MULTIPLE POSTS SHARED on social media this week claimed that NFL player Damar Hamlin collapsed during a game because he had received a Covid-19 vaccine.

Hamlin, who plays for New York’s Buffalo Bills, collapsed on Monday after suffering cardiac arrest while playing a game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

The incident occurred after he was injured while making a tackle, and the game was stopped while he was taken to hospital in critical condition.

The most recent update on Hamlin’s condition details that he has made a “remarkable improvement” and that he remains “neurologically intact” as he continues his recovery.

Dozens of posts on social media have alleged that Hamlin’s collapse was caused by so-called “experimental” Covid-19 vaccinations.

One post on Facebook, which is a screengrab of a tweet, calls for prayers for Hamlin and says that a discussion is needed on the “experimental/forced” vaccine.

The post reads:

“I know we want to discuss the terrible reality of athletes suddenly collapsing, which is likely due to the experimental/forced vaccine.”

Another post on Facebook says that there was “nothing” about Hamlin’s tackle that should have caused a critical injury, before alleging that “athletes and other young men all over the world have been collapsing and dying suddenly”.

“Can we assume that he got the vaccine?,” the post adds.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case.

Covid-19 vaccines

According to data released by the NFL, approximately 95% of all players were vaccinated against Covid-19, as of February 2022.

However, Hamlin’s vaccination status is unknown.

In the immediate statement following the incident, the Buffalo Bills said that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest occurred “following a hit” while the game was ongoing.

Multiple cardiologists have said that there is no evidence that Covid-19 vaccines cause an increase in cardiac arrests among athletes.

One cardiologist and sports health expert, Dr Lawrence Phillips, spoke with the Associated Press and said that there have “always been” sudden cases of cardiac arrest among athletes.

“There have always been cases of athletes having sudden cardiac death or cardiac arrest,” Philips said.

“I have not seen a change in the prevalence of them over the last couple of years versus earlier in my career.”

He added that these rare health complications were why health professionals had campaigned to have defibrillators on standby at games.

Dr Matthew Martinez, the director of sports cardiology at Atlantic Health System in Morristown Medical Center, also told the Associated Press that he had not seen an increase in cardiac arrests in athletes following Covid-19 vaccination.

Another cardiologist, Dr Payal Kohli, spoke with US broadcaster The Daily Blast in the days following Hamlin’s collapse and refuted that the cardiac arrest was caused by a Covid-19 vaccine.

“I’m very confident as a cardiologist that there’s absolutely no link between the Covid vaccine and what happened to Mr Hamlin, between the Covid vaccine and cardiac arrest and athletes,” Kohli said.

Another cardiologist has even suggested that Hamlin’s condition may have been due to a phenomenon known as “commotio cordis”.

Dr Nahush Mokadam, a director of cardiac surgery at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, told broadcaster NBC that in such cases “there is nothing wrong with the heart” and that a healthy heart can end up in a potentially deadly rhythm when it is hit with blunt force at a specific time.

Rare serious side effects have been reported following mRNA Covid-19 vaccination, including by younger men who have developed myocarditis or pericarditis.

Myocarditis, or heart inflammation, and an associated risk, pericarditis, or inflammation around the heart, have previously been linked to the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines themselves, particularly among adolescent boys and young men.

However, studies have shown that contracting Covid-19 itself increases of developing myocarditis by a factor of 16.

“Myocarditis is clearly a consequence of the mRNA vaccine. It’s rare, but it’s real,” Paul Offit, infectious disease physician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told AFP.

“But the condition is “short-lived, transient and self-resolving.”

A paper by Israeli researchers previously published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that messenger RNA vaccines increased the risk of myocarditis three-fold.

However, the same paper showed that Covid increased the chances of developing myocarditis 18-fold, roughly in line with a study by the CDC, which analysed data from vaccinated people and an unvaccinated control group.

Regardless, Hamlin’s vaccination status remains unknown and there is no evidence to support claims that a Covid-19 vaccine caused him to collapse.

Doctors in the US have speculated on the reasons why a healthy American footballer could have collapsed during a game, and agree there are many reasons why this may have occurred. 

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