Skip to main content

PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Health & medicine fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about health & medicine. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

13,677 published reviews in this topic

PolitiFactHealth & medicine

Gilbert Gottfried died from the COVID-19 vaccine.

Publisher’s rating: False

Research from related reporting identifies the event as Gilbert Gottfried’s death in 2022 and gives a cardiac cause. One report states that he “died from recurrent ventricular tachycardia due to a disorder that affects the heart.” Another says he died “from ventricular tachycardia” and describes myotonic dystrophy type 2 as a pre-existing condition affecting cardiac tissue. These excerpts provide an account of the reported cause, but do not include medical records or evidence establishing how the condition arose. The related research also says Gottfried disclosed receiving COVID-19 vaccinations: it quotes him as saying, “Yeah, I got the two regular shots and I even got the booster.” That establishes vaccination according to the excerpt, not that vaccination caused his death. The same source raises a possible connection between a cardiac vulnerability and vaccination, but presents it as a question rather than evidence demonstrating causation. On the supplied excerpts, the claim that the vaccine caused his death is not substantiated; the evidence identifies a reported heart-rhythm cause and vaccination, without establishing a causal link between them.