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EDITORIAL: Vaccine cynics spread misinformation about Hamlin, risk public health

Buffalo News - 1/6/2023

Jan. 6—This is actually shameful. Hardly had Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field during Monday's game with the Cincinnati Bengals than the conspiracy theorists began blaming it on the Covid-19 vaccine.

For the record: There is no evidence of that. On the contrary, the evidence is that the Covid vaccines are both safe and effective. The death toll — more than 1 million lives lost in this country, alone — would have been far higher without it.

What is more, even doctors couldn't say with any certainty what caused Hamlin's life-threatening crisis. They think that maybe — maybe — it was a condition in which the timing of a blow to his chest sent him into cardiac arrest. Four days later, though, the exact cause remains undetermined.

This ploy should incense all Bills fans. One of our own came within minutes of death and the crazies out there used his plight to amplify their evidence-free allegations about a vaccine that has save lives, protected the economy and advanced medical science. Do these people have no shame?

There is a larger problem with the attack on the Covid vaccine. Observers are concerned that it will feed into the larger narrative that all vaccines are dangerous. Without them, polio would still be crippling children around the world. Smallpox and measles would be still be putting people in their graves. It's an insanity that values individuals' "own research" over a proven science that has made the world a safer and healthier place.

The internet and especially social media are a big drivers of the problem. They allow the crackpots to find each other and artificially magnify their voices. It's a fact of life today. As useful as the internet is, it is also a conveyor of dangerous misinformation. It can radicalize people such as the murderer of 10 Black people in a Buffalo supermarket last year. It can help to attract and inflame a crowd that seeks to overturn a fair election.

Someone could earn a Ph.D. figuring out what makes theoretically intelligent people susceptible to hooey that pitches itself as fact. Maybe they need to feel that they have they inside track and are smarter than the rest of the world. Maybe they're just wounded creatures.

Regardless, get your vaccinations and your boosters. Disregard the loud talkers who pretend to know what they're prattling on about unless and until they have credible, understandable evidence. Regarding Hamlin's misfortune, they've offered none.

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