A video repeating the claim that COVID-19 vaccines are to blame for the sudden onset of visual situations, such as fainting and facial paralysis, is circulating again. But, like the other similar articles we’ve covered, this one is rarely very supported either.
Despite the lack of evidence, the dominant anti-vaccine claim that COVID-19 injections cause the sudden onset of visual illness (most often, giving way) remains valid.
We have refuted several versions of this claim over the years, adding that athletes are collapsing at a higher rate than before because of the COVID-19 vaccine (they don’t) and that other people are dying from blood clots caused by vaccines. of a plot to depopulate the global (it is not).
This time, the claim was reiterated in a TikTok video that garnered more than 2 million views and was copied on other platforms, including Facebook.
The video combines clips of Candace Owens, John MacArthur and Ice Cube, all of whom have expressed opposition to vaccines, with clips of about a dozen other people suffering from some sort of medical condition. Owens is a conservative and well-known political commentator. vaccine advocate; John MacArthur is a megachurch pastor who defied public health orders during the pandemic and provided his fans with a devoted vaccine exemption bureaucracy; and Ice Cube is a rapper who claims he was denied opportunities because he refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19. None of the incidents depicted in the video are similar to vaccination.
We will go through the examples of the video:
Royal Guard: The video begins with a quick flurry of three-second clips of other people falling and a photo of actor Jamie Foxx (more on this later). The first symbol shows a British royal guard fainting while guarding Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin. in 2022.
The incident occurred around 00:30 a. m. , the first of five nights the Queen was lying down.
“A member of the vigil became temporarily ill and had to withdraw from the vigil,” the House of Lords told Newsweek at the time.
The official specified the cause of the incident, but guards work six-hour shifts so that the coffin is monitored 24 hours a day. It’s unusual for guards to faint in the middle of a ceremony: At least three fainted in June while training for King Charles’ birthday parade in about 90-degree heat.
In preparation for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding in 2011, Britain’s Daily Express newspaper published an article titled “Royal Guards Learn to Faint. “The article explained that guards deserve to “faint when standing firm,” falling forward than backward.
Garrison Sergeant Major Billy Mott, lead instructor of Army training for the wedding, had the guards start the day with a five-mile run, a smart breakfast, plenty of water and “lots of toe movement and calf tension” to avoid fainting. when they remain in position for hours.
“If you rest on your heels, blood doesn’t go back to the brain,” Mott said. Maj. Dai Bevan, who was also involved in making the wedding ring, said he did mental equations to stay alert and avoid fainting. .
In 2022, the British Army studied fainting among guards by having 10 of them wear high-tech vests to gather physiological knowledge at an event held in June.
“Soldiers on hot parade fields have been trained to swing back and forth or contract their muscles and make sure they are fully hydrated,” the army wrote in an article about the study, explaining how guards were trained to avoid fainting.
Stand-up comic: Here’s a clip showing comedian Heather McDonald fainting at an exhibit in Tempe, Arizona, in February 2022.
McDonald had made a joke that began by saying that she had been vaccinated against COVID-19 and that in a matter of seconds she had fallen to the ground.
This incident was widely used by vaccine advocates to argue that there is a link between the shots and the sudden collapse, but McDonald’s made it clear early on that its downfall had nothing to do with vaccination.
“American Idol” contestant: Another short clip from this segment shows Funke Lagoke, a contestant on the real show “American Idol,” fainting while receiving feedback from the judges in March 2021.
She was reportedly hospitalized for dehydration and the next day took to Instagram to report the incident. He did not mention vaccination.
Los Angeles Meteorologist: The first long example in the video shows Alissa Carlson, a meteorologist with KCAL News, a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, fainting on a March 18 newscast.
Above the clip included in the TikTok video is the one that reads: “WEATHER WOMAN COLLAPSES ON LIVE TV. “
It’s true that Carlson fainted on TV, but there’s no explanation for recommending that this episode be similar to vaccination.
Rather, Carlson later explained, he has a leaky central valve and was diagnosed with vasovagal syncope, which is fainting due to the body’s overreaction to certain triggers.
“I have a history of fainting,” Carlson told CBS Mornings anchors on March 21. “It’s only when you’re on a public platform, it happens and other people see it now,” he said, referring to clips from his episode that circulated online.
