Reports do not link the death of a doctor mentioned in a tweet to the vaccine against Covid – 03/28/2023 – Health

It is misleading to associate the death of physician Atamai Moraes from a massive heart attack with vaccination against Covid-19. The post analyzed by Projeto Comprova casts doubt on Moraes’ cause of death and identifies him as a pro-vaccine militant who criticized tennis player Novak Djokovic for being against vaccination. The author of the misleading publication writes: “The tennis player is still alive, without a Covid vaccine and winning titles.

The widow of Atamai Moraes claims that the autopsy and the initial reports did not indicate the possibility that the death was related to the immunizer. The Sesa (Secretary of State for Health) of Paraná, where he died, reported not having located notification of adverse reaction to the vaccine after death.

The WHO (World Health Organization) guarantees the safety of vaccines, as do the main regulatory agencies in the world. All immunizers go through rigorous clinical trial phases before being approved for use in the general population. After approval of Covid-19 vaccines, monitoring of their safety continues as a normal part of immunization programs, which is done for all vaccines.

For Comprova, misleading is content that confuses, with or without the deliberate intention to cause harm.

Reach

Comprova investigates suspicious content with greater reach on social networks. The tweet verified here had 14,400 likes, 288 comments and 3,900 retweets up to March 28th.

What the person responsible for the publication says

In the report, the author of the post claimed that the tweet does not directly correlate Atamai’s death with the vaccination against Covid-19 and cited a publication by the doctor on Facebook stating, in November 2021, that he had suffered a severe reaction after being immunized with the first dose. The Curitiba Municipal Health Secretariat reported that a clinical investigation was carried out in this case and concluded that the situation had no connection with vaccination. The folder also highlighted that there is no evidence that the death, almost two years later, has a causal relationship with the vaccine.

How do we check

To find out about the case of the death mentioned in the post, the report spoke with Moraes’ family via WhatsApp. Furthermore, as deaths related to vaccination against Covid-19 need to be reported to health authorities, Comprova sought out the Health Secretariats of Paraná and Curitiba and the Ministry of Health and Anvisa. It also surveyed data on the number of immunization-related deaths.

unrelated

Atamai Caetano Moraes, 27, died while working at Santa Casa de Prudentópolis, in the central region of Paraná. The case was registered on October 23, 2022, and the cause was disclosed as a heart attack by the Plural, Aventuras na História and G1 vehicles. The CRM-PR (Regional Council of Medicine of the State of Paraná) even issued a note of regret. There was, at the time, no mention of the suspicion that the doctor had suffered a serious adverse reaction to the vaccination.

At the time, the Civil Police said they would investigate the case. To Comprova, the agency’s press office explained that a police inquiry was launched to determine the cause of death and that witnesses are being heard, but the case has not been concluded.

At Comprova, nurse Jaqueline Rodrigues Zaborovski, Atamai’s widow, said there was no relationship between the massive heart attack suffered by her husband and any type of vaccine, including Covid-19. According to her, the necropsy and the initial reports did not indicate this possibility.

Jaqueline condemned the uninformative pieces that associated her husband’s name with an anti-vaccination campaign. “It is something disgusting after so much work as a doctor in the pandemic and as a defender of the truth and the fight against denialism regarding care with Covid-19, the vaccine and drug cocktails without any scientific basis”, she vented.

Reaction

The wife also reported that Atamai was hospitalized in early 2021 when he suffered a seizure, but that this was related to a fever felt when he was infected by the virus. At the time, he says, he had taken the first dose of the immunizer that was still in the testing phase and, therefore, epidemiological surveillance followed the case, but later discarded the relationship. The neurological care she went through also ruled out a connection between the episode and the immunizer, according to her.

To Comprova, the press office of the Secretary of State for Health of Paraná reported registering in the e-SUS Notifica Covid system, made available by the Ministry of Health, cases of adverse reactions after vaccination.

According to the organ, when the search for the name of the doctor is carried out, the system informs a notification made by the municipality of Curitiba on January 26, 2021. There is no other notification registered after his death.

The Municipal Health Secretariat of the capital of Paraná was also contacted and reported that Atamai was a resident of the city, but worked in municipalities in the metropolitan region, having presented a suspected adverse reaction after being vaccinated with the first dose on January 20, 2021, in municipality of Pinhais.

