A few days ago in the newspapers appeared, with great clamor, the news of the sudden death of a person in Biella who had previously vaccinated with AstraZeneca. Now the result of theautopsy determined that it was heart failure, which had nothing to do with the vaccine: every year 50,000 people die from this cause and it is, of course, likely that by pure coincidence it happens to those who got vaccinated a few days earlier. Just as it is probable that a person will die of a sudden illness before being vaccinated (Enrico Bucci in today’s sheet reports some events of this type).
The same outcome, which clears the vaccines, produced the first investigations on the health worker who disappeared in Agrigento and the autopsy ordered by the Trapani prosecutor on the 54-year-old carabiniere who had attracted the attention of many media when the first were seized lots of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The same applies to the case of the Afragola janitor who had been vaccinated a few days earlier: the first results of the autopsy did not reveal any links between death and vaccination.
In these events, as the case of the Fluad flu shot in 2014 shows, the media have a great responsibility. Because on the one hand, emphasizing unproven and unlikely coincidences, often with alarming tones, feeds mistrust and fear in vaccines. On the other hand, because this type of news triggers an automatic and often uncontrollable mechanism that multiplies the reports of possible adverse events or side effects due to the greater sensitivity of the population induced by the media coverage of certain events. And this in turn fuels alarm and distrust in the population.
It is true that the media should not hide any news, but this does not mean that they should produce panic by reporting facts in a distorted and alarmist way. It takes a sense of responsibility. The news of rare vaccine damage must be given when it is ascertained. At the moment this has not happened yet.