Recently, a post by Heidi Neckelmann, the wife of Miami obstetrician Dr. Gregory Michael describing his death from idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) 16 days after being vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine went viral. Unsurprisingly, in her grief she blamed the vaccine for her husband’s death from a rare autoimmune condition that destroys platelets and causes bleeding. Unfortunately, Dr. Michael’s tragic death underlines the difficulty distinguishing coincidence from causation when evaluating adverse events after vaccination.
![Dr. Gregory Michael, who died of ITP after COVID-19 vaccination](https://i0.wp.com/www.respectfulinsolence.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/GregoryMichael.png?fit=1015%2C571&ssl=1)