The folder added that the entire clinical investigation of the case was carried out and concluded that the situation had no link with vaccination. “The doctor’s death occurred almost two years later, on October 23, 2022. There is no evidence that there is a causal relationship with the vaccination that took place in the past”, highlighted the press office.

benefits and risks

According to data from Sesa, in 2021 Paraná recorded 28,073 reports of adverse reactions, in 2022 there were 10,956 and, in 2023, another 363 until March 23, totaling 39,392 since the beginning of vaccination. The pandemic transparency platform maintained by the government of Paraná informs that, until the morning of March 27, 27.4 million doses were applied in the State, that is, the notified reactions are only 0.14% of the total doses applied .

The agency did not identify how many died, but Comprova has previously explained that serious post-vaccination adverse events against Covid-19 – including death – are rare and that the benefits of immunization outweigh the risks. An epidemiological bulletin released by the federal government at the end of 2021 showed that the risk of death from the disease is 56 times greater than the risk of an adverse event related to vaccination.

In the report, the Ministry of Health recalled that, like any medicine or immunization, vaccines for Covid-19 can cause adverse events, most of which are not serious, such as headaches, cough, diarrhea, rhinitis, nausea, among others. others.

Serious reactions, highlighted the folder, are very rare and occur, on average, one case every 100,000 doses applied, presenting a significantly lower risk than that of complications caused by the virus infection. Among them is the possibility of developing venous thrombosis, myocarditis and pericarditis, neurological syndromes such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, encephalitis, cerebral hemorrhages, arrhythmia, acute myocardial infarction and pulmonary embolism, among others.

A technical note from the folder published in May 2022 analyzed the incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis in the context of vaccination against Covid-19 between January 18, 2021 and March 12, 2022, a period of more than one year. A total of 222 events were identified in the e-SUS Notifica and, of these, only 87 had a syndromic diagnosis of myocarditis/pericarditis with some level of certainty. In the same period, the country recorded 294,159,843 doses applied. Among confirmed severe reactions, only two deaths were recorded.

Anvisa informed Comprova that all monitoring data and reports of adverse events received so far maintain the benefit-risk ratio of the vaccine favorable to its use. Regarding severe cases such as thrombosis, heart attacks and myocarditis, he explained that they can be triggered by multifactors and are known and described in the drug inserts.

The body reinforces that citizens and health professionals should be aware of the signs and symptoms of adverse events and immediately notify suspected cases, having in hand the identification of the type of vaccine, as well as the identification and registration of the batch number used and the manufacturer. When these serious events are reported, an investigation is opened, with the aim of a differential diagnosis and exclusion of alternative causes.

What can we learn from this check

A common tactic used by disinformers is to make correlations between different and conflicting facts, such as the criticism made by physician Atamai Moraes of tennis player Novak Djokovic for his opposition to the use of the vaccine and Moraes’ death from a massive heart attack. This occurs in a context in which there are several publications claiming that the vaccine against Covid-19 has caused sudden deaths in younger people.

The relationship is made when the post states that “the rabid doctor is the millionth rare case of sudden death in a vaccinated young person”, that is, it appropriates the duality between “millionth” and “rare case” as a criticism of the explanations that it is not possible to relate vaccination to Moraes’ death.

Proof that the content misinforms is the number of responses from users who demonstrate that they associated the young doctor’s death with vaccination. One person, for example, responded to the publication saying that “Dr. Atamai Moraes is a victim of the vaccine”, while another affirms that “no vaccines, no side effects” and a third declares to be “out of these vaccines” (reference to the products manufactured in China).

In this way, it is also necessary to question the interest, intention and context of the posts we receive.

why do we investigate

Comprova monitors suspicious content published on social networks and messaging apps about public policies and elections at the federal level and opens investigations for those publications that have achieved greater reach and engagement. You can also suggest checks via WhatsApp +55 11 97045-4984. Suggestions and questions related to questionable content can also be sent to Sheet via WhatsApp 11 99486-0293.

Other checks on the topic

On this subject, Comprova has already denied that the player Lucas Leiva had heart problems for having been vaccinated, showing that there is no proof that the death of a boy in Arujá, in São Paulo, is related to the immunization and that it is not true that the vaccine of Covid made heart disease ‘explode’ in children.