Part 2
What Is VAERS and How Reliable Is It?
One of the ways we learn about adverse events from approved vaccines is the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). From the VAERS website:
“VAERS is a national early warning system to detect possible safety problems in U.S. licensed vaccines... VAERS accepts and analyzes reports of adverse events (possible side effects) following vaccination….
“VAERS is not designed to detect if a vaccine caused an adverse event, but it can identify unusual or unexpected patterns of reporting that might indicate possible safety problems requiring a closer look.”
It was created by the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act that limited vaccine manufacturer liability for vaccine injury and created a national system of vaccine injury compensation, which has paid out about $4.5 billion since its creation.
Because it is passive (reports are made voluntarily) and most people are unaware it exists, adverse events following vaccination are underreported. The rate of underreporting is currently unknown, but based on available evidence it is very high:
- This meta-analysis of research on underreporting of adverse events from pharmaceutical drugs (not vaccines) found the median rate of underreporting overall to be 94% and 80% for serious adverse reactions. A paper by former FDA commissioner David Kessler cites a study showing that only 1% of serious adverse events from drugs are reported. Adverse reactions to vaccines are arguably even less likely to be reported because people are less likely to acknowledge or connect adverse events from vaccinations than they are from a drug.
- An HMO in New England was awarded a million-dollar grant from the AHRQ to automate the process of reporting to In their grant report, they state: “Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported.” (No citation is given so source of statement is unclear; possibly from internal testing.) This would mean that only 1 out of 100 or fewer adverse events are reported.
They never had a chance to test the system they developed against VAERS, because “the necessary CDC contacts were no longer available and the CDC consultants responsible for receiving data were no longer responsive to our multiple requests to proceed with testing and evaluation.”
- Another study of a partially automated reporting system in a large healthcare network found the odds of a physician submitting a report after the new system was implemented was 30-times higher than prior to implementation.
- A CDC study of VAERS underreporting for two serious adverse events, anaphylaxis and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), estimated a range of underreporting depending on the event and the vaccine. For anaphylaxis they estimated between 13-25% of adverse events were reported for most vaccines except the H1N1 vaccine in 2009 where 76% of events were reported. For GBS, VAERS was estimated to capture between 12% to 64% of
COVID-19 Vaccine Reports to VAERS
As of April 1, 2021
Although VAERS cannot be used to conclude a causal link between vaccination and an adverse event, it is used to monitor vaccines for safety “signals.” What kinds of signals are being reported?
Total DEATHS reported for COVID-19 Vaccines: 2,342* Total number if 30x underreporting: 70,260 Total number if 99x underreporting: 234,200
Total ADVERSE EVENT reports for COVID-19 vaccines: 56,869 Total number if 30x underreporting: 1,766,070
Total number if 99x underreporting: 5,686,900
Adverse events listed as SERIOUS: 7,971
Total number if 30x underreporting: 239,130 Total number if 99x underreporting: 797,100
Adverse events listed as REQUIRING HOSPITALIZATION: 4,972 Total number if 30x underreporting: 149,160
Total number if 99x underreporting: 497,200
Adverse events categorized as ‘PERMANENT DISABILITY’: 941 Total number if 30x underreporting: 28,230
Total number if 99x underreporting: 94,100
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* If the CDC study on anaphylaxis and GBS applies, actual deaths would be between 3,082 and 18,015.
DEATHS reported for COVID-19 Vaccines, DEC ‘20-MAR ‘21: 2,301
DEATHS reported for All Other Vaccines Combined, DEC-MAR:
2020-2021: 80 2019-2020: 145
2018-2019: 247 2017-2018: 143
15% OF DEATHS ON SAME DAY AS VACCINATION
42% WITHIN 2 DAYS OF VACCINATION
Reported deaths by days since COVID-19 vaccination (VAERS as of 4/1):*
According to this news article from Feb. 18, the death rate per COVID vaccine dose is much higher than the flu vaccine this year:
“According to [VAERS], there were 21 deaths this flu season after 180+ million flu vaccines, a rate of 1 death per 9,000,000 vaccinations. The COVID-19 vaccine, however, according to VAERS, shows 1 death reported per 35,000 shots or 10,000 completed vaccinations (so far), a 300-900 greater likelihood.”
* The 3-5 cases of deaths reported prior to the vaccine’s testing and rollout likely reflect a reporting error.
Pressing Questions
- If VAERS is supposed to provide the CDC with a signal about potential problems with (new) vaccines, why are they dismissing these deaths rather than launching some kind of investigation into this signal?
- The 1976 Swine Flu and the 1998 Rotavirus vaccines were suspended based on far fewer reports of adverse events. The CDC is ignoring historical precedent. Why? And why has it not suspended the COVID-19 vaccines based on the much larger number of reported adverse events and deaths?
Actually, the Israeli Ministry of Health just announced an investigation into reports of inflammation of the meninges and the heart muscle (including pericarditis and myocarditis) in people shortly following vaccination. (It is worth noting that 20% of VAERS reports for COVID-19 vaccines were cardiac-related.) But these are only a fraction of reported events. The investigation needs to be expanded to include ALL morbidity and mortality.
The Israeli government could easily do this, because their health records are highly centralized, and they know whether and when people were vaccinated and if they had any documented health problems after. They already used the data to publish a (flawed) study of the vaccines’ effectiveness. If they wanted to put this issue to rest, they could, but as of this writing they have not.
Why not?