Carlson said he attributed the episode to vasovagal syncope and did not mention vaccination.
Soccer analyst: The following is a clip showing ESPN soccer analyst Shaka Hislop passing out just before a July 23 game.
The next day, Hislop – who looked healthy – posted a video saying, “Well, it’s embarrassing. “
He thanked his family, friends and enthusiasts for their support. “Every once in a while life offers you a moment of pause and that was mine,” he said, explaining that I would “seek the most productive medical recommendation imaginable and pay attention to what my doctors had to say. “
Hislop has not provided any update on what doctors may have caused its collapse, but there is no suggestion that this is similar to the vaccine.
Danish health officer: The following clip shows Tanja Erichsen, a Danish health officer, fainting at a press conference in April 2021.
False claims have already circulated that Erichsen had a reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine. But, as Danish fact-checker TjekDet wrote in 2021, Erichsen had not even been vaccinated against the disease at the time of the incident.
Kim Voigt Østrøm, spokesman for the Danish Medicines Agency, told TjekDet that Erichsen had still been vaccinated: “Therefore, all hypotheses about a link in this direction are unfounded. “
Like most countries, Denmark began rolling out vaccines among the most vulnerable populations between late 2020 and early 2021.
Tiffany Dover: The following is one of the first clips that will be used to promote this type of claim: a deceptively edited video from December 2020 showing one of the first nurses to get vaccinated against COVID-19 at CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The nurse, Tiffany Dover, explained shortly after she fainted, “I have a history of an overactive vagal reaction, so if I have pain from anything (hanging a nail or hitting a toe), I can just pass out. »
We wrote about the clip and related claims on December 18, 2020, and since then it has been continuously used to recommend that there is something harmful about vaccines and to become the center of a conspiracy theory that Dover is dead. It didn’t. This claim was covered with intensity in a recent NBC News podcast series.
The Dover fainting clip says nothing about the safety of the vaccine, only showing a user with a history of fainting after feeling mild pain.
‘NCIS’ Actress: The following clip shows actress Pauley Perrette, known for her role on the CBS crime drama “NCIS,” telling her Twitter fans that she suffered a stroke in September 2021.
Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death among women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and one-fifth of women ages 55 to 75 will suffer from it. Perrette was 52 years old at the time of the stroke.
Factors that increase stroke risk include high blood pressure, smoking and certain types of birth control, according to the CDC.
Perrette spoke to “Entertainment Tonight” a year after her stroke and encouraged others to know the symptoms of a stroke so they could get treatment quickly.
“[I] need other people to be informed about all the symptoms of a stroke, especially the fact that you can suffer one at any age!By knowing the symptoms of a stroke, we can save ourselves and others,” he said.
There is no link between Perrette’s stroke and vaccination.
Bronny James: The following example is one of the most recent: The son of basketball star LeBron James, nicknamed Bronny James, went into cardiac arrest during a school basketball practice on July 24. The case has not been made public.
Dr. Celine Gounder, a senior researcher at the Kaiser Family Foundation and a CBS News medical contributor, recently discussed the imaginable reasons for James’ condition, adding hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which occurs when there is a thickening of the central muscle, and genetic arrhythmia. which is an abnormal central rhythm inherited from genetics.
“I need to be very clear: This has nothing to do with COVID-19 vaccines,” said Gounder, who faced false accusations after her husband died of an aneurysm in December.
“More than 80 percent of the American population has now received a COVID vaccine, if not more than one,” he said, explaining that associating a medical occasion like James’ with vaccination “would be like, you know, I want to pull out a tooth. ” next week, it will have to be because I was vaccinated against COVID.
“These are unrelated events,” he said, “but it’s directly outside the anti-vaccine playbook to say, ‘Well, I’m just asking questions. ‘
“The intent is to sow confusion,” Gounder said.
Other fact-checkers have responded to this claim and a recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that athletes are at a higher risk of central headaches after vaccination.
Damar Hamlin: A similar example appears in the TikTok video: the collapse of Buffalo Bills security guard Damar Hamlin, who suffered a commotio cordis in a game on January 2 after being hit in the chest. A blow to the chest alters the central rhythm and causes cardiac arrest.
