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OT: Soccer journalist Grant Wahl dies covering World Cup

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BigLou

BigLou

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Noted soccer writer Grant Wahl died today after collapsing at the Argentina Netherlands game. This was a couple of days after he was detained by stadium security for wearing a rainbow shirt to a game. His brother feels there was foul play by the Qatari government.
I heard him talking about being detained and having his phone taken after taking a selfie while in custody. He was 48 years old.

nypost.com

US soccer journalist Grant Wahl dies covering World Cup in Qatar, brother thinks ‘he was killed’

Influential US soccer journalist Grant Wahl, 49, who was detained for wearing a rainbow shirt to the World Cup last month, died Friday in Qatar, according to his brother, who believes foul play was…
nypost.com nypost.com
 
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Wow. Shocking.

According to that NY Post he had been fighting a case of bronchitis. Unbelievable, though.
 
BigLou said:
Noted soccer writer Grant Wahl died today after collapsing at the Argentina Netherlands game. This was a couple of days after he was detained by stadium security for wearing a rainbow shirt to a game. His brother feels there was foul play by the Qatari government.
I heard him talking about being detained and having his phone taken after taking a selfie while in custody. He was 48 years old.

nypost.com

US soccer journalist Grant Wahl dies covering World Cup in Qatar, brother thinks ‘he was killed’

Influential US soccer journalist Grant Wahl, 49, who was detained for wearing a rainbow shirt to the World Cup last month, died Friday in Qatar, according to his brother, who believes foul play was…
nypost.com nypost.com
Click to expand...

It was Also just a few days after he stated he went to doctors feeling like “his body has stopped working” was diagnosed with bronchitis. Horrible story.
 
Tragic. I'm sure we will hear more about the cause. Seemed to be very sick the last week. RIP
 
mikemarc1 said:
It was Also just a few days after he stated he went to doctors feeling like “his body has stopped working” was diagnosed with bronchitis. Horrible story.
Click to expand...
Reading his earlier comments, sounds like he was misdiagnosed. He talked about “crazy” pain and tightness in the chest. Sounds like he may have been experiencing cardiac issues, not bronchitis.
 
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The sharp pain and difficulty breathing could suggest PE. Nothing known at this time rules out cardiac. The unfortunate reality is that 40s - 50s is a Red Zone for cardiac death because a lot of men haven't bothered with cardiological exams at that point, but the underlying conditions are already there.
 
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Anecdotally there have been way more young men in theirs 30s and 40s during suddenly the past year or so. In the last month alone I’ve learned of 3 others through work and wife’s work. All supposedly had clean bills of health. Never heard anything like this before.

Ironically I work within group benefits and healthcare consulting and so far term life loss ratios don’t support this theory but man I just feel horrible for these people. Many leave children less than 5 years old.
 
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Did you all read his comments from earlier about all the coughing by the journalists all around him in Quatar? I am not a conspiracy theory nut, but I'd be curious to know why that was...

"I basically canceled everything on this Thursday that I had, and napped and I'm doing slightly better that you can probably tell in my voice that I'm not at it at 100 percent here," he said. "Hopefully I will not cough during this podcast. I'm coughing a lot. Everyone's coughing here in like this is by no means limited to me like so many journalists have got a crazy cough. It sounds like a death rattle sometimes."
 
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dconifer said:
Did you all read his comments from earlier about all the coughing by the journalists all around him in Quatar? I am not a conspiracy theory nut, but I'd be curious to know why that was...
Click to expand...

I know a ton of people who
Have a crazy cough currently. Nothing out of the ordinary, imo
 
Joey Bags said:
Anecdotally there have been way more young men in theirs 30s and 40s during suddenly the past year or so. In the last month alone I’ve learned of 3 others through work and wife’s work. All supposedly had clean bills of health. Never heard anything like this before.

Ironically I work within group benefits and healthcare consulting and so far term life loss ratios don’t support this theory but man I just feel horrible for these people. Many leave children less than 5 years old.
Click to expand...
Nothing supports that theory because it’s not true.
 
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Joey Bags said:
Anecdotally there have been way more young men in theirs 30s and 40s during suddenly the past year or so. In the last month alone I’ve learned of 3 others through work and wife’s work. All supposedly had clean bills of health. Never heard anything like this before.

Ironically I work within group benefits and healthcare consulting and so far term life loss ratios don’t support this theory but man I just feel horrible for these people. Many leave children le
Click to expand...
Joey Bags said:
Anecdotally there have been way more young men in theirs 30s and 40s during suddenly the past year or so. In the last month alone I’ve learned of 3 others through work and wife’s work. All supposedly had clean bills of health. Never heard anything like this before.

Ironically I work within group benefits and healthcare consulting and so far term life loss ratios don’t support this theory but man I just feel horrible for these people. Many leave children less than 5 years old.
Click to expand...
So anecdotal but the industry it would impact their bottom line has made no changes as a result

Seems likely
 
Extra Point said:
And his wife specializes in infectious diseases and global health, and was a member of the COVID-19 Advisory Board transition team for Biden.
Click to expand...
I've seen his wife Celine Gounder very often on tv throughout the pandemic.
She's quite the expert.
Sorry for her loss.
 
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This time in US, possibly even world, history, is going to be viewed by historians as the mass conspiracy psychosis period of human history. A time in which unrestrained, often politically-motivated, paranoia continuously elevated pure idle speculation into widely accepted lore leveraging social-media borne misinformation. Where state, political and special interest groups adopted and refined the misinformation into disinformation to serve their purposes.

