A video is being shared on social media in which a presenter examines data from a US system that collects reports of adverse health events following the administration of a vaccine.
The video contains (here) data collected by the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is freely available for download (a list of files here: here can be an updated version of the dataset contained in the video shown is downloaded here: here).
Anyone can report events to VAERS (vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html) and a disclaimer on the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) website states: ‘The reports may contain incomplete, inaccurate, incidental information , or unfathomable ”(here). When downloading the data, users are given a further disclaimer that the information does not include information from investigations into reported cases. The indemnity also states “the inclusion of events in VAERS data does not imply causation” (here).
The presenter says she looks at adverse reactions and deaths in people who received the COVID-19 vaccine (time stamp 0.10) and then filters this data to indicate people who have allegedly died. She says it now only shows people who died within seven days of receiving a vaccine. This is wrong; there is no restriction on the reporting of deaths associated with adverse effects due to a vaccine (here). The data include deaths reported more than seven days after receipt of a vaccine (see VAERS ID 916890). While flipping through this filtered list, the presenter says, “These people did not survive the vaccine”.
However, the CDC says on its website that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires vaccination providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS.
“Reports of death to FATHERS after vaccination do not necessarily mean that the vaccine caused the death,” it says.
“CDC monitors each death report to request additional information and to learn more about what occurred and to determine whether the death was due to the vaccine or unrelated.”
“To date, FATHERS have not detected patterns in the cause of death indicating a safety issue with COVID-19 vaccines.”
The CDC estimates that approximately 1.3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered to residents in long-term care facilities as of January 18, 2021. Given this, the CDC expected to see a background death of 11,440 deaths (slide 36 here), which is several times higher is as the number of VAERS reports in the dataset.
Furthermore, the VAERS dataset presented in the video not only included events reported after COVID-19 vaccines. According to the text on the screen, a one-year-old died of the COVID-19 vaccine, but children under the age of 16 may not receive the Pfizer-BioNTech or Modern COVID-19 vaccine in the United States (here). The relevant VAERS report states that the vaccine that the one-year-old received was a flu shot (VAERS ID number 942246, vaccine data which can be downloaded here: here).
During the video, the woman says that about 1% of vaccine injuries and deaths are reported. (Time stamps 0.03, 2.20 and 3.20).
A CDC spokesman told Reuters in an email that reporting rates for adverse events vary. She said: ‘Mild events, such as a rash, are usually reported less frequently than serious events (such as an attack). We have data to indicate that serious adverse events occurring after vaccination are more likely to be reported than non-serious adverse events. Events such as a sore arm at the injection site may not be reported because they are expected and therefore people do not feel the need to report it. ”
Studies have found that VAERS reports 47% for cases of intussusception after rotavirus vaccination and 68% for crippling polio after the oral polio vaccine, while rates ranged between 13 and 76% for anaphylaxis (here).
VERDICT
Partly false. In the US, the VAERS collects reports of adverse effects in patients after vaccination, but it does not show whether the side effects were caused by a vaccine. The death of a one-year-old included in the data could not be caused by a vaccine for COVID-19, as the child did not receive one.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.