Damar Hamlin's Collapse & The Inevitable mRNA Vaccine Questions

Excellent, even-handed analysis of what may have caused Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest by Dr. Buzz Hollander. 

The above is a graph showing the causes of death for 64 NCAA athletes who died of cardiac arrest while playing sports from the article. Just 2% were due to commotio cordis with a larger slice of the pie (9%) were caused by myocarditis. Of course that doesn't show it wasn't commotio cordis or that it was myocarditis but it does illustrate those two causes make up just 11% of the causes of death shown from these 64 autopsies. Meaning there's many other causes that also need to be considered. No need to rush to blame one thing over another without the facts being known.

Also found this observation interesting because I was thinking the NFL or individual teams may move in this direction:

Proponents of adding an echocardiogram - or even cardiac MRI - to the standard Combine testing will arise; but that will add a litany of false positives threatening player's careers with the upside of preventing a death or two per century.

According to the current data that's how rare thee events are. Of course I would also add that all 64 of those autopsies were made pre-mRNA shots so we should be keeping our eyes and minds open to new data.

Damar Hamlin

The latest reports I've seen are that Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during last night's Bills-Bengals game and remains in critical condition. We are all pulling for Damar to make a quick and full recovery.  

I believe in Bill James' "Something terrible has happened" approach to events like these. The only proper, responsible thing to do is to say "Something terrible has happened" and then wait for the details about what happened to come out. 

Unfortunately we live in a society where the proper and responsible are now the exception rather than the rule. I watched this unfold while at local military affiliated bar and right away about 50% of the patrons were speculating on what could have caused this. I have my own suspicions but I'll wait for the facts to hopefully come out.

I don't blame people for speculating either. We live in a society where we have been consistently lied to by those in the media and those in charge. What were labeled conspiracy theories continue to be proven correct. How can people not but speculate when that's the case?

There is a large case of hypocrisy going on though that needs to be addressed. Some of the very same people who mercilessly made fun of Tim Tebow or others when they knelt in prayer are now asking for prayers for Damar Hamlin. Some of the very people who are at the front of the line offering "hot takes" on any and all news stories are now lambasting anyone who speculates on Damar Hamlin's vaccination status. Remember these hypocrites. If you watch, listen or read these people - stop. Deprive these people of the oxygen attention brings them.

That's the first step in helping make our society react properly and responsibly.

Meanwhile prayers for Damar Hamlin and his mom.