Fans Crush Former NFL Player For Promoting Misleading, Unfounded Anti-Vax Conspiracy Theories

Thankfully, the latest report about the health of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin has been good. He’s awake, responsive and in a significantly better place than he was four days ago.

Unfortunately, as is almost always the case when anything shocking happens in a high-profile event like an NFL game, the conspiracy theorists are going to use the event as an opportunity to espouse their wild, unfounded beliefs.

It’s just to be expected.

What wasn’t expected was for a former NFL player, Golden Tate in this case, to be the one stirring the conspiracy pot.

On Thursday, Tate took to Twitter to “HIGHLY HIGHLY ENCOURAGE” his 377,000-plus followers to watch a documentary called Died Suddenly.

Literally, that’s what he wrote.

“I would HIGHLY HIGHLY ENCOURAGE EVERYONE to check out #DiedSuddenlydocumentary,” Golden Tate tweeted. “I’m really anxious to hear the perspectives of pro vax doctors, embalmers and any professional with data to combat these jaw dropping stats mentioned in Died Suddenly. Watching it FOR SURE has me shook!”

While Tate doesn’t specifically tie the anti-vax conspiracy theories promoted in the film to Damar Hamlin, the timing of his tweet and the similar rhetoric being spouted by longtime anti-vaxxers is pretty suspect.

• “Damar Hamlin’s Tragedy, Anti-vaxxer’s Gold” ~ The Atlantic

• “Hamlin’s collapse spurs new wave of vaccine misinformation” ~ Associated Press

• “‘Doctor’ who claimed he gave Damar Hamlin COVID-19 booster last week wasn’t real” ~ PennLive

Pushback against Golden Tate’s anti-vax conspiracy tweet was fast and furious.

“Please stop spreading misinformation my guy. Your platform is large and I know you are a smart man,” a Twitter user wrote.

“The people ‘dropping dead’ at the beginning of the film has been debunked,” another Twitter user responded. “Many of them have been found alive. The basketball player collapsed before vaccines were made and now plays for Kansas State. The clips of the blood clots. From a clip made in the early 2000’s.”