Following the publication of an article from National Public Radio about an increase in stroke rates among young people, anti-vaccine figures on social media were quick to raise speculation about the coronavirus vaccine’s role in the increase.
The article in question is titled “Stroke rates are increasing among young people. Here's what you need to know.” It explains that this rise in stroke rates isn’t a recent occurrence. According to the American Heart Association, there’s been an increase among adults 49 and younger for the last 30 years. This is based on a study called the Global Burden of Disease, released in 2019, before the COVID pandemic began and long before coronavirus vaccines were available.
Based on the available data, strokes brought on by the coronavirus vaccine are an extremely rare side effect, with the risk of a stroke being lower with a vaccine than with the virus itself.
There is nothing in the NPR article that suggests coronavirus vaccines have caused an uptick in strokes among young people.
If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.
It's terribly sad, but as soon as I saw that headline on NPR, I thought to myself...cue the anti-vaxxers and the unfounded connections.
I remember, circa 2004, riding in the car with my mom, listening to a rather scary piece of reporting on the radio. From what I recall, the gist of the story was there was emerging evidence that those greedy drug companies were using (a) certain kind(s) of preservatives in infants' vaccines. The preservative(s) seemed to be causing autism-spectrum disorders among some inoculated infants.
The radio station broadcasting this fearsome story?
Our local NPR station.