Amna: When Buffalo bills' safety
damar Hamlin suffered cardiac
arrest during an NFL game last
week, a flood of misinformation
took over on social media, with
anti-vaxxers and conspiracy
theorists falsely claiming the
covid vaccine was to blame.
The sudden death of sports
journalist grant Wahl, who died
of an aortic aneurysm while
covering the world cup in Qatar
last month, prompted a similar,
and, again, false narrative.
Wahl's wife, Dr. Celine Gounder,
an infectious disease
specialist, is pushing back on
this kind of disinformation, and
she joins me now.
Dr. Gounder, welcome to the
"Newshour."
Thanks for being with us.
And I just have to say how
incredibly sorry we all are for
your loss.
It's only been a few weeks since
you've lost your husband.
My very first question is just
how are you doing?
Dr. Gounder: Thanks, amna.
I feel exhausted, I feel numb,
which has a bit scared because I
know this is gonna hit me even
harder.
But nights are pretty tough.
It is sort of when I get a
chance to think about it, and
it's really hard.
Amna: These messages that came
up after your husband's passing
from total strangers, conspiracy
theorists claiming the covid
vaccine was to blame.
How and when did you start to
see them?
And what did you think in that
moment?
Dr. Gounder: Well, I started to
see rumors that my husband's
death was related to covid
vaccines, really, as soon as
news broke of his death.
There were all kinds of rumors,
and that ended up emerging as
the leading one.
And it was also really important
to me to find out what had
actually happened, for myself
and for my family, and also to
put to rest some of these
rumors, lies about my husband's
death.
And so we, I worked with the
state department and others to
get his remains repatriated as
quickly as we could, and then to
have an autopsy done as quickly
as we could.
And all of that happened in the
span of just a few days.
And then I put out a statement
with the results of his autopsy.
Amna: Why is it so important for
you to do that so quickly, to be
as transparent as you were?
Dr. Gounder: Well, honestly, the
results have given me some
partial sense of closure or
comfort, in that at least I have
an explanation.
I think when something like this
happens, often families find
themselves asking, why, is there
something I could have done?
And I continued to ask myself
that question, but I also knew
that the only way to put to rest
these rumors was to get out
accurate information, and that
the longer that there wasn't an
answer that we didn't know that
those rumors would only get
worse.
Amna: And did it work?
Did putting out the information
help?
Dr. Gounder: It did initially.
It really did quiet down the
disinformation about my
husband's death.
I thought we put it to rest.
And then when damar Hamlin has
that in-game cardiac arrest,
that really stirred things up
all over again, with people
asking, you know, why is it
these young, healthy people are
dying suddenly, or almost dying
suddenly?
And the conspiracy theory that
had emerged around that is this
idea that covid vaccines are
leading to death, and that's
simply not true.
We have plenty of data now from
vaccination over the last
several years, for the last few
years, that covid vaccines do
not result in an increased risk
of non-covid-related deaths and
of course, are preventing covid
related deaths.
Amna: Dr. Gounder, you've been a
prominent voice throughout this
entire pandemic, offering your
insights on the science and the
facts behind what we know about
the virus and the vaccine.
You've talked about this vaccine
disinformation playbook, as you
call it.
Tell me about that.
What do you mean?
Dr. Gounder: Well, there are
certain strategies that you see,
or tactics that are used over
and over and over again, by
these disinformation spreaders.
The first is fake experts.
So there was a propaganda --
anti-vaccine propaganda film
that came out this fall that
made use of funeral directors
and the like to put out
disinformation.
These are not people who are
experts in any way about
vaccines, about infectious
diseases or immunology.
So that's one characteristic.
Then you have are a logical
fallacies which are essentially
mental shortcuts that we use
when we're bombarded with
information.
A great example of this is, if a
happens before B, that does not
necessarily mean a caused B.
And now over 80% of the people
in this country have gotten one
dose of vaccine, that does not
mean that you can attribute all
of the deaths that now occur in
this country to covid vaccines.
Then, you have impossible
expectations.
So an example of that are the
people who said, I'm going to
wait until the fda issues full
approval for vaccines and then
I'll know it's safe enough, and
then after the full approval was
issued, the goalposts moved and
they said, no, I still don't
think there's enough data.
And finally, you have cherry
picking of data.
So, looking for the data that
supports your hypothesis, even
though it may not actually be
connected or make sense.
And then conspiracy theories are
really lies about, you know, one
example of this would be
microchips and vaccines.
That simply is not true.
There are no microchips in our
vaccines to track people.
But these are the
characteristics or tactics that
you see over and over and over
again in this anti-vaxxer
playbook.
Amna: From an everyday consumer
perspective, what can be done to
push back against that?
Dr. Gounder: Well, I think
people like me, who are experts,
need to be putting out good
information.
I think, if you yourself are
concerned about why somebody in
your family has died, I think an
autopsy is a really important
tool to help investigate that
death.
We've seen autopsy rates in the
United States drop over the past
few years.
Now, fewer than 10% of people
who die in the United States get
an autopsy.
And so, when people call for an
investigation into a death,
that's what it means to
investigate a death.
So I've been a bit confused by
people who are calling for an
investigation when that's
exactly what we did with medical
examiners and forensic
scientists.
And that's how you get an
answer.
Dr. Gounder: --
amna: You are out here doing the
work, continuing to put facts
where they are most needed in
the hands of people, and you are
still mourning your husband, was
a legendary soccer journalist,
had many fans here in our news,
our family.
I'd like to just ask you what
you want people to know about
grant.
Dr. Gounder: Grant was kind, he
was generous, he was curious.
Anybody from an elementary
school student to a young soccer
or sports journalist who reached
out to him for advice, he was
always happy to give them time
to talk to them, to grab a
coffee.
If he was asked for a contact,
you know, somebody else was
doing reporting, a story on some
other athlete, you know, the
grant knew, grant was happy to
share his rolodex with people
and was very generous.
He didn't do that as
competition.
And I think one major legacy
also is the way in which he
advanced social justice and
human rights through his
reporting, whether that was
women in sports, or lgbtq
rights, or recently the rights
of migrant workers in Qatar.
And I think, showing that sports
is not just sports, but it's
also at the intersection of
culture and politics, was a big
part of what grant did in his
career.
Amna: Dr. Celine Gounder,
infectious disease specialist
joining us tonight.