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A new study out of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dispels a popular coronavirus-related conspiracy theory that’s been popular among right-wingers.
For a while now, anti-vaxxers have pointed to highly publicized incidents of people — particularly, young people — suffering cardiac arrest and concluded that their conditions must have been caused by the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine. Several Fox News hosts, for example, tried to blame the vaccine for LeBron James Jr.'s suffering a cardiac arrest last summer. And prominent right-wing conspiracy theorists waged a similar disinformation campaign around Damar Hamlin, a player for the Buffalo Bills who suffered cardiac arrest during a game in January 2023.
The CDC conducted tests over multiple years that disprove a link between mRNA vaccines and cardiac arrest. The study looked at more than 1,000 death certificates of young people who died of heart conditions or of unknown causes from June 2021 to December 2022, a period in which nearly 1 million young people got vaccinated.
The authors refined their focus to people who got an mRNA Covid vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna and died within 100 days of being vaccinated. Out of 40 deaths that occurred among people who got an mRNA Covid vaccine, three occurred within that time frame. Two of the deaths were attributed to chronic underlying health conditions. The third death was recorded as an “undetermined natural cause,” with toxicology tests returning negative for alcohol, cannabis, methamphetamine or other illicit substances. The medical examiner could neither confirm nor exclude Covid vaccination as the cause of death; however, none of the death certificates attributed the fatalities to the vaccines.
Dr. Leslie Cooper, chair of the cardiology department at the Mayo Clinic, told NBC News that the researchers behind the study went “above and beyond to try and capture any possible cardiac death from vaccinations,” yet they found none.
To be crystal clear, this is precisely why reputable health experts have tried so hard to dispel conspiracy theories that link the Covid vaccine to cardiac arrest. Because the evidence for people having cardiac arrest as a result of taking a vaccine is nonexistent. And the potential for any heart problems as a result of taking a vaccine is extremely rare — while experiencing heart problems after catching Covid is not.
Seems like a pretty obvious incentive to get vaccinated unless your doctor suggests otherwise. But that right-wingers ran with the cardiac arrest conspiracy theory is another manifestation of the conservative war on public health, which you can read more about here.