In a video viewed more than 21,000 times on Facebook, the data collected by the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) claims that thousands of people have died as a result of receiving COVID-19 vaccines. The video, which does not mention that anyone can report events to VAERS and that the database contains unverified information, describes reported deaths of individuals who died after receiving the vaccine as deaths caused by the vaccine, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has so far found no evidence that vaccinations have led to patients’ deaths.
Available fb.watch/4s9aQGkDhN/, the video in question, which was shared more than 1700 times at the time of this publication and titled “COVID19 VACCINES DOODTOL KLIM !!!”, shows a person flipping through a VAERS dataset of death reports and says, “This is the list of all the people who died from vaccines.” The narrator clicked on random entries, including a 38-year-old in New Mexico and a 65-year-old in Ohio who both received the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, before saying that ‘the vaccine itself will kill you’.
The caption of the video links to the VAERS online database (wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html), which is managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The general public can report events to VAERS, and an disclaimer on the CDC website states: “The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, accidental or unverifiable” (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).
According to the latest data (here), 1,985 U.S. deaths of individuals who died after receiving at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines were reported to VAERS. Of these, 1,016 are listed as doses of Moderna, 946 as Pfizer-BioNTech, 16 as Janssen and seven as ‘unknown manufacturer’. In total, 1,579 or almost 80% of these individuals were older than 65 years.
As stated here by the CDC, “Reports of death to FATHERS after vaccination do not necessarily mean that the vaccine caused the death.”
Of the 145 million COVID-19 doses administered in the United States from December 14, 2020 to March 29, 2021, VAERS received 2,509 deaths (0.0017%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. ‘The CDC has’ checked available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsies and medical records’,’ no evidence that vaccination has contributed to patient deaths’ (here).
Dr. Dana Mazo, an assistant professor of medicine specializing in infectious diseases at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, telephonically told Reuters how important it is to distinguish between connection and cause when looking at mortality rates after vaccination.
“The idea is that we vaccinate millions of people,” Mazo said, “and unfortunately, if you look at 96 million people, some of them could die and they would have died if they had not been vaccinated.”
The fact that medically vulnerable individuals had the earliest access to COVID-19 vaccines in the United States also had an impact on the rate of deaths after vaccination, Mazo said.
As reported by Reuters here in January, health workers and people in nursing homes were at the forefront, followed by older members of the general population and people with pre-existing conditions (here, here).
In a WebMD interview here, Dr. Joël Belmin, Head of Geriatrics and Vaccination Coordinator at l’hôpital Charles-Foix in Paris, in a WebMD interview with Dr Joël Belmin, Head of Geriatrics and Vaccination Coordinator at l’hôpital Charles-Foix in Paris, “In older people, due to their great weakness expect a considerable amount of spontaneous death. In a retirement village, every fifth one dies. It is therefore difficult to attribute these deaths directly to the fact that these people were vaccinated. Says: “Due to their great weakness in older people, a significant amount of spontaneous death is expected. In a retirement village, every fifth one dies. It is therefore difficult to attribute these deaths directly to the fact that these people were vaccinated. ”
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 (here). By comparison, from 18 January 2021, VAERS received 129 deaths reports after COVID-19 vaccination in long-term care residents.
Reuters Fact Check has previously denied that false social media claims that VAERS data is being misinterpreted here, here and here.
VERDICT
Misleading. In this video, VAERS ‘death reports are unrelated to falsely claiming that thousands of recipients of the American vaccine who died after receiving the vaccine died as a result of the vaccination.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to actually check social media posts.