Grant Wahl Was a Loving Husband. I Will Always Protect His Legacy.

NYT OPINION: Grant Wahl Was a Loving Husband. I Will Always Protect His Legacy.
By Céline Gounder
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: January 8, 2023 at 02:00AM

Anti-vaccine harassment cannot stand.

It was the end of the workday on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. I was wrapping up a Zoom call when my phone started to vibrate with calls, text messages and emails. Gabriele Marcotti, an ESPN journalist, was trying to reach me from Qatar, where he was covering the World Cup alongside my husband, Grant Wahl.
Gabriele’s an old friend. He was at our wedding over 20 years ago. Now, he told me on the phone, colleagues were saying that Grant had collapsed in the stadium press box toward the end of the Argentina-Netherlands match. He had heard that bystanders had started CPR on Grant. I gasped, barely forming the words to ask, “Did he have a pulse?” Gabriele didn’t know. Soon, Grant was transported by ambulance to Hamad General Hospital. It wasn’t until over an hour later that I tracked down a doctor in the emergency department for an update. My Grant had died.
As soon as the news became public, rumors and disinformation began to spread. Amid seemingly inexplicable tragedy, there’s an understandable reflex to grasp onto narratives that could explain how something so shocking could occur. Even those of us who love Grant did so in our grief. But soon strangers began blaming Grant’s death on Covid-19 vaccines, a playbook I know all too well and a move I refuse to let stand.
I knew that disinformation purveyors would blame Grant’s death on Covid vaccines, and I knew what tactics they would use to do so. I also knew that debunking what these people believe head-on in public risks giving them the attention they crave and invites further trolling. But this situation was different from the many others I’d dealt with as an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist or while serving on the Biden-Harris transition Covid Advisory Board. This was my Grant, and I needed to know what had happened to him. And I knew I had to share that information publicly: Pairing facts with empathy is the best way to disempower trolls.
So, in the days following Grant’s death, I swallowed my grief. I worked to have Grant flown home for an autopsy. It was a herculean task to overcome the various bureaucratic and logistical barriers, and I needed a lot of help. His autopsy was performed at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner, which is staffed by some of the world’s top pathologists and forensic scientists. I wanted his autopsy results to be unimpeachable.

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/08/opinion/grant-wahl-celine-gounder-vaccine.html

POLITICS News and Tweets