The list of cardiac arrests in athletes: No evidence of an increase

Lists of athletes are circulating on websites and social networks, all of whom are said to have suffered cardiac arrest after being vaccinated.

Some of the articles also claim that cardiac arrests among athletes have increased by a factor of 50, which is always attributed to the COVID-19 vaccinations. The respective lists are even partly accurate and have corresponding links, but in some cases they are not only misleading, but also do not contradict the statistics.

Here is an excerpt of a screenshot of one of the circulating lists:

In other posts, some cases are picked out and linked correctly . Based on the list, you can actually get the impression that more athletes than usual have heart problems - unproven, but claimed: because of the vaccinations.

Inconsistencies in the lists

The different lists vary sometimes more, sometimes less, because many users apparently went looking for other athletes after the claim in June that footballer Christian Eriksens collapsed on the field after being vaccinated - but Eriksens was closed Not yet vaccinated at the time (we reported HERE and HERE ).

Correctiv and AFP colleagues examined the lists and came to the following conclusions:

• No linked article mentions whether there is a connection with the vaccination
• No linked article mentions whether the people were vaccinated
• One case (Gifhorn amateur player Marvin Schumann collapsed while warming up) happened in November 2020, when there were no vaccinations yet
• Several trainers were between the ages of 50 and 74 and suffered heart attacks, although cardiovascular diseases the most common cause of death in Germany (34%).
• Sometimes these are “just” collapses that are not related to cardiac emergencies
• Only in one case was there clearly an inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis), which can be a very rare side effect of a vaccination but also the result of a COVID-19 illness

What the official statistics say

Since 2014, FIFA has maintained a global registry that prospectively records sudden deaths in football (see HERE ). Statistically, competitive sports increase the risk of sudden cardiac death by 3 to 4 times, as extreme physical exertion is a trigger for dangerous cardiac arrhythmias in people with hidden cardiovascular diseases, according to FIFA.

The AFP contacted Dr. Florian Egger, who keeps the register in cooperation with FIFA. The registry's source is not only news reports, but also doctor's letters, death certificates and autopsy reports, so the causes of death are documented much more precisely.

Accordingly, in 22 of the 29 cases there was actually either a survived sudden cardiac arrest or a sudden cardiac death; in the remaining 7 cases the reasons for the collapse were not specified.

The cases from 2021 have not yet been fully included in the register and checked, but at this point Egger can make it clear that the list does not deviate from the statistics:

“If you take the list distributed on Facebook as a basis for 2021, in comparison with our currently recorded adjusted data, that would be 14 SCA/SCD cases among footballers or 19 cases including referees and coaches in the past four months.

Even if we extrapolate these two numbers to the entire year of 2021, there would still be fewer cardiac emergencies in football than in the pre-Corona year of 2018.

The claim that there is a dynamic involved cannot be derived from our data or other international registry studies. There are no more deaths among footballers than before the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Egger also considers the comparison of one of the articles with a Spiegel article, according to which, purely mathematically, cardiac arrests in athletes would have increased by a factor of 50, to be nonsensical, since there is an incomplete and unrepresentative list with another list whose methodology is completely unclear. is compared.

Conclusion

The risk of cardiac arrest is increased for athletes, but the lists that are widely used make a mistake: they do not compare with lists from previous years, only a Spiegel article is used for comparison, which, however, does not provide an overall picture and compares poorly with lists from other years can be.

However, according to the official list kept by FIFA, which records cases of cardiac arrest worldwide, the number of cardiac arrests is not significantly higher than in other years, and no statistical deviation is discernible.

In the current safety report (PDF file) on the side effects of all Covid vaccinations, the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) also points Report on reports of suspected side effects until September 24, 2021.

Inflammation of the heart muscle is a well-known side effect, but only extremely rare. The problem with athletes is that although they are healthier overall, heart disease in the early stages is often not noticed, which is why researchers Domenico Corrado and Alessandro Zorzi called for the introduction of ECG screenings for athletes in 2007 in order to detect undetected heart disease at an early stage .

The circulating lists are therefore not proof that more athletes suddenly suffer cardiac arrest after vaccinations.

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Sources: AFP , Correctiv , PolitiFact