With the shocking collapse of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin [during a recent Monday night football game], it appears Twitter and social media in general have been alight with spats about the possible cause of Mr. Hamlin’s frightening episode (thank God it seems he’s recovering well).

The main point of contention, or one of them at least, is between those who suggest that the Covid vaccine may have something to do with Mr. Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, and those who insist that doing so is tantamount to shouting fire in a theater. 

Of course, the two sides are predictable. On the vaccine-suspicion side are the typical skeptics of all things Covid, who are often of the conservative bent and no longer trust the public health establishment. On the other are folks who toe the government line on all things Covid who tend to be liberal or, at least, mainstream in some sense.

What I don’t get, and what is lamentable about our post-Covid world, is why the latter side is so set against inquiry or asking questions to get to the truth of the matter. 

Since it is extremely rare, we’re told, for a player to have such an incident on the field of play or in general, it is entirely reasonable to ask if he had the vaccine and if it may have been a cause of his condition. (It seems certain that he was vaccinated as the Bills proudly claim to be “100% vaccinated”.)

After all, it is well-documented that the vaccine has been linked to a significant increase in cases of myocarditis, especially for young males. The VAERS system, which collects data on vaccine-related adverse incidents and deaths, is absolutely overflowing with such reports related to the Covid mRNA vaccines. And some organizations have documented much, much higher than normal instances of athletes collapsing during competitions since the vaccines’ advent. 

I won’t go into details, but rest assured, if you want to find evidence of the massively out-size scale of health problems related to the Covid vaccine vs. previous vaccines, you can find it. 

But my point isn’t to try and affirm that the vaccine caused Mr. Hamlin’s collapse, but only to say that it’s ridiculous that we’re not even supposed to ask that question anymore. It used to be that the Left was highly suspicious of major institutions such as government and big pharma. Now, they are cheerleaders for those same groups and seek to silence anyone who questions their claims. Things have indeed been flipped upside down.

Perhaps I could understand why people may have been more inclined to shush vaccine critics in the early days of the rollout since it was assumed that the only way for the vaccine to work was for everyone to get it. Remember? Biden promised that getting it would stop infection and stop the spread. If that were a valid assumption, then anger towards vaccine skepticism would be at least somewhat justified.

But we all know that isn’t the case. The vaccine may be effective at lessening the severity of the illness, but it does have many more negative side effects than normal, including death, and it manifestly has not stopped the spread. Contributing to the skepticism is the stubborn refusal of the government, the public health authorities, or the drug companies to admit that the vaccine has not performed as promised. 

All of this makes skepticism about the vaccine warranted, not illegitimate. It seems to me that this whole trend of labeling anything that goes against a certain narrative as “misinformation” or “disinformation” has poisoned our intellectual ecosystem.

Free and open debate is a necessary prerequisite not just of science, but of a healthy democracy as well. If debate is stifled, which it most certainly is on a range of issues, then we cannot solve the bigger problems in our society.

And given that American society is plagued by significantly worse levels of sickness, morbidity, drug addiction, crime, suicide, and poverty than most developed countries, valuing and practing open inquiry is more important than ever.

So, if we really don’t want to see another athlete or regular citizen collapse for no apparent reason, we need to ask the “hard” questions and make sure we’re lifting every stone to find the answers we need. There is no need to fear the truth and, indeed, the truth will set you free.

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.