Bogus Claims About Increased Athlete Cardiac Arrest Due to COVID-19 Vaccine
In the wake of the scary events of January 2, 2023, when NFL player Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest before a national television audience, I saw an uptick in claims that athletes have seen an dramatic increase in cardiac arrest deaths since the COVID-19 vaccine was introduced in January 2021. For example, a screen capture of this tweet has been floating around:
Similarly, Tucker Carlson cited these numbers this week.
https://twitter.com/Newsfilter2/status/1610554857093464064?s=20&t=LEvFbfYYR64QvCU4xQOGTQ
I decided to look into this, mostly out of morbid curiosity. But I also thought I should have an open mind. I am glad I looked. I can say without qualification it is one of the stupidest, fake-scienciest “studies” I’ve ever seen. For those who don’t want to spend the time to dig in like I did, let me summarize, briefly.
The tweet cited a letter to the editor in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, arguing that, “From January 2021 to the time of writing, 1598 athletes suffered cardiac arrest, 1101 of which with deadly outcone. Notably, in a 38-year timespan (1966–2004), 1101 athletes under the age of 35 died due to various heart-related conditions.”
Using the title of the letter, I was able to find that letter in full:
The 1598/1101 figure cites to a website:
https://goodsciencing.com/covid/athletes-suffer-cardiac-arrest-die-after-covid-shot/
As of January 6, 2023, this website lists 1,616 “athletes” who reportedly “suffered cardiac arrest” since January 2021. The headline reads, “1616 Athlete Cardiac Arrests, Serious Issues, 1114 of Them Dead, Since COVID Injection.”
First, please note: the website acknowledges it does not have vaccination status for these athletes and blames this on a cover-up. That’s a problem.
The stupidest thing of all, though, reveals itself when you read the list of 1,616 athletes (I did not read them all; I just spot checked a couple of months worth).
For example, in December 2022 they list 32 athletes. Of those 32 athletes, 16 (50%) were not under 35, which is the age cut-off they are comparing against. Some of these “athletes” listed were in their 60s and 70s. That leaves 16 athletes under 35. Of those 16, the website includes:
- A 35-year old soccer player who was diagnosed with a “change in heart rate” during a routine exam and will be re-evaluated. This is not cardiac arrest.
- A 34-year old weight lifter who suffered cardiac arrest “hours after undergoing surgery to remove a 1 kg tumor that had been restricting her main heart artery.”
- A 23-year old football player who had blood clots in his leg.
- A college basketball player who had blood clots in her lungs.
- A 34-year old woman in a gym who died of a brain aneurysm.
- A 16-year old football player in Mississippi who died. The website acknowledges it does not know how he died. It does not know if he was participating in sports when he died. Doesn’t matter. They count it.
So from 32 we are down to 10. And it’s still not a like-comparison.
Many of the remaining ten deaths of athletes under 35 listed for December 2022 have a cause of death unknown. But the comparison they have made is to the study looking at “reported” incidents of “sudden cardiac death” in athletes from 12–35 years old from 1966 to 2004. That study pulled these numbers from a limited number of databases using keyword searches:
For a meta-analysis of the existing literature on sudden death in sports and the effectiveness of PPSP, the following databases were searched: Medline (OVID Web, 19662004), PubMed (19662004), Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, EBM Reviews ACP Journal Club, Cinahl 19822004, Heracles, Web of Science, Scopus <19602004. We used ‘sudden cardiac death’ and ‘preparticipation’ as keywords, combined with ‘sports’, ‘sports medicine’, ‘athletic injuries’, ‘exercise’ and ‘athletes’. Restrictions were English language and human subjects. To be overinclusive, there were no restrictions concerning age, sex, or study methodology. The keyword search yielded MeSH headings, which were exploded before they were combined. For study and data selection, we reviewed the results of the search and selected and grouped all studies reporting on SCD (reported cases) and the use of PPSP. Sudden death in athletes by other causes such as neurovascular, heat and doping were excluded and will not be discussed.
What is probably obvious to most reading this with any ability to think critically is made plain by the authors of that study, when they discuss their study’s limitations:
The most important limitation however is that SCD in young athletes as reported in the published and studied papers is certainly underestimated. Most of the events occur in youth potentially involved in sports activities, which are not reported in the literature. SCD is therefore likely to have comprised more than the 1101 athletes in the 38-year period across the world, which we reported. The lack of national or international registers and the uncertainty of the number of athletes involved forms the basis of this problem. An effort to inventory all cases of SCD in the future seems mandatory.
A bias resides in the fact that some articles do not give the precise age of every case reported, but sometimes only an age range for the whole group considered.
This is because the authors of the study were not interested in finding the actual numbers. They did not do an exhaustive search. Instead their stated purpose was “achieving a generally acceptable preparticipation screening protocol (PPSP) endorsed by the consensus meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).” In other words, they were looking to show that sudden cardiac death occurs in younger athletes in order to convince organizations that pre-screening for heart defects was necessary.
Conversely, the website indirectly cited by the letter to the editor is searching for (and crowd sourcing for) an exhaustive list of any athlete who has died or suffered some health-related scare, for seemingly any reason, since January 2021.
Anyone citing the tweet, the letter to the editor it cites, or the website that the letter cites, to make any argument that MRNA vaccines are causing an increase in sudden cardiac death should be embarrassed.