Apparently healthy people die suddenly all the time. About 5-6 years back, I had a close friend, in his mid 40s, who was very fit, ran 5 miles every day, played soccer games twice a week, who died suddenly on the side of the road while driving back to MA after giving a lecture at RU. Heart failure.

A fully healthy woman I went to HS with died fairly young from choking on food while alone. Another guy I knew died suddenly at his desk for no apparent reason. This stuff happens.

Meaningless coincidences, often based on unrelated and purely anecdotal reports that nobody can verify, quickly become pseudo-facts that are spread around until nobody questions it. People no longer apply skepticism logically. They apply skepticism using their preconceptions, their strongly held biases. Things must be true because they correlate with my politics, or with the propaganda espoused by my chosen “news” sources.

This sucks, is very widespread, and is not restricted to any particular “side” of any issue or any political orientation. This thread is a perfect example of the problem.

It’s always possible that foul play is involved in a sudden death. Or that there is some actual medical trend that correlates with something and that a given singular event might become part of that trend. But possibility is not evidence. Statistical anomalies, even when accurate, are not conclusive evidence of theories.

People need to step back from the conjecture abyss and learn to be skeptical again.
 
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RUPete said:
Another thought: pulmonary embolism. DVT can occur sometimes after long flights - combination of prolonged, confined inertia and dehydration. DVT can lead to PE.
Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bloom

I think two things happen in these threads (see it all the time on the CE board):

(1) people now attach meaning to random deaths they used to shrug off. When David Bloom (linked above) died, I imagine most people who read about it back then said "wow, DVTs are dangerous, can strike a healthy guy in his 30s." Now the reaction is: "oh no, that doesn't happen to healthy people, it must be related to this thing I'm already suspicious of."

(2) There may be more young people dying, and maybe those deaths can be attributed to blood clots occurring more frequently than in the past, but COVID itself causes blood clots and was implicated in clot-related issues (such as strokes and heart attacks) going back to 2020 before we had a vaccine or started claiming vaccines cause blood clots.

Young people have also been getting colon cancer at higher rates than in the past, getting diabetes at higher rates, developing heart disease at a younger age...all of these trends predate the pandemic. Clots, strokes, and sudden cardiac death may have similar non-pandemic-related underlying causes...or not. A lot to untangle. However, I expect some in society will attribute any negative health trend to the vaccine for the rest of their lives.
 
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RUPsyched said:
Not into consipiracy theories, but if I were, I might advise FIFA and the Olympic committees to stop having events in countries with autocratic governments.
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I am not into conspiracy theories but I think they should never hold events in countries like Qatar
 
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mildone said:
This time in US, possibly even world, history, is going to be viewed by historians as the mass conspiracy psychosis period of human history. A time in which unrestrained, often politically-motivated, paranoia continuously elevated pure idle speculation into widely accepted lore leveraging social-media borne misinformation. Where state, political and special interest groups adopted and refined the misinformation into disinformation to serve their purposes.

Apparently healthy people die suddenly all the time. About 5-6 years back, I had a close friend, in his mid 40s, who was very fit, ran 5 miles every day, played soccer games twice a week, who died suddenly on the side of the road while driving back to MA after giving a lecture at RU. Heart failure.

A fully healthy woman I went to HS with died fairly young from choking on food while alone. Another guy I knew died suddenly at his desk for no apparent reason. This stuff happens.

Meaningless coincidences, often based on unrelated and purely anecdotal reports that nobody can verify, quickly become pseudo-facts that are spread around until nobody questions it. People no longer apply skepticism logically. They apply skepticism using their preconceptions, their strongly held biases. Things must be true because they correlate with my politics, or with the propaganda espoused by my chosen “news” sources.

This sucks, is very widespread, and is not restricted to any particular “side” of any issue or any political orientation. This thread is a perfect example of the problem.

It’s always possible that foul play is involved in a sudden death. Or that there is some actual medical trend that correlates with something and that a given singular event might become part of that trend. But possibility is not evidence. Statistical anomalies, even when accurate, are not conclusive evidence of theories.

People need to step back from the conjecture abyss and learn to be skeptical again.
Click to expand...
You are right Mildone. It isn't the conjecture itself as it is many people's failure to recognize conjecture when it is. Pretty much all stories on news shows on all networks and sites are conjecture. Sometimes, though, it's fun to conspiracize. Sometimes going along to get along allows for peaceful holiday dinners. Not all arguments are worth having. Let the nuts be nuts I say.
 
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tom1944 said:
I am not into conspiracy theories but I think they should never hold events in countries like Qatar
Click to expand...
No conspiracy. Just died of boredom for having to cover soccer! :)

Seriously, RIP. Awful story that sounds like there is more to it.
 
Sure-Fire Get Rich Quick Idea!!

  1. Convince @T2Kplus20 to swear, as his New Year's Resolution, that he can go a full 24 hours without being an asshole
  2. Bet all the money in the world that he can't keep said resolution
  3. Buy Leon Musk, turn him into a lawn jockey
  4. Still have pretty much all the money in the world

BTW, @mildone's post was pretty much perfect.
 
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RU4Real said:
Sure-Fire Get Rich Quick Idea!!

  1. Convince @T2Kplus20 to swear, as his New Year's Resolution, that he can go a full 24 hours without being an asshole
Click to expand...
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