Have 1,000s of Americans died from COVID-19 vaccines? The claim abounds online; evidence doesnt back it up – OregonLive

A lot of Americans are afraid of the COVID-19 vaccines. They believe the vaccines are killing people.

The statistics fueling this fear typically come from a 30-year-old database known as VAERS -- the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System -- which can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

You may have heard about VAERS from popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who early this month devoted a segment on his TV show to death results associated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

If you havent had your shot, youre under enormous pressure to get your shot, Carlson said, arguing that unvaccinated Americans soon might not be allowed to get on an airplane or attend their neighbors backyard barbecue.

Between late December of 2020 and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccine in the United States, Carlson said on his prime-time program, citing VAERS. Three thousand, three hundred and sixty-two -- thats an average of 30 people every day.

(If you select COVID-19 vaccines and deaths in the database today, you will get just over 4,000 results.)

Stickers for Pennsylvania health-care workers after they receive COVID-19 vaccines.Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Carlson added that there is much that VAERS doesnt tell us, then said: But its clear that what is happening now, for whatever reason, is not even close to normal. Its not even close to what weve seen in previous years with previous vaccines.

The blowback to Carlsons segment was immediate, with news outlets ranging from Reuters to The Wrap noting that Carlson had, at best, muddied the vaccine-information waters.

The problem, in part, is that VAERS is not the kind of database you might expect to find on the CDC website. It is a self-reporting system. As Reuters reported, anyone [in the public] can report events to VAERS, and so the database contains unverified information.

CDC disclaimers on VAERS point out that the database may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental or unverifiable, and that the inclusion of events in VAERS data does not imply causality.

The national public-health agency also has stated that its review of the medical records of those who died shortly after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths.

A vile of Moderna's Covid-19 Vaccine.George McNish | For NJ Advance Media

In short, maybe some 4,000 Americans have died after receiving COVID-19 vaccines. Maybe a lot more than that have. But however many it is, VAERS doesnt tell us why they died. People die every day for many different reasons: heart disease, car accident, cancer, accidental choking, and so on. And some people, logically, are going to die not long after getting a vaccine shot for reasons that have nothing to do with getting that vaccine shot.

VAERS, that is, is a starting point for medical researchers, not an end point. Looking at this raw, unverified data offers very little insight.

But this is not immediately clear to people who, trying to do their own research, stumble upon the database. One video that went viral on Facebook shows a computer with VAERS filling the screen.

Im looking at an individual here, this is a 38-year-old in New Mexico that took [a COVID-19 vaccine] on the 12th of February but then died on the 18th of February, six days later, the unidentified person in the video says. They took the Pfizer. Anyway, you might be thinking, Oh, its just one person, but let me show you the list I got this from

The computer mouse scrolls down through the database, case after case after case.

The videos narrator says: This is the list of all the people who have died from the vaccines. What is concerning to me is this list is extremely long.

Such unsubstantiated claims and fears about vaccine-related deaths have spread far and wide on the internet. A British online publication called The Conservative Woman said in a headline that COVID-19 vaccines were linked to blindness, deafness, miscarriages and 5,000 deaths.

The opaque website called Swiss Policy Research, which has claimed that the QAnon conspiracy theory is an FBI operation, used VAERS and other data to state that covid vaccinations have already been associated with close to 10,000 deaths and several thousand non-trivial adverse events, including anaphylactic shocks, neurological and cardiovascular disorders and miscarriages.

The Falun Gong-affiliated Epoch News got the jump on Tucker Carlson by more than a month, using VAERS to conclude early in March that 966 people had died after having the Pfizer or Moderna COVID vaccines.

A syringe with Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)AP

Its possible that this misinformation isnt simply the unfortunate consequence of non-experts coming upon confusing medical information online. The Wall Street Journal this week reported that Frances intelligence services are investigating the possibility that Russia tried to pay high-profile health and science bloggers [in France] to sow public doubts about the safety of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.

To be sure, none of this means the COVID-19 vaccines pose no risk at all. Every medical intervention involves some risk. A very small number of people (about two to five people per million vaccinated, Forbes magazine writes, citing CDC reports) will suffer a severe allergic reaction immediately after they receive a vaccine shot. This is why vaccine providers require people to remain under their observation for up to half an hour following the arm jab.

And the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was briefly paused after a rare blood-clotting problem, affecting about two-dozen people and causing three deaths, cropped up.

Heres what the CDC says about the three COVID-19 vaccines that have received emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration:

Over 285 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the United States from December 14, 2020, through May 24, 2021. COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. COVID-19 vaccines were evaluated in tens of thousands of participants in clinical trials. The vaccines met the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality needed to support emergency use authorization.

It adds:

CDC recommends you get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible.

-- Douglas Perry

dperry@oregonian.com

@douglasmperry

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Have 1,000s of Americans died from COVID-19 vaccines? The claim abounds online; evidence doesnt back it up - OregonLive