Mom who lost son to suicide gets death threats for suing newspaper over false claims he died from COVID vaccine

An Irish mother fears for her life after suing a conspiracy-pushing newspaper that allegedly indicated her son, who died from suicide in 2021, was killed by a COVID-19 vaccine.

Gilsenan did not receive the vaccination

A lawyer for grieving mom Edel Campbell told the BBC he and his client have been targeted by kooks after she filed a lawsuit against the Irish Light. The paper included Campbell’s 18-year-old son, Diego Gilsenan, among the dozens of people it suggested may have fallen victim to “untested and dangerous” vaccinations. The CDC says neither claim about the COVID-19 vaccines is true.

Campbell claims her life became a “living hell” when she sued for harassment and defamation in June after the paper published a front-page story using Gilsenan’s photo under the headline “Died Suddenly.”

Her attorney claims the Irish Light was asked to remove photos of her son from the site, which led to an escalation of abuse from angry anti-vaxxers.

“You can understand why a lot of people were incredibly reluctant to go to a [lawyer] when they saw the backlash with Edel Campbell,” lawyer Ciaran Mulholland told the BBC.

He claims he’s been threatened with “execution” for taking her case.

Like many popular ring-wing media outlets that promote vaccine hesitancy in the U.S., Irish Light has published stories overseas denying climate change science and lamenting the decline of white majorities nationwide, according to the BBC.

Stateside conspiracy theorists have claimed without reason that the deaths of athletes Hank Aaron and Marvin Hagler, as well as the January cardiac arrest suffered by football player Damar Hamlin following a high-impact blow to the chest, were vaccine-related.

Other supposed casualties of COVID-19 vaccines cited in the Irish Light’s reporting actually died from unrelated events including a swimming pool accident, a head injury and meningitis, according to the BBC.

Irish Light defended its reporting on social media and claimed it never wrote Gilsenan definitively died from being vaccinated.

“We have no definitive proof as to how they died because the media is covering that up and their families have largely chosen not to speak,” the paper claims. “All we know is their death notices described their passing as sudden and unexpected.”

Campbell’s lawyer said she’s suing to protect the integrity of her family, including her dead son.

The Irish Light’s editor calls Campbell “mentally unstable.”