VAERS Data Manipulation & Vaccine Deaths

Overview

Somewhere around early 2021, a peculiar number started ricocheting across social media: “VAERS shows over 10,000 deaths from COVID vaccines.” By mid-2021, the number had climbed higher. By 2022, anti-vaccine accounts were citing figures in the tens of thousands. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, an obscure government database that most Americans had never heard of, had become the single most cited piece of “evidence” in the anti-vaccine movement — and one of the most comprehensively misunderstood datasets in the history of public health.

The misunderstanding is not subtle. VAERS is a passive surveillance system designed to collect reports of health events that occur after vaccination. Anyone can file a report. Reports are not verified for causation. A report in VAERS means “this person received a vaccine and later experienced this health event” — it does not mean “the vaccine caused this health event.” The system’s own website, in bold text, warns that “VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness.”

Anti-vaccine activists have systematically stripped away this context, presenting raw VAERS numbers as a body count. The result is a masterclass in statistical illusion: a system designed to detect safety signals has been weaponized to manufacture fear, contributing to vaccine hesitancy that has cost lives — not from vaccines, but from the diseases they prevent.

Origins & History

The Creation of VAERS

VAERS was established in 1990 as a joint program of the CDC and FDA, created under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. It was designed as an early warning system — a way to detect potential vaccine safety problems that might not appear in pre-licensure clinical trials, which typically involve thousands of participants. With millions of people receiving vaccines, rare adverse events would only become visible through large-scale post-market surveillance.

The system was deliberately designed with a low reporting threshold. Anyone could file a report, and no proof of causation was required. This was intentional — the goal was to cast a wide net, accepting a high rate of false positives in exchange for not missing genuine safety signals. Epidemiologists would then analyze the data for patterns (signal detection) and investigate any concerning clusters using more rigorous methods.

For three decades, VAERS functioned as designed. It helped detect the association between the original rotavirus vaccine (RotaShield) and intussusception in 1999, leading to the vaccine’s withdrawal. It contributed to surveillance of febrile seizures after certain influenza vaccines. It was a useful, if limited, tool — and almost nobody outside of public health professionals knew it existed.

COVID-19 and the VAERS Explosion

The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. The unprecedented speed of vaccine development, combined with intense political polarization and widespread distrust of institutions, created a perfect environment for VAERS misuse.

Several factors converged:

Scale. The COVID-19 vaccination campaign was the largest and fastest mass vaccination in American history. By mid-2021, over 300 million doses had been administered. With that many doses, the absolute number of adverse event reports — even those unrelated to the vaccine — was guaranteed to be large.

Awareness. COVID-19 vaccines received media attention unlike any vaccine in history. People who had never heard of VAERS suddenly knew about it — often through anti-vaccine social media accounts that directed followers to search the database and file reports.

Stimulated reporting. VAERS reporting rates surged during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Healthcare providers were required to report certain events (including deaths) occurring after COVID-19 vaccination, regardless of suspected cause. This mandate — designed to enhance surveillance — dramatically inflated the raw numbers.

Background mortality. Among the hundreds of millions of Americans who received COVID-19 vaccines, a certain number were going to die in the days and weeks following vaccination simply because people die every day. Approximately 8,000 Americans die daily from all causes. If you vaccinate tens of millions of elderly people — the group prioritized for early vaccination — many will die shortly afterward from heart disease, cancer, stroke, and other conditions that have nothing to do with the vaccine. Every one of these deaths, if reported, becomes a VAERS entry.

The Misuse Campaign

The misuse of VAERS data was not accidental. It was promoted by a network of anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs, and political figures who understood the database’s limitations and exploited them anyway.

Steve Kirsch, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, founded the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation and repeatedly cited VAERS data to claim that COVID-19 vaccines had killed hundreds of thousands of people. His analyses — which assumed that every death reported to VAERS was vaccine-caused and then applied an “underreporting factor” to multiply the number further — were rejected by epidemiologists and statisticians.

Jessica Rose, a researcher whose VAERS-based paper on myocarditis was accepted and then withdrawn by the journal Substack-promoted analyses, became a prominent figure in anti-vaccine circles for her VAERS data presentations.

Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, cited VAERS data extensively in public appearances and legal proceedings to argue that COVID-19 vaccines were causing mass casualties.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense organization published regular “VAERS roundups” — compilations of reported deaths and injuries presented without causal context.

