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Anti-Vaccine Conspiracies Run Wild Following Damar Hamlin's Cardiac Arrest During Last Night's NFL Game

January 3rd, 2023 - 1:40 PM EST by Brandon Wink

5 comments

(Twitter / @MiltonWolfMD, @shelby_lc)

In the middle of an NFL game last night, the Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin was tackled by a player, striking him in the chest. Hamlin then had to be rushed out of the arena after suffering cardiac arrest, believed to be caused by the tackle itself.

This belief is what football and third-party doctors stated following the injury, and largely what the leading thought online was regarding the cardiac arrest and Hamlin's condition, which is now reportedly listed as critical.

Since the tragic incident yesterday, users online have weighed in on Hamlin's injury in droves, many voicing their support or expressing their well wishes.

However, since the news has spread online like wildfire overnight, there has been an increased push on social media among some anti-vaxxers to attempt to point to Dr. Fauci and the CDC with an increased focus on the COVID-19 vaccine itself — spreading conspiracy theories that the "clot shot" (as some call it) is the cause of these types of injuries.

This partly stems from a highly controversial and speculative documentary called Died Suddenly, which purports that sports players having cardiac arrest moments will increase and that it was known to be a side-effect of the vaccine but was ignored. This caused a secondary agenda to be created and pushed, one where Hamlin's cardiac arrest was supposedly due to him taking the vaccine — despite no evidence supporting this.

This, as usual, caused a counter-movement in which people began attacking those who were saying that the vaccine was the cause of the cardiac arrest, causing the entire thing to come full circle as the injury itself took second stage among some circles and Hamlin's injury became another part of the long-going vaccine vs. no vaccine debate.

According to Damar Hamlin's team, the Bills issued a statement this afternoon and said he spent last night in the intensive care unit and remains there in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. The NFL has also released a statement and said the game will not be resumed this week.

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Comments 5 total

King Crimson

Jan 04, 2023 at 10:05AM EST
Remember when the antivax movement was a small, fringe collection of nutters? Boy I miss those days. Also any doctor who is pushing this nonsense should have their medical license revoked.
15

Rhettorical

Jan 04, 2023 at 05:09PM EST King Crimson

There's a stark difference between "the vaccines we give kids to protect them from things like polio cause autism" and "the vaccine that was rushed out without testing and which proves to be more of a scam as time goes on, might have adverse side-effects."

-1

Revic

Jan 04, 2023 at 05:38PM EST Rhettorical

And a difference in turn between that and "the vaccine is causing people to drop dead en masse, possibly intentionally".

0

*sigh*

Jan 04, 2023 at 10:23PM EST King Crimson

I remember when literally everything that so-called "anti-vaxxers" said got proven right about 6-10 months later the people who called them conspiracy theorists just ignored the fact that they were right and then pretended they were the right ones the whole time even though "the science changed".

-2

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