COVID vaccinations are safe and effective, no problem mon. Or so we’ve been told ad nauseum by government officials and media lemmings. The NFL has been urged by the Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF) to suspend vaccination mandates and to screen for heart issues over serious vaccine side effects. Screening is urgently needed, the Fund said in a letter to the NFL, because vaccines can cause myocarditis, especially among young males.
HFDF is a nonprofit seeking to rectify health injustices by advocating for freedom, choice and bodily autonomy. The Fund’s letter to the National Football League Players Assocation cited eight studies on the subject matter and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s warning labels on Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that the drugs come with the risk of pericarditis.
During previous seasons, the NFL heavily pressured all players to be vaccinated. Those few who refused became pariahs. Leslie Manookian, president and founder of the HFDF, told the players union head, DeMaurice Smith, “Safety signals illustrate that the near and long-term health outcomes of the COVID-19 vaccines remain uncertain.”
Noting Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest in a Jan. 2 NFL game, Manookian wrote:
“A multitude of adverse reactions to these injections, including myocarditis, are wide ranging and confirmed, and as such, prudence dictates that the NFLPA investigate the extent to which the COVID-19 shots may have resulted in injury, compromised health or death of players.”
Buffalo Bills safety Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field last month. Ex-NFL players also suffered heart attacks and strokes following vaccinations, Manookian stated. She recommended the NFL institute “a testing and screening program to determine whether players have been adversely affected by the injections and to develop a set of functional medical protocols and treatments in order to address and heal any deleterious effects of the vaccines.”
In addition to the U.S. FDA warning label on vaccines, Manookian cited a Florida study detecting an increase in cardiac-related deaths among the vaccinated. That study also reported an increased risk of myocarditis and myopericarditis after the second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine and the first and second doses of Moderna’s vaccine. Again, young males experienced the highest risk.
A study of nearly 1,600 college athletes who underwent comprehensive cardiovascular testing increased the prevalence of clinical and subclinical myocarditis by a factor of 7.4 times, to 2.3 percent. This was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Manookian told the NFLPA, “We have a growing body of scientific evidence showing that there is a risk to young males in particular, and many of them have some critical cardiac problems.”
One can almost hear the screeching lefties on television condemning this letter that flies in the face of their nonstop “safe and effective” campaign. Nevertheless, Dr. Anish Koka, a Philadelphia cardiologist, said it’s not “unreasonable for the NFL Players Association to at least consider the fact that young healthy men now are such low risk of COVID, do you want to take the risk of myocarditis related to the vaccine?”
Dr. Koka is skeptical about screening all the NFL players because it could affect the free agent market. This argument is thin, however, because practically all NFL players have been vaccinated, free agents included.
Manookian recommends voluntary screening, saying, “This is about raising awareness about a potential health problem and providing the opportunity for the players to have access to testing and screening. And if a problem is determined, then some kind of healing protocol for them.”
The HFDF recommendation deserves a response from and honest consideration by the NFLPA. It should not be dismissed out of hand by shrill media lapdogs for the government’s “safe and effective” mantra.
