False: Canadian doctors are dying at record rates due to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Context

The claim that 80 Canadian doctors have died due to the COVID-19 vaccine has gained high traction on social media and has been widely circulated in anti-vax discourse over the last month. The claim also suggests Canadian doctors are dying at record rates and pushes the anti-vax belief that COVID-19 vaccines are responsible for Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS). 

In Fact

There is no evidence that any of the doctors' deaths were COVID-19 vaccines, nor that Canadian doctors are dying at record rates.

No credible information links the deaths of Canadian doctors to COVID-19 vaccinations. According to a 2023 article by Global News, 48 of the doctors have had their cause of death identified, none of which were vaccine-related. As stated in the article, "10 died from cancer, three perished in car accidents, one died during a fall while climbing K2, one drowned while trying to save his son, five suffered heart attacks, and six died by suicide." Other deaths were confirmed to be unrelated to either COVID-19 or the vaccine. Global News also reached out to William Maxis, a non-practicing doctor that spreads vaccine disinformation. Maxis claimed to be the creator of the list of the 80 doctors but refused to give evidence to support his claims. A similar claim that six doctors in Canada died after getting the COVID-19 vaccine was fact-checked by Logically in 2022 as false.

As mentioned by Global News, the list of 80 doctors was supposedly compiled from medical institutions across Canada, primarily from the Canadian Medical Association's "In Memoriam" page. However, the association states they don't track doctor deaths and that this page consists of family tributes and is not a comprehensive list.

Logically reached out to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) to see if any data supported the claims. It told Logically, "We do not report on mortality rates among doctors and health professionals on a regular basis." However, they did have data from March 2022 on healthcare workers that died from COVID-19. This data revealed that the number of COVID-19 infections among health workers in Canada had increased over time, and since the start of the pandemic, at least 46 health workers have died from COVID-19. In reference to the data, the CIHI said, "As you can see, our data cannot suggest that there has been an increase or record rate of health professional deaths in Canada for the period under consideration." Claims on social media provide no statistics or credible evidence to support the claim of doctors dying at record rates.

Anti-vax disinformation about deaths in Canada has been ongoing since the vaccine rollout; however, the traction of Canada-focused claims increased in January 2023. These claims attempt to spread fear to stop people from getting vaccinated and to sow distrust against medical professionals. Alongside claims of doctors dying, there were claims that vaccines were causing unexplained deaths in Alberta. However, as mentioned in a 2022 CTV News article, while there was a higher number of unexplained deaths, authorities said the vaccines were not the cause and stood by their effectiveness. There is no evidence that the vaccine causes sudden deaths. COVID-19 vaccines are considered safe and effective. 

The Verdict

There is no evidence that Canadian doctors are dying at record rates and the 80 doctors listed did not die due to COVID-19 vaccinations. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.