top soccer league, according to The New York Times, hampering vaccination efforts among players. Reports also spread that 108 FIFA soccer players had died in a six-month period in 2021. That was fact-checked as false by Reuters.
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This depressing saga shows how “just asking questions” is used as a get-out-of-jail card for those peddling falsehoods about the coronavirus vaccines. These lists of athletes, often assembled by anonymous individuals with no apparent medical credentials, are sketchy and anecdotal; there is no baseline comparison that would put these figures in context. Caveats that would detract from the scare headlines are buried.
Meanwhile, these reports have had their intended effect: spreading fear among athletes about COVID vaccinations. A responsible politician would determine the facts, not “ask questions” premised on unverified claims made by bottom-feeders of the internet.
Anyone who spreads this misinformation, in whatever form, earns Four Pinocchios.
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This is the misleading post received via WhatsApp:
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German news agency compiles a list of 75 European athletes who have died “suddenly” in the past 5 months since being fully vaccinated.
Here are some articles about some of them:
“Giuseppe Perrino is dead: heart attack at 29! Footballer collapses on the soccer field and dies.”
“In the European Championship game against Finland, the Dane Christian Eriksen suddenly collapses. Medical helpers initiated life-saving measures with cardiac muscle massage.”
https://m.faz.net/aktuell/sport/fussball-em/christian-eriksen-kollaps-daenemark-verliert-em-spiel-gegen-finnland-17325035.html
“Speed skater Kjeld Nuis is very sick after vaccination: ‘The body is not cooperating.'”
https://www.rtlboulevard.nl/entertainment/showbizz/artikel/5241690/kjeld-nuis-ziek-na-vaccinatie
“Bielefeld footballer suffers cardiac arrest on the field.”
https://www.lz.de/owl/23056948_Bielefelder-Fussballer-erleidet-Herzstillstand-auf-dem-Platz.html
“19-year-old Belgian handball player dies of cardiac arrest.”
https://www.handball-world.news/o.red.r/news-1-2-17-43217.html
“Former French professional footballer Franck Berrier dies of multiple heart attacks while playing tennis.”
https://kendte.dk/kendte/fik-to-hjerteanfald-pa-fa-timer/819228!/
“The 17-year-old footballer collapsed on the field of a heart attack. On the way to the hospital, he suffered a second heart attack. Four days later, he died.”
https://www.rtl.de/cms/fussball-drama-nach-doppeltem-herzinfarkt-17-jaehriges-talent-dylan-rich-stirbt-an-herzversagen-4826938.html
“Norwegian Footballer suffers cardiac arrest. Player collapses on court — second division game canceled.”
https://www.express.de/sport/fussball/drama-in-norwegen-fussballer-bricht-mit-herzstillstand-zusammen-78226
“Marathon runner Alexaida Guédez dies of sudden heart attack.”
https://www.el-carabobeno.com/alexaida-guedez-muere-de-un-infarto/
“Another day, another professional soccer player has an on-field cardiac arrest. This time: Emil Palsson. He was 28, and Icelandic. Iceland has an 84% full-vaccination rate.”
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/another-day-another-professional/comments
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Fact or Fiction: Video shows athletes fainting due to COVID-19 vaccine?
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A video making the rounds on social media claims to show a compilation of athletes fainting because they took the Covid-19 vaccine.
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FactCheck.org
Article Makes Unfounded Claims Linking Athletes’ Injuries, Deaths to Vaccines
By Saranac Hale Spencer, Brea Jones, Tess Hancock and Eugene Kiely
Posted on December 17, 2021
SciCheck Digest
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Many U.S. athletes have been vaccinated against COVID-19 without any adverse effects. But a conservative outlet has cited a list of supposedly vaccine-injured athletes to claim “there may be something wrong with the vaccine.” There’s no proof that the listed athletes — most of them are actually retired — were harmed by the vaccines.
But a bogus claim has been circulating on social media that a rash of athletes have either been injured or died from the vaccines.
Reuters wrote about a version of this claim that centered on soccer players. We’ll focus on a claim from the conservative outlet Gateway Pundit, which featured a list of athletes, compiled by goodsciencing.com, who supposedly suffered vaccine-related injuries or death. Good Sciencing, a website that is run anonymously, claims to track instances of “young athletes who had major medical issues in 2021 after receiving one or more COVID vaccines.”
According to the Gateway Pundit, the list “shows that there may be something wrong with the vaccine if the world’s greatest athletes suffer or die after taking the vaccines.”
More than 300 athletes — including students, professionals, amateurs and retirees — from around the world were included. We reviewed publicly available information for each of the 19 professional athletes who either came from or played in the U.S. We found no proof of a causal relationship in any of the cases between the vaccines and the injuries or deaths.
We also found:
- Despite the description of them as “athletes,” 13 of the 19 were retired from their sport.
- Although Good Sciencing claims COVID-19 vaccines were to blame for the deaths or injuries, the website provides no evidence in most cases — 16 of the 19 — that the athletes and former athletes were even vaccinated.
- While in most cases the cause of death or injury remains unknown, we found several cases in which the men or their families point to other causes, such as medical histories. In one case, a former hockey player had been struggling with a drug addiction and died of an overdose, not from a vaccine.
- There were two cases in which athletes claimed that they had suffered an adverse reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine, but in one of those cases the athlete retracted his claim.
Click on the link for EACH of the athletes mentioned by Gateway Pundit:
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Reuters
Fact Check-No evidence COVID-19 vaccines are linked to athletes collapsing or dying from myocarditis
Refiling to correct spelling of Christian Eriksen’s name
There is no evidence currently that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to an increase in sportspeople collapsing or dying due to heart issues such as myocarditis.
