Every Famous or Sudden Death Now Provokes the Anti-Vaxxers

In the last couple of months, the anti-vaxxers have gone into overdrive about vaccine dangers.

With scant evidence, every unusual death or cardiac arrest is fodder for vaccine conspiracy theories. They post photos of celebrities as diverse as Irene Cara, Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills (who, thankfully, is recovering at home), and Lisa Marie Presley. They take a mad leap into assuming their fates were connected to the vaccine.

We still don’t know the cause of death for Irene Cara, who died at age 63, but neighbors say she was a recluse and didn’t look well for a few years. How folks can make the leap in logic that she died from a Covid vaccine is astonishing indeed.

As for Presley, I don’t know her vaccination status, but she revealed in interviews about her struggles with addiction — a lingering disease that perhaps contributed to her death, as it did for countless celebrities who died too young, such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Prince, and so many others.

Most NFL players have been vaccinated, so that probably includes Hamlin. However, any rare reaction from the vaccine usually occurs within days of the vaccine being administered, not months. Although rare, it is not unheard of for athletes to experience cardiac arrest. Consider basketball player Zeke Upshaw of The Grand Rapids Drive, who collapsed on the court during the final season game of 2018. He later died. Do a Google search. You’ll see that these sad news events occur a few times a year, long before Covid and the vaccine came into the picture.

One video making the rounds is of Ernest Ramirez, tearfully telling an audience about how his son collapsed and died during a basketball game in April 2021, just five days after being vaccinated. The cause given was myocarditis (sudden inflammation of the heart), and Ramirez attributes that to the vaccine. He also claims that FEMA contacted him and told him to say the cause of death was from Covid, so that they could help him financially.

I’m not going to dispute a father who is in the midst of deep grief. But for the rest of us, I would say that it’s important to hear the story and even be moved by it, but we shouldn’t let our emotions overrule the other set of facts. Truths are never black and white.

Fact: According to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, and supported by other organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Journal of Global Health, studies by the University of Maryland, New York University, and the Yale School for Public Health, since its rollout in late 2020, the vaccine has prevented at least 3 million deaths and 18 million hospitalizations from Covid. I can’t imagine how our already overburdened healthcare system, with thousands who have already left the profession, would have dealt with those numbers.

In recent days, the media has reported that there has been an increased risk of stroke among those getting the most recent booster. That immediately triggers fears and headlines and more conspiracy theories. But do most people look beyond the headlines?

If you keep reading, the statistics show that these ischemic (brain) strokes mostly occur in folks over the age of 65 (still bad) and within 21 days of receiving the booster. However, these numbers are so far in the dozens (out of about 15 million shots) and nobody has yet died of one of these strokes. Further study is warranted, but these numbers are a blip, not an epidemic by any stretch of the imagination.

Also, a study of those who were part of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health plan showed that over 3 million got the first dose, 2.9 million got a second dose, and 1.4 million got a third dose. According to the American Heart Association (usually a trusted source), in this study, there have been just 36 cases of myocarditis, which MAY have been related to the vaccine.

Another study by the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai detected a possible link between the Covid vaccine and POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), but it also concluded that your possibility of experiencing POTS is actually five times higher with Covid itself. Thus, the vaccine is still recommended to greatly reduce your chances of serious Covid (and, thus, POTS itself).

Any case is tragic, but it baffles me that a large group of folks are more bothered by these incidents than 1.1 million US deaths (and counting; still over 500 deaths per day) from Covid — deaths that are largely preventable at this point. Both the flu and Covid give you a far greater risk of myocarditis and death due to respiratory issues associated with them.

I’m not a doctor or a scientist. I have to do the research like anybody else. But I implore everybody to look beyond the flashy headlines and look into the numbers and the recommendations of the medical and scientific community. Perhaps that will comfort your fears.

But if you believe every scientific and medical organization is corrupt and politicized, nothing I can research or say is gonna help you. Good luck.