This is another case we’ve written about before, when social media users started posting unsubstantiated claims that their illness was the result of vaccination.
As we wrote at the time, “this is nothing other people speculate about vaccines or anything like that causing this cardiac arrest,” Dr. Brian Sutterer, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, said in a YouTube video. contact, transparent trauma, and I think there’s a clear explanation for why, unfortunately, it happened to Hamlin. “
Tori Kelly: The video then shows clips reporting that Grammy Award-winning singer Tori Kelly was recently hospitalized with blood clots.
It is true that she was hospitalized on July 24 and showed on Instagram that she faced “unexpected form problems”. She has since been discharged from the hospital and has announced an upcoming tour.
On the July 25 episode of “Good Morning America,” ABC News senior medical correspondent Dr. Dr. Jennifer Ashton said of blood clots, “It can surely occur in young people,” noting that blood clots kill up to 100,000 people a year. in the United States.
“The medical term, deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism, refers to the moment when a clot becomes bureaucratic – in the lower limb, in the venous circulation, in the leg – and then travels to the center and lodges in the lungs. This can spread to the brain and cause a stroke or central attack. This is an important factor and a medical emergency,” Ashton said.
“I think the most important thing to understand is that yes, it can happen to young people, especially women who take birth control, hormones, after surgery, if they’re sitting at a desk, on a long commute or if they’re immobilized. “. ” She.
There is no evidence that Kelly’s condition has anything to do with vaccination and, in fact, neither of the two mRNA vaccines available in the U. S. is available in the U. S. U. S. infections, which account for the vast majority of doses, have been linked to clotting, as we explained above. .
The Biebers: The TikTok video also repeats two claims about the fitness suffered by celebrity couple Justin and Hailey Bieber, either of which we addressed.
Justin Bieber canceled some performances in June 2022 because he developed Ramsay Hunt syndrome, caused by the chickenpox virus. As we explained at the time, Ramsay Hunt syndrome is similar to shingles in that it occurs when the virus reactivates and affects the facial nerve, causing facial paralysis.
In March of that year, Hailey Bieber suffered a mini stroke and, as we said at the time, explained in a YouTube video on April 27 that her doctors attributed the clot that caused the stroke to a “perfect storm” of 3 factors.
“The first was that I had just started taking the birth control pill, which I deserved never to have taken because I was suffering from migraines anyway, and I just didn’t tell my doctor,” she said. who had had COVID recently, and that was anything they thought was a contributing factor. And the third thing is that I had recently taken a very long flight – I had made a circular holiday to Paris in a very short time – and I slept During the total flight in both directions, I did not get up and did not move, I never thought about putting on compression stockings.
She never talked about vaccination and there is no evidence linking either couple to the vaccine.
Basketball commentator: Bob Rathbun, the Atlanta Hawks announcer, had been before a game on Dec. 5, 2022, but thought he might stop playing before returning home. Shortly after taking a seat for a pregame discussion, he had an episode that sounded like a seizure.
“Emergency medical professionals at the scene promptly treated Rathbun for dehydration,” the Hawks said in a statement at the time. “He is stable, responsive and is heading to Emory Midtown for further evaluation. “
He underwent a series of tests and doctors concluded that “vomiting and dehydration, a drop in his magnesium levels and blood pressure contributed to an absolutely horrible typhoon in his body and caused him to collapse,” according to The Athletic, which asked him about the incident about a week later. “They gave him fluids and he still recovered. “
There is no mention of vaccination.
Jamie Foxx: Finally, the video repeats a claim by gossip columnist A. J. Benza about actor Jamie Foxx, who was hospitalized for what his manager called a “medical emergency” in April.
Benza, among others, claimed that Foxx’s emergency was due to the COVID-19 vaccine. But while Foxx’s representatives did not disclose the type of physical emergency he was experiencing, they called Benza’s claims “completely inaccurate. “
So, as with the examples used in the TikTok video, nothing links vaccination to Foxx’s status.
Editor’s note: SciCheck articles that provide accurate fitness data and correct erroneous fitness data are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Foundation has no control over the editorial decisions of FactCheck. org and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.
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