Six Years Ago Today, David Hogg Was Asked To Boycott Ligma
Bronny James, son of NBA star LeBron James, had a scary moment when he collapsed from cardiac arrest during a workout with USC yesterday.
While much of social media rushed to express well wishes for the budding basketball star and the James family, Elon Musk appeared to take it as an opportunity to push skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccine (which surrounds a prominent conspiracy theory that it causes heart problems).
Since the medical scare, James is said to be in stable condition and he has been released from intensive care.
Musk's vaccine skepticism echoes what some expressed after football star Damar Hamlin collapsed with cardiac arrest in the middle of a nationally televised football game after making a routine tackle (Hamlin was later diagnosed with Commotio Cordis, a rare phenomenon in which the heart stops after taking an impact at a crucial millisecond of its cycle).
The idea that the COVID-19 vaccine causes myocarditis is a popular anti-vax conspiracy that has been disproven by the CDC, who in a 2022 study stated that the vaccine causes myocarditis in only .01 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 29. A COVID-19 infection, however, increases the risk of myocarditis by 2-6 times. A separate study also found that there is no association between out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and the vaccine.
Furthermore, Bronny James' vaccination status is unknown, as is whether he was ever infected with COVID-19, as is whether he was even diagnosed with myocarditis.
Per the science, a Twitter Community Notes addendum swiftly appeared underneath Musk's tweet reading, "The risk of myocarditis is significantly higher after an actual Covid infection than with the vaccine. Among adolescent boys, the risk of myocarditis following a Covid infection was approximately twice of the risk following the second vaccine dose." The post cited the Yale School of Medicine.
Hours after it appeared, however, the note mysteriously vanished for an unknown reason. Neither Musk nor "X" have commented on why.
Considering Musk's capriciousness, particularly his perceived history of volatility when he faces pushback on his platform, several assumed it was Musk himself who deleted the Community Notes amendment to his tweet — though that is unconfirmed.
Musk has already been slammed by much of Twitter for rebranding the site to X, and now faces significant criticism from users and media publications for appearing to promote anti-vax conspiracy theories.
It's unknown if or how the Twitter rebrand's association with adult content and the owner's anti-vax speculation will attract advertisers to the site, which, reportedly, the site desperately needs to become profitable.
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