The "how" of kookbabble.

[a322x1n]

<https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fact-checking-a-strange-new-covid-cons
piracy-theory-athletes-dying-from-vaccines/ar-AATd78r?ocid=msedgntp>

<https://tinyurl.com/muctpfre>

Fact checking a strange new Covid conspiracy theory: Athletes dying from
vaccines. Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large - 1h ago.

There's a new lie emerging from Covid-19 skeptics of late: Athletes are
dying after getting the vaccine.

Former NBA great John Stockton drew national attention earlier this week
when he insisted in an interview that "there's 150 I believe now -- it's
over 100 professional athletes dead, professional athletes, the prime of
their life, dropping dead that are vaccinated, right on the pitch, right
on the field, right on the court."

On Wednesday, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson got in on the action in an
interview with Charlie Kirk, the head of the conservative group Turning
Point USA.

"We've heard story after story, I mean all these athletes dropping dead
on the field," Johnson said. "But we're supposed to ignore that. Nothing
happening here. Nothing to see. This is a travesty. This is a scandal."

Johnson's office offered no specifics to back up his claim Thursday.
"The senator has been pressing for transparency in government,
especially in our federal health agencies, so that the American people
have as much information as possible before they make health care
decisions for themselves and their families," a spokeswoman said.

It isn't a scandal. Mostly because it's not happening.

The rumor appears to have begun -- like a lot of misinformation these
days -- from the pro-Trump website Gateway Pundit, which published an
"article" on December 6 with this headline: "Report Shows Nearly 300
Athletes Worldwide Collapsed or Suffered Cardiac Arrests after Taking
COVID Vaccine This Year -- Many Died."

The "report" on which the Gateway Pundit piece is based comes from a
website called "Good Sciencing" -- an anonymously-run website that is
larded with anti-vaccine pseudoscience. "We are a small team of
investigators, news editors, journalists, and truth seekers, now backed
up by others, who are discovering pieces of information that we can
investigate," reads the website's "About" page. "It doesn't really
matter who we are."

Riiight.

Sourcing aside, it's worth looking at the claims that these sorts of
websites make. Which Factcheck.org did. And found this:

"More than 300 athletes -- including students, professionals, amateurs
and retirees -- from around the world were included. We reviewed
publicly available information for each of the 19 professional athletes
who either came from or played in the U.S. We found no proof of a causal
relationship in any of the cases between the vaccines and the injuries
or deaths."

And there's also this: "Although Good Sciencing claims COVID-19 vaccines
were to blame for the deaths or injuries, the website provides no
evidence in most cases -- 16 of the 19 -- that the athletes and former
athletes were even vaccinated."

What's happening here is the purposeful and deeply misleading confusion
of correlation with causation.

Take the case of baseball great Hank Aaron. Aaron died two weeks after
receiving his first dose of the Moderna vaccine. But, according to the
Fulton County medical examiner, Aaron, who was 86, died of natural
causes.

Another commonly-cited episode by these vaccine conspiracy theorists is
the collapse of Denmark's Christian Eriksen last year during a major
European soccer tournament. Immediately after the incident, social media
lit up with claims that Eriksen's collapse was tied to the Covid-19
vaccine. The only problem? Eriksen hadn't been vaccinated when he
collapsed. (Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on the filed but has since
recovered.)

What's most remarkable to me about these sorts of claims is how easy
they are to debunk. A single Google search can reveal that things like
the Gateway Pundit "story" or some tweet or Facebook post your uncle
sent you are, in fact, total and complete bunk.

It's bad enough that anyone believes this junk. That a sitting US
senator not only believes it, but feels confident enough in these false
reports to pass them on publicly is just awful. And deeply
irresponsible.

This story has been updated to include additional comment from Johnson's
office.

P.S. If you want the real facts about anti-vax kookbabblers, start
here:

<https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/>