JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Shortly after Pfizer and Moderna received emergency use authorizations from the FDA, there have been increased reports of COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). In January 2021, MLB legend and Hall of Famer Hank Aaron passed away at the age of 86 from natural causes, just two weeks after he received the COVID-19 vaccine. Anti-vaccination groups attempted to link his death to the Moderna vaccine, similar to other attempts to mispresent data from the VAERS to spread COVID-19 misinformation.

Objective:

This study assessed the spread of misinformation linked to erroneous claims about Hank Aaron’s death on Twitter and then characterized different vaccine misinformation and hesitancy themes generated from users who interacted with this misinformation discourse.

Methods:

An initial sample of tweets, from January 31 to February 6, 2021, was queried from the Twitter application programming interface (API) using the keywords “Hank Aaron” and “vaccine”. The sample was manually annotated for misinformation, reporting or news media, and public reaction. Non-media user accounts were also classified if they were verified by Twitter. A second sample of tweets, representing direct comments or retweets to misinformation-labeled content was also collected. User sentiment toward misinformation, positive (agree) or negative (disagree), was recorded. The SAGE vaccine hesitancy matrix from the World Health Organization was used to code the second sample of tweets for factors influencing vaccine confidence.

Results:

A total of 436 tweets were initially sampled from the Twitter API. Misinformation was the most prominent content type (56%, n = 244) detected, followed by public reaction (28%, n = 122) and media reporting (16%, n = 69). No misinformation-related content we reviewed was labeled as misleading by Twitter at the time of the study. An additional 1,243 comments on misinformation-labeled content from 973 unique users were also collected, 779 comments deemed relevant to study aims. Most of these comments expressed positive sentiment (78.6%, n = 612) to misinformation and did not refute it. Common misinformation observed included linking the death of Hank Aaron to “suspicious” elderly deaths following vaccination, claims about vaccines being used for depopulation, death panels, federal officials targeting Black Americans, and misinterpretation of VAERS reports. Four users engaging with or posting misinformation were verified on Twitter at the time of data collection. Based on the WHO SAGE framework, the most common vaccine hesitancy theme was individual or group influences (65%, n=508), followed by vaccine or vaccination-specific influences (14%, n=110) and contextual influences (12%, n=93).

Conclusions:

Our study found that the death of a high-profile ethnic minority celebrity led to the spread of misinformation on Twitter. This misinformation directly challenged the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines at a time when ensuring vaccine coverage among minority populations was paramount. Misinformation targeted at minority groups and echoed by other verified Twitter users has the potential to generate unwarranted vaccine hesitancy at the expense of people like Hank Aaron who sought to promote public health and community immunity.