By Raquel Godos
Valencia, Spain, July 10 (EFE).- Former Spanish motorcycle racer Jorge Lis spent months convinced that Covid-19 vaccines posed a greater danger than the virus itself.
By the time he tested positive in July 2021, however, he realized he had been misled by online misinformation. Weeks later, after expressing deep regret for refusing vaccination, he died from Covid-19 complications.
The former runner-up in Spain’s 125cc motorcycle championship in 1996 had built his life on pushing limits and questioning convention.
His sister, Elena, remembers him as someone who was «always ahead of his time,» restless, curious, and eager to explore new ideas, even when they involved risk.
«He always admitted when he was wrong,» she told EFE Verifica. “Whenever something bad happened to him, he tried to turn it into a lesson that could help someone else.”
That willingness to learn from adversity defined much of Jorge’s life. But it also made him vulnerable to one of the most damaging waves of misinformation in recent history.
When trust in medicine was broken
At 18, he suffered a devastating fall while competing in a mountain trials event. The accident left him immobilized for two months and nearly quadriplegic.
Although he eventually regained mobility and returned to racing, he was left with chronic back pain that would shape the rest of his life.
By the early 2000s, the pain had become so severe that he often relied on injections to continue competing. Hoping to find a long-term solution, he sought treatment at the Mayo Clinic in the United States.
«The doctors told him that because of his back injury he would probably need morphine or opioids for the rest of his life,» Elena recalled. “He was prescribed oxycodone there and, later, at a private clinic in Spain, a fast-acting fentanyl tablet.”
What began as medical treatment gradually became addiction.
It took Jorge more than a decade and over 10 attempts to free himself from opioid dependence before he finally succeeded.
«‘Addiction is the only war you win when you surrender,’ he used to say,» Elena said. «Even in that respect, he was ahead of many people.»
By the time the Covid-19 pandemic began, Jorge had been drug-free for almost eight years.
He had spoken publicly about his addiction in the hope of helping others avoid the same ordeal.
But the experience had also profoundly damaged his trust in the medical system.
«He felt the healthcare system had failed him,» Elena said. «Because of those treatments, he had gone through a nightmare that nearly destroyed his life.»
That loss of confidence would later become fertile ground for the misinformation that flourished during the pandemic.
Drawn into a world of misinformation
When the pandemic erupted in 2020, Jorge was terrified of catching the virus. He took strict precautions at first, but his lingering distrust of institutions, and his determination to find answers on his own, soon led him down a different path.
Searching online for information, he gradually immersed himself in a digital world where conspiracy theories and misinformation flourished.
Elena believes fear played an important psychological role.
«When someone is very afraid, it’s often easier to believe the threat isn’t as serious as everyone says,» she said. «I think that became a kind of defense mechanism for him.»
The digital trail remained on Jorge’s computer long after his death.
Among his emails were exchanges with Daniel Estulin, known for promoting conspiracy theories, and newsletters from Jeff Berwick, founder of The Dollar Vigilante, who warned followers of the supposed collapse of Western society and encouraged them to buy property in Belize as a refuge.
According to Elena, the appeal of such content lay in making followers feel they possessed hidden knowledge unavailable to everyone else.
«The messages would begin by saying, ‘Most people choose to live in a state of delusion. You can either remain one of them or discover the truth,'» she said.
Jorge became deeply immersed in that world, paying for lectures and private consultations with Estulin.
Another figure who later influenced him was a self-proclaimed «Doctor Papaya,» a prominent Covid-19 denier who harassed healthcare workers and promoted false claims about the pandemic.
After Jorge’s death, Elena said, the man intensified the family’s grief by insisting that the former racer had not died at all but was «hiding in Switzerland.»
Less confrontational public figures also reinforced Jorge’s growing skepticism. Among them was motivational speaker Anthony Robbins, whose criticism of official pandemic narratives resonated with him.
«He truly believed he was protecting her»
By 2021, Jorge had become convinced that Covid-19 vaccines posed a greater danger than the virus itself.
When the time came for their 85-year-old mother to receive her first vaccine dose, he did everything he could to persuade the family to stop her.
«My daughter stayed with my mother the night before the vaccination because we were taking her the next day,» Elena said. «Jorge kept writing to her, trying to convince her not to go.»
She still keeps one of his messages.
«Hi, Ivana. Grandma told me she’s getting vaccinated tomorrow, and I’m devastated. If you read this report, you may decide not to take her. PLEASE look at it.»
The message included documents warning of the alleged dangers of Covid-19 vaccines.
«If he was reading things like that every day, it’s understandable why he became so frightened,» Elena said. «He wasn’t acting in bad faith. He genuinely believed he was protecting her.»
For Elena, however, the problem ran much deeper than the pandemic itself.
«It all began with one belief: ‘I don’t trust anything. I don’t trust institutions.’ Once someone reaches that point, it’s very difficult to convince them otherwise.»
Despite the growing disagreements, the family’s bond endured.
Whenever arguments became heated, Jorge invariably reached out to reconcile.
«Elena, I’m sorry I reacted that way,» he wrote in one message. «I’m just so worried about Mum. I’m worried you don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you.»
His sister never doubted that those words were sincere.
A diagnosis that changed everything
In July 2021, Jorge began feeling unwell. At first, he dismissed the symptoms as indigestion and resisted taking a PCR test.
When he finally agreed, the result shattered the convictions he had built over months of consuming misinformation.
He had Covid-19.
His regret was immediate.
«I tested positive. I’m so sorry,» he wrote to his sister. “”I’m quitting Twitter. I’m quitting social media. I wish I’d been vaccinated. I’ve been a fool.”
Within days, his condition deteriorated rapidly as he developed severe Covid-19 caused by the Delta variant.
He initially sought treatment at a private clinic, but within 24 hours his health had worsened dramatically. He was transferred to La Fe University Hospital in Valencia, where he arrived already intubated.
Fighting for a life that could not be saved
Ricardo Gimeno, one of the physicians who treated Jorge, remembers the extraordinary efforts made to save him during the month and a half he spent in intensive care.
Because he was relatively young and had an athletic background, doctors pursued the most aggressive treatments available.
He was connected to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which temporarily replaces the function of the heart and lungs by oxygenating the blood outside the body. At one point, specialists even considered a lung transplant.
Nothing worked.
Jorge died in early September 2021.
«If he had been vaccinated, he most likely would never have reached such a critical condition,» Gimeno told EFE Verifica.
The physician recalls that many of the most severe Covid-19 patients admitted during the Delta wave were unvaccinated.
«We watched with sadness as many of them, often young people, suffered the consequences of that decision,» he said. «Like Jorge, many later expressed regret.»
For Gimeno, the impact of vaccination was unmistakable.
«Vaccines, like any medicine, can have side effects,» he said. «But there is overwhelming evidence that they save lives. Once vaccination became widespread, the pressure on intensive care units fell dramatically because far fewer patients developed life-threatening illness.»
A story meant to help others
For Elena, the memory of her brother’s final message remains painful, but it also reflects the person she always knew.
She has no doubt that the doctors exhausted every possible option to save him. More importantly, she believes Jorge would have wanted others to learn from his experience.
«He always tried to turn his mistakes into something useful for other people,» she said.
She is convinced that, had he survived, he would have been the first to tell his own story, not to dwell on his regrets, but to warn others about the real-world consequences of misinformation.
His death became the ultimate lesson he never had the chance to share himself. EFE
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(With this report, EFE publishes the ninth installment of the multimedia series «Fake News, Real Victims,» which gives a voice to victims of misinformation around the world.)
