VAERS is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It has become a central piece of evidence in the arguments over whether COVID-19 vaccines are safe.
The fact the VAERS is being used as evidence of some kind of government neglect or coverup is ironic. VAERS was designed to be the opposite. It is a highly public system that anyone can submit entries to, and anyone can search to see the results. This is both its strength and its weakness.
To assume that events entered into VAERS are caused by a vaccine is to misunderstand the system. The VAERS fact sheet [1] says, “healthcare providers are encouraged to report all clinically significant adverse events after vaccination to VAERS even if it is uncertain whether the vaccine caused the event.” As a consequence, “VAERS cannot determine if a vaccine caused an adverse event, but can determine if further investigation is needed.” It doesn’t even have to be a healthcare provider – anyone, even you, can submit a report about someone you know who had any symptoms at all after receiving the vaccine.
The problem is that about 1 in every 50,000 Americans dies every day from something; that’s the normal death rate. If you give any medical treatment to 5 million random Americans, 100 of them are going to die tomorrow anyway from something, and 100 the next day, and so on. You are potentially going to get 100 adverse reaction reports each day that probably have nothing to do with the medical treatment. Identifying extra deaths caused by the medical treatment is tricky business; you can’t do that from VAERS data alone.
For example, consider the first death in the database in a patient after getting the Moderna vaccine. This is VAERS ID 0909095-1 and you can look it up for yourself online [2]. In fact, please do look it up online for yourself if you want to engage in serious discussions about VAERS. This 66 year old male from Colorado suffered from end stage renal disease with dependence on renal dialysis, COPD, cirrhosis of the liver, hypokalemia, gout, heart failure, hyperlipidemia, and atrial fibrillation. He refused dialysis frequently resulting in episodes of hypokalemia and hospitalization and was dependent on supplemental oxygen. On 12/23/2020 he again refused dialysis and got the vaccine instead. Two days later he was found in his bed dead.
Someone did their duty and reported this “adverse reaction” to the database, but is this case a strong indication that the vaccine is dangerous and kills people? No, this was a seriously ill patient who was dying anyway.
Even more clearly, consider VAERS ID 0914621-1, which says, “Resident in our long term care facility who received first dose of Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine on 12/22/2020, only documented side effect was mild fatigue after receiving. She passed away on 12/27/2020 of natural causes per report. Has previously been in & out of hospice care, resided in nursing home for 9+ years, elderly with dementia. Due to proximity of vaccination we felt we should report the death, even though it is not believed to be related.” Or VAERS ID 0915880-1, a 99 year old patient who had “refused food for one week prior to death.”
Here is another irony; the same people that were quick to say deaths attributed to COVID were probably caused by something else are now quick to say these VAERS entries are all caused by the vaccine. This is true in spite of the fact that causes of death on death certificates are certified by doctors – they are doctor-determined causes. VAERS reports are not, and don’t claim to be, causes of death. In fact, in many cases the vaccine is obviously not the cause of death.
In the search page you will find this disclaimer:
The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. In large part, reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.
And this note is at the bottom of every report:
Note: Submitting a report to VAERS does not mean that healthcare personnel or the vaccine caused or contributed to the adverse event
To take this out of the COVID-19 context, and see how the system works in operation, consider the December 2010 Summary regarding the 2010-2011 Flu vaccine [3]. The report notes that approximately 163 million vaccinations have been administered, resulting in 7,182 adverse event reports. 453 were serious, 21 resulted in death. The report states “As with all reports of serious adverse events and deaths, the 21 VAERS reports that involve deaths are under review by CDC and FDA. Preliminary findings do not indicate a common cause or pattern (such as similarities in age, gender, geographic location, illness surrounding death, or underlying medical conditions) to suggest that these deaths were associated with the vaccine.” That is how the system works; they get thousands of reports and then investigate to see if there is a pattern.
Moving now to the COVID-19 vaccines. The VAERS has received hundreds of thousands of adverse reaction reports, not surprising given the large number of vaccinations and the controversy over them. The CDC has been analyzing them and did notice a concerning pattern; 6 cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in combination with low levels of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia) in Janssen vaccinated patients. You can find them yourself if you search specifically in the VAERS database for thrombocytopenia and the Janssen vaccine. You can also ask yourself if you would have noticed that pattern among the many thousands of reports. Somebody IS paying attention to these reports.
The CDC took quick and dramatic action and paused the use of this vaccine pending further study. Their statement concluded: “Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare. COVID-19 vaccine safety is a top priority for the federal government, and we take all reports of health problems following COVID-19 vaccination very seriously. People who have received the J&J vaccine who develop severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain, or shortness of breath within three weeks after vaccination should contact their health care provider. Health care providers are asked to report adverse events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.”
Those bloods clots are a serious life-threatening consequence, but most of the VAERS reports are not. Most reports are of very minor symptoms, such as VAERS ID: 1278093-1 where the patient merely reported that his arm hurt after getting the shot. Do vaccines have side effects, such as making your arm hurt? Yes, that’s nothing new or surprising and certainly not something being covered up.
So where is the neglect? Where is the coverup? Where is the evidence that the vaccine is causing serious health problems and killing people, and the government is suppressing this information? I have not heard this argument from anyone who has actually searched the database and looked at the causes of death. It is a shallow argument based on a misunderstanding of what VAERS is and what the data actually means. Many people are looking at the VAERS data and trying to determine if there is a pattern of widespread harmful effects. So far no such pattern exists.
So don’t be concerned about reports that VAERS proves the vaccines are dangerous, unless the person making the report clearly understands what VAERS is and the limitations on the information it provides. And don’t repeat the wild accusations from people who obviously don’t even understand what VAERS is. Most importantly, go see for yourself. That’s why the VAERS database exists in the first place, to give people direct access to the raw data.
REFERENCES
[1] VAERS Factsheet, https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/pdf/vaers_factsheet1.pdf
[2] VAERS Search page at https://vaers.hhs.gov/index.html
[3] Summary of the 2010-2011 Trivalent Influenza Vaccine Data from the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System Data through December 28, 2010, https://vaers.hhs.gov/docs/SeasonalFluSummary_2011February04.pdf