Cole Beasley made headlines and sparked a renewed “vax/anti-vax” debate online yesterday when he decided to pen his op-ed to the world on why he won’t be getting vaccinated. The Bills wide receiver had this to say on the matter:
Now, we could sit here and pick apart his flimsy logic as to why he won’t be getting vaccinated line by line, but that has already been done ad nauseum over the last 24 hours by people more intelligent, and with far more degrees than myself. We could also discuss that most of Mr. Beasley’s “research” was likely done on his iPhone while sitting on the toilet, versus actual scientists who have spent lifetimes in the fields of virology and chemistry.
Instead, let’s focus on a tweet (which as of this writing is still up on Beasley’s Twitter account) Beasley used to double down on his anti-vax stance:
Why everybody “is so all in on science now more than I’ve ever seen” may be one of the single dumbest tweets to spew out of an NFL player’s Twitter account since the pandemic began.
Perhaps because we’re in the midst of a global pandemic? Perhaps people want to get back to their normal lives? Hell, I’d even argue that people taking a renewed interest in science (even if it’s to back up their bogus anti-vax claims) is better for society than watching another installment of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, or whatever episode of a 90’s sitcom you’re currently rewatching on Netflix for the 20th time.
Cole Beasley is 32 years old and about to enter his 10th NFL season. He’s been taking vitamins and supplements, protein shakes, and god knows what other nutritionally optimized liquids and solids since he was in high school. Know what process created all these synthetic concoctions? What people tested, and scrutinized the ingredients to make sure they were safe for human consumption? Scientists! Chemists! Nutritionists!
Your nutritionist, strength and conditioning coordinator, athletic therapist, physio team, rehab team, and the other litany of university educated men and women whose job revolves around keeping you and your teammates healthy and football ready, spoiler alert: damn near everything they do/give to you is based on science. And this is just the human aspects of your job as a wide receiver. We won’t even get into the tonnes of electronic equipment used for film study, baseline testing, or even the phone you typed up your contribution to society on. Cause guess what Cole my friend, if it’s got electricity going through it, you’re making use of “science”.
But let’s put all that aside for a moment, and just focus on your “God’s will” theory. If you’re so confident in your abilities and that you were clearly pre-ordained to catch a football, then sit down with Sean McDermott and let him know how you feel. Tell him you don’t need all that science stuff the rest of the team is doing to be NFL ready. You can go live off the grid and show up on gameday and compete with the best of them. See how long it takes for your contract to get ripped up and Buffalo replaces you with a “science believer”.
Listen, by all accounts Cole Beasley seems like a nice guy. He’s involved in the community, he seems like a good teammate, and up until yesterday didn’t appear in the headlines for dumb off field actions. He’s coming off a career year where he set personal bests for targets, receptions and yards. Apparently he’s also a singer so who knows, he may even have some non-football related fans as well.
The point is this: If you don’t want to get yourself vaccinated, go nuts, I’m not here to fight you on that. I think it’s a ridiculous decision based on flawed logic, but I’m not going to waste time beating my head into a concrete wall, your mind is clearly made up. What I am here to say not only to you, but to any of the athletes, celebrities, or influencers with wide followings of young, impressionable kids is to keep your cockamamy halfbaked theories to yourself. There’s too much misinformation already floating around the internet as is. The last thing kids need to see is their favourite wide receiver or movie star spouting off about why they aren’t getting vaccinated and then wanting to do the same.
“But kids won’t make their decisions based on that would they?” Well, let’s put it this way, this is the same generation of kids that are buying EMPTY BTS MCDONALDS BAGS AND CONTAINERS BECAUSE THEY LOVE K-POP SO MUCH. They’re literally spending money on trash. So yes, they absolutely can and will be influenced by social media and the athletes they look up to.
I’m not asking you to hide it either, just don’t make a spectacle out of your choice. If a reporter asks “are you vaccinated” tell them the truth. Say “no I am not”. And if they press, just respond with “it’s a personal decision”. Don’t go out of your way to make a big deal of it on social media, but then claim you’re not anti vax, or that wasn’t the intent of your post. What did you think would happen? Because at the end of the day, just because you can’t figure out why people are so “all in on science”, doesn’t mean science doesn’t exist. And perhaps if more kids took an interest in science, in the future we won’t need to have these kinds of debates in the first place.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner