Issues | Hank Aaron’s death and the COVID vaccine in the elderly

On January 5, 2021, Hank Aaron received his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Seventeen days later, he died. RFK Jr suggested that the Moderna vaccine may have played a role in Hank Aaron’s death.

On or about January 22, 2021, RFK Jr posted a link on his Facebook page to a Children’s Health Defense (CHD) article: “Home Run King Hank Aaron Dies of ‘Undisclosed Cause’ 18 Days After Receiving Moderna Vaccine” (Figure 1). The article included the following quote from RFK Jr: “Aaron’s tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines.”

Several outlets — media and fact-checkers — condemned the statement as misinformation. Officials say Aaron’s death had nothing to do with the COVID-19 vaccine he received 17 days earlier. In particular, RFK Jr’s quote and information in the article were checked by Science Feedback, an ‘independent third-party fact checker’ working with Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram, among other platforms).

Science Feedback concluded that RFK Jr’s quote was misleading. “The statement implies that the COVID-19 vaccines were the cause of a ‘wave of suspicious deaths’ among elderly people. There is no evidence available to support this claim (Figure 2). Simply because an event occurred after vaccination does not mean that vaccination caused the event. In order to establish whether a vaccine caused an adverse event, one has to look beyond anecdotes and compare the incidence rate of the adverse event between a group that received the vaccine and a group that didn’t receive the vaccine” (Science Feedback, 210126).

Several fact-checking articles reported this claim, including the New York Times and four of Facebook’s fact-checkers (AFP, FactCheck.org, Science Feeback, and USA TODAY). Facebook added the following warning label to the post: “Missing context. Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people” (Figure 3 and Figure 4). The “Disinformation Dozen” report, an analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, cites this Facebook post as an example of RFK Jr violating Facebook’s terms of service: “A misleading claim that Hank Aaron’s death was ‘part of a wave of suspicious deaths’ remains available with a “missing context” label, despite the Medical Examiner confirming no association.”

“Never mind the skeptics, officials say: Hank Aaron’s death had nothing to do with the Covid-19 vaccine,” reads the headline of a New York Times article. The page title reads: “Fact Check: Hank Aaron’s Death Was Not Related to Covid-19 Vaccine – The New York Times.” The fact-check provides two exhibits of evidence to exonerate the vaccine.

On January 5, Hank Aaron received his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Seventeen days later, he died, the Times reported:

The newspaper stating there’s no evidence even to suggest a link between the vaccination and Aaron’s death is untrue, as discussed below.

The Times did not report whether Dr. Sullivan had any evidence to conclude that the two were coincidences. Furthermore, it is reasonable to conclude that there is no need for a national safety monitoring system in the comparison Dr. Sullivan drew. Still, there is for vaccines (e.g., VAERS), which suggests that it is not only a false analogy but a reckless one.

Anaphylaxis is a severe and sudden allergic reaction that typically occurs within seconds to minutes of exposure, such as the COVID-19 vaccine. It is reasonable to conclude that Aaron’s death was not attributable to an allergic or anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine since it had been 17 days since it was administered.

However, this does not preclude the possibility of a vaccine causing or contributing to adverse events or deaths. Vaccine-related deaths generally result from aggravations of existing comorbidities. A 2024 BMJ Public Health article highlighted the difficulties in discerning whether serious adverse events are related to adverse vaccine reactions:

It’s difficult to determine whether a vaccine contributed to death individually. For example, a 2010 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported to VAERS.

RFK Jr’s quote questions whether Hank Aaron’s death might have been related to the COVID-19 vaccine he received 18 days earlier, which is speculative and not misleading, as Science Feedback’s (and others’) fact-checks assert.

“Aaron’s tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines,” is quoted in a January 21, 2021 CHD article. The quote from the article included a link to a 2,000-word article by RFK Jr published a week prior (210114), which includes details of the deaths he finds suspicious. The article’s subtitle reads: “Declarations by health officials and vaccine makers that deaths and injuries following COVID vaccinations are unrelated coincidences are becoming a pattern. They’re also depriving people of the information they need to make informed decisions.”

Science Feedback’s fact-check asserts that his quote implies that the COVID-19 vaccines caused the deaths. However, suspicion does not imply causation.

