Thread
I’ve been seeing a lot of people quoting stats that show more athletes died in the last year than have died in the last 38 years. Is this true? No, let’s chat about it. A 🧵👇🏻 
So whenever you see an incredible statistic like this you should ask yourself where did it come from? In this case it came from a letter to the editor in the Scandinavian Journal of immunology co authored by @P_McCulloughMD
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sji.13242
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sji.13242
Now, I think we can all agree that if you’re going to make an apples to apples comparison between sudden cardiac deaths (SCD) in athletes from two time periods, the populations should be similar. So how did @P_McCulloughMD make this comparison? 
Well, he calculated the base rate of SCD in athletes using this systematic analysis looking at SCD in athletes over the last 38 years, and they found that 1101 athletes died over this time period. 
Now, bc this is a systematic analysis, they have strict definitions of what an athlete is and what constitutes SCD. Of note they only looked at young athletes < 35 y/o 
The authors also noted some limitations which likely caused them to undercount the number of athletes who suffered SCD during this time period. 
Now if @P_McCulloughMD is going to make a direct comparison to this study population he is going to have to stick to the strict definitions as outlined above. So which peer reviewed source or official SCD registry did he use for his comparison? 
That’s right, he used an antivaxx blog with no inclusion/exclusion criteria, structure or systematic approach. But did he apply his own criteria to filter out the noise from this list? No 
If you look at this list many people are older than 35, many aren’t athletes, and some didn’t even die. And not all that died had died from SCD. Here are some examples.
27 year old sprinter who died from suicide. 
24 year old cyclist who died from suicide 
49 year old former shot put champion who died in a car accident 
17 year old high school basketball player who drowned in a hot tub 
24 year old footballer who got myocarditis after covid and didn’t die. 
26 year old footballer who died from leukemia. 
16 year old hockey player who had myocarditis following covid. He didn’t die. His vaccination status is unknown. 
This 69 year old man who was a keen runner fell off a cliff. 
So clearly using this list as your comparator group is inappropriate. There’s far too much heterogeneity and the majority of the list doesn’t match the criteria set forth by the other paper. A lot of people > 35 y/o, many weren’t athletes, many didn’t have SCD
So you have to ask yourself why on earth Did @P_McCulloughMD make such an egregious error in his analysis? Is the self proclaimed most published doctor in the history of the world incompetent? Sloppy?
Or does he know exactly what he’s doing. That by using this list he can over inflate athlete deaths, stoke more fear and disinformation about the vaccines and thus continue his grift? I’ll let you be the judge. End 🧵