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One clip shared on Facebook (here) shows several incidents of football players collapsing on the pitch. It also includes news headlines about similar cases from around the world of sport, both professional and amateur.
Another post (here) includes a link to a blog (here) which strongly suggests the incidents are related to COVID-19 vaccines.
Reuters presented the posts to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the British regulator for drugs and vaccines, which said there is currently no supporting evidence to back up such claims.
MHRA chief executive Dr June Raine said: “The MHRA closely monitors the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, including reports of suspected heart inflammation, myocarditis or pericarditis.
“Myocarditis or pericarditis remains a very rare potential risk with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and the events reported are typically mild with individuals usually recovering within a short time with standard treatment and rest. The current evidence does not suggest that sporting exercise is a contributing risk for these very rare events.
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Reuters also presented the videos to FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, which said: “FIFA is not aware of a rise in episodes of cardiac arrests as indicated in your email and no cases have been flagged in relation to individuals receiving a COVID vaccine.
“Generally speaking, FIFA is in regular contact with leading research centres and experts to do research on a variety of medical topics.”
Moreover, the Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) organisation, a British charity that funds medical research and supports families of young people affected by heart conditions, told Reuters they were “not aware” of any published or peer-reviewed researched into alleged links between sudden cardiac arrests in athletes and COVID-19 vaccines. “It’s important to understand that young sudden cardiac death (in both sportspeople and the general population) is tragically not a new phenomenon,” they said.
CRY also pointed Reuters toward data published in 2008, which showed 12 ‘apparently fit and healthy’ young people (aged 35 and under) die in the United Kingdom every week from previously undiagnosed heart conditions (www.c-r-y.org.uk/statistics/ and here).
In 2018, prior to the pandemic, CRY announced the findings of a 10-year study, which concluded sudden cardiac death in elite footballers was more common than initially thought.
“Despite screening, cardiac conditions are still the leading cause of death in footballers,” Professor Sanjay Sharma, CRY’s cardiologist and a leading sports cardiologist at St George’s University of London, said at the time (here).
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Reuters has investigated each clip shown in the two videos relevant to this fact check. There were 64 cases in total and at least 19 were related to reasons separate to COVID-19 vaccines. Within that 19, some individuals had not received a jab, while others were down to other medical conditions such as low blood pressure, heat exhaustion, historical heart issues or COVID-19 infection-induced myocarditis. Others occurred too early in the global vaccine rollout, while one was a death from six years earlier.
Some 45 cases were unverifiable for several reasons, such as some of the clips and headlines providing insufficient information to research, coroner reports not yet being completed, or clubs and sporting organisations not yet responding for comments. Nonetheless, Reuters has so far been unable to find any credible suggestions of a link between these specific cases and COVID-19 vaccines.
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VERDICT
No evidence. There is currently no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to reported incidents of athletes collapsing in public.
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-sport-idUSL1N2SK160
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Politifact
By Monique Curet November 19, 2021
Bloggers stated on November 10, 2021 in an article: “German News Agency Tracks 75 Prominent Athletes Suddenly Dead Of Heart Attacks After COVID Vax”
Dozens of prominent athletes did not die of heart attacks after COVID-19 vaccination
If Your Time is short
• The claim cites a German news story, which did not report that all of the athletes listed had died, did not say they all had heart attacks and included a disclaimer that not all of the people listed became ill because of vaccination.
• Of the 75 athletes included on the list, not all died and not all were vaccinated against COVID-19.
• Some who died had a history of heart problems or family history of death by heart attack.
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The first person named, Italian soccer player Giuseppe Perrino, died of a heart attack June 2 while playing in a soccer game honoring his brother who had died of a heart attack while cycling in 2018. A headline on a news story about Perrino’s death reads, “Heart attack kills Giuseppe Perrino like brother Rocco.” Stories about his death do not mention COVID-19 vaccination.
The second person on the list, Danish soccer player Christian Eriksen, is alive. Eriksen collapsed June 12 during a soccer game after a cardiac arrest. Misinformation quickly circulated that Eriksen had received the COVID-19 vaccine a few weeks before his collapse, but the director of his professional team debunked the rumor. Eriksen had not been vaccinated against COVID-19, PolitiFact and other outlets reported.
Speed skater Kjeld Nuis is listed third, and he is also alive. He experienced inflammation of the sac surrounding his heart in July following COVID-19 vaccination, but he “recovered well” and joined a training camp two weeks later, Netherland News Live reported.
Farther down the list is French former soccer player Franck Berrier, who died of a heart attack in August while playing tennis — two years after retiring from soccer because of heart problems. Stories about his death do not mention any link to COVID-19 vaccination.
Despite the headline identifying the athletes as “prominent,” the list includes a Belgian handball player and a 17-year-old high school student.
A translation of the German news story says the list includes not only those who died after cardiac events, but also people who survived. The Mic Drop Politics article, however, does not make that distinction. The German news story also says it is “not claiming that all of these people fell ill and died because of the vaccination.”
Our ruling
A Facebook post included an article with the headline, “German News Agency Tracks 75 Prominent Athletes Suddenly Dead Of Heart Attacks After COVID Vax.”
The article cites a German news story that did not report that information. The athletes listed in the German news story did not all die, nor did they all have heart attacks.
Some of the people listed were not vaccinated against COVID-19, and some who died had a history of heart problems or a family history of death by heart attack.
We rate this claim False.
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