RFK Jr is concerned that routinely and reflexively dismissing deaths and other adverse events as unrelated to vaccination may obscure the vaccines’ actual risks. He questions whether they might have been related and asserts that we can’t know the actual risk of COVID-19 vaccines if they aren’t properly investigated.

As to whether a COVID-19 vaccine caused or contributed to Mr. Aaron’s death and the additional cases RFK Jr presented in his January 14 article, the evidence is insufficient to confirm or rule out its involvement definitively. However, unlike the New York Times (its page title reads: “Fact Check: Hank Aaron’s Death Was Not Related to Covid-19 Vaccine”), RFK Jr did not make a definitive claim. He is simply questioning whether Hank Aaron’s death might have been related to the COVID-19 vaccine he received 18 days earlier. The fact-checks themselves effectively add support to his assertion that deaths and injuries following vaccination are reflexively dismissed.

In response to the fact-checks, RFK Jr wrote a follow-up article on February 12 that included the following points:

• “I never said that the Moderna shot caused Aaron’s death. I simply made the factual observation that ‘Aaron’s tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines.’”
• “Moderna’s clinical trials were inadequate to assess the vaccine’s risks to the elderly … Moderna vaccine could be causing more deaths than it is averting, without attracting notice.”
• “Vaccine deaths are nearly impossible to diagnose. … Placebo studies alone can assess a vaccine’s risks.”
• “Regulators are relying on the VAERS surveillance system to assess the risk of Moderna’s vaccine” … and “VAERS is utterly dysfunctional.”

RFK Jr’s statement was neither misleading nor missing context, as Science Feedback and Facebook assert, respectively.

• Science Feedback asserts, “Simply because an event occurred after vaccination does not mean that vaccination caused the event.”

This is true.

• Science Feeback continues: “In order to establish whether a vaccine caused an adverse event, one has to look beyond anecdotes and compare the incidence rate of the adverse event between a group that received the vaccine and a group that didn’t receive the vaccine.”

While this is true in general — such studies, properly designed, can tell us if a particular vaccine can cause adverse events, for example, heart attacks or strokes — it doesn’t tell us if a vaccine caused a heart attack or stroke in a specific patient.

Moreover, RFK Jr points out: “Hank Aaron was 86 years old. The Moderna vaccine trials included no individuals over 80 years old and only 20 individuals over 70. A study of this anemic statistical power could detect no special vulnerabilities in people over 80 and could detect risks only from lethal injuries like heart attacks if they killed more than 1 in 20 vaccine recipients over 70.”

• “Never mind the skeptics, officials say: Hank Aaron’s death had nothing to do with the Covid-19 vaccine,” reads the headline of a New York Times fact-checking article. The page title reads: “Fact Check: Hank Aaron’s Death Was Not Related to Covid-19 Vaccine – The New York Times.”

The fact-check provides two exhibits of evidence to exonerate the vaccine. One is an individual stating it was pure coincidence, with no evidence to support this assertion. The New York Times also said there was nothing to suggest that Mr. Aaron had an allergic or anaphylactic reaction related to the vaccine, according to the medical examiner. This is not disputed. However, it is immaterial to the question of a vaccine-related death involving a stroke.

• Science Feedback states that Aaron died peacefully in his sleep, and it was concluded he died of natural causes following an autopsy.

However, RFK Jr asserts there was never an autopsy, according to a conversation he had with one of the County’s medical examiner investigators for the coroner’s office (which is consistent with the evidence reviewed).

Moreover, USA TODAY reported that Aaron suffered “a massive stroke” (210122).

• On January 14, 2021, a week before Aaron’s death, RFK Jr pointed out an emerging pattern (210114): deaths that may be related to a recent vaccination are reflexively dismissed as unrelated coincidences. This will compromise an accurate evaluation of the potential risks associated with the therapy against its expected benefits.

A week later, fact-checking articles effectively confirmed his suspicions by responding to the claim in question, including the New York Times, publishing an article containing the page title: “Fact Check: Hank Aaron’s Death Was Not Related to Covid-19 Vaccine,” a definitive claim that is unknowable and not supported by the available evidence. Thus, these fact-checks provide more support to RFK Jr’s assertion.