Reuters Fact Check: No evidence COVID-19 vaccines are linked to athletes collapsing or dying from myocarditis

Reuters ^ | 12/07/2021 | Reuters Fact Check

[SeekAndFind]

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.

Numerous montage videos showing sports stars collapsing or suffering chest pains during matches are circulating on social media (here, here).

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.

“The public’s safety is our top priority. Our advice remains that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks in the vast majority of people. It is vitally important that people come forward for their vaccination and for their booster doses when invited to do so.

[SeekAndFind]

Professor Jeffrey Morris, the director of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania (here), told Reuters there would need to be a high burden of proof to establish a link between anecdotal reports of footballers collapsing and vaccine-induced myocarditis.

He said via email: “One would, of course, need to establish the rate of cardiac arrest is higher than what is typical pre-pandemic, and then even if there is evidence of significantly excess events right now, determine whether it is being driven by COVID-19 infections (that might be undiagnosed, especially in young people) or the vaccines.

“I haven’t seen any data or papers connecting the dots to support this type of assertion, so I’d classify it as a hypothesis driven by anecdotal reports that are definitely worth following up on, but seems way premature to begin spreading the notion that it is the truth that these are driven by vaccination.”

Prof. Morris explained that several studies do indeed suggest a link between myocarditis and the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines – but said Israeli research found the risk of developing heart inflammation could be six times higher in those with COVID-19 itself.

He added: “Reports suggest that the vast majority of vaccine (and infection) induced myocarditis are mild and quickly resolve, with one paper showing that the rate of serious or long-term effects from myocarditis much higher in ‘classic’ myocarditis unrelated to COVID-19 than from infection or vaccines.”

Dr Scott Murray, clinical director of Cheshire-based heart clinic Venturi Cardiology, echoed Morris’ comments on the risk of myocarditis caused by vaccines compared with the risk posed by COVID-19.

He also said that attention to these cases was possibly due to high-profile incidents shared online, pointing to the widely publicized collapse in June of Danish footballer Christian Eriksen.

A claim about Eriksen was addressed by Reuters fact-checking team at the time ( here ).

VERDICT

No evidence. There is currently no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to reported incidents of athletes collapsing in public.

[bray]

Thank you Dr Rooters.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

There is also no evidence that Reuters is capable of accurately reporting anything.

[READINABLUESTATE]

Fact Check = opinion

[devere]

Reuters spews establishment nonsense.

[devere]

Reuters spews establishment nonsense.

[Seruzawa]

Morons. There is evidence. Anecdotal maybe but that’s how most investigations start. To say there is NO evidence is an outright lie.

We are going to need a very large prison to hold all the criminals who were part of the covid-jihad.

[madison10]

ROFL. Sure, whatever, Reuters. Do not recall these sort of deaths clustered like this in prior times.

[alternatives?]

There is no evidence that the increase is due to anything else.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Pravda has spoken!

Thou shalt not question!!

[SmokingJoe]

So Reuters presents the evidence to a bunch of people who are paid by Big Pharma/billionaires to lie and they proceeded to spew out their usual lies and disinformation.
So what's new?

[BobL]

The Left is very good at this:

1) Send out information they know is false
2) Discredit that information
3) Use that discredited information to ‘discredit’ everything that is valid.

The simple question that I would ask is why are we now seeing PSAs telling young people to look out for heart problems?

[Kazan]

A slam dunk fact-check brought on by paranoia from the anti-vax crazies. What an embarrassment.

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[Spok]

When Reuter’s and “fact” appear in the same sentence, I throw up a little in my mouth.

[SmokingJoe]

Pravda has spoken!

Yup.
Reuters couldn't fact check anything to do with covid if their lives depended on it.

[Republican Wildcat]

“Reuters Fact Check”

Could very well be true...but I’m not going to rely on a “Reuters” ‘fact check.’

[neodad]

These are elite athletes who have been training for this their entire lives. These are not weekend warriors in their 40s keeling over. To say their is nothing to see here is bs. It’s as ludicrous as saying evidence of election fraud has been debunked….

[bakeneko]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Reuters et. al. will carry this water until they collapse.