Key Claims

• VAERS data proves COVID-19 vaccines have killed tens of thousands of people. Proponents cite raw VAERS death reports as evidence of mass vaccine-induced mortality.
• VAERS actually underreports adverse events. A frequently cited (and misapplied) Harvard Pilgrim study suggested that fewer than 1% of adverse events are reported to VAERS, implying the real death toll is orders of magnitude higher.
• The CDC ignores VAERS data. Proponents claim the CDC dismisses its own surveillance system to protect the vaccination program.
• The system was designed to be difficult to use to suppress reporting. The VAERS reporting form is allegedly intentionally cumbersome to discourage submissions.
• Death reports to VAERS are being deleted. Some activists have claimed that reports are being removed from the database to lower the visible count.

Evidence

The Raw Numbers

VAERS does contain thousands of death reports following COVID-19 vaccination. This is a fact. As of 2023, over 18,000 reports of death following COVID-19 vaccination had been filed. This number sounds alarming in isolation.

The Context

When placed in proper epidemiological context, the numbers tell a very different story:

• Over 670 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered in the U.S. by 2023. A death report rate of 18,000 per 670 million doses represents 0.0027% — well within the expected background mortality rate.
• The CDC reviews all death reports to VAERS. As of their most recent analysis, they found that the reports were consistent with expected background mortality — the number and pattern of deaths you would predict among vaccinated populations based on age and pre-existing conditions, with or without vaccination.
• The deaths reported to VAERS include people who died in car accidents, from terminal cancer, and from other causes that could not plausibly be related to vaccination.
• Clinical review of a large sample of VAERS death reports found that the vast majority involved elderly individuals with multiple serious pre-existing conditions.

The Harvard Pilgrim Study

Anti-vaccine activists frequently cite a 2010 Harvard Pilgrim Health Care study that found “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported.” This figure is then applied multiplicatively to VAERS death counts — if 18,000 deaths are reported and only 1% of events are captured, the “real” number must be 1.8 million.

This application is statistically invalid for several reasons. The Harvard Pilgrim study measured underreporting of minor adverse events (sore arms, fevers), not deaths. Death reporting to VAERS is far more complete than reporting of minor side effects — healthcare providers were required to report deaths following COVID-19 vaccination. Applying the 1% figure to deaths conflates categorically different reporting rates.

What VAERS Actually Found

VAERS has successfully detected genuine safety signals for COVID-19 vaccines. Myocarditis following mRNA vaccination in young males was initially identified through VAERS surveillance and confirmed through controlled studies. Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was detected through VAERS and led to a pause and updated recommendations. The system worked exactly as designed in these cases — it flagged a signal, which was then investigated using rigorous methods.

Debunking / Verification

The VAERS-as-body-count narrative fails at every level of epidemiological analysis:

1. The system explicitly does not establish causation. This is stated on every page of the VAERS website, on every report form, and in every training document. Misrepresenting VAERS as a causal database is not a difference of interpretation — it is a misstatement of fact.

2. Background mortality explains the numbers. Among hundreds of millions of vaccinated people, thousands will die shortly after vaccination by coincidence. This is basic statistics, not a cover-up.

3. The underreporting multiplier is misapplied. Using a minor-event underreporting figure to multiply death counts is statistically illegitimate.

4. Clinical review contradicts the narrative. The CDC’s review of VAERS death reports found no pattern consistent with a vaccine-caused mortality signal, with the exception of TTS after the J&J vaccine — which VAERS successfully detected and which led to appropriate public health action.

5. International data confirms safety. Countries with entirely different reporting systems — the UK’s Yellow Card scheme, the EU’s EudraVigilance, Israel’s surveillance system — have reached the same conclusions about COVID-19 vaccine safety.

Cultural Impact

The VAERS manipulation narrative has been one of the most damaging information operations of the COVID-19 era. By providing apparently authoritative numbers — drawn from a government database, no less — it gave vaccine hesitancy a veneer of data-driven legitimacy that emotional arguments alone could not achieve.

The narrative contributed to declining vaccination rates, particularly for booster doses, and has spilled over into hesitancy about routine childhood vaccines. Public health researchers have documented a measurable “VAERS effect” on social media, where VAERS citations function as conversation-stoppers — seemingly irrefutable numbers that require epidemiological expertise to contextualize.

The episode has also sparked debate about whether open-access databases like VAERS should be redesigned for the social media age. The system’s transparency — anyone can search it — was intended to build trust. Instead, it created a reservoir of decontextualized data that could be weaponized by anyone with an agenda and a spreadsheet.

In Popular Culture

• VAERS data features prominently in The Real Anthony Fauci (2021) by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• Steve Kirsch’s VAERS-based presentations went viral on platforms including Rumble and BitChute
• Joe Rogan’s podcast featured guests (including Peter McCullough and Robert Malone) who cited VAERS data
• Died Suddenly (2022) — conspiracy documentary that uses VAERS data as a centerpiece
• The “VAERS says” meme became a social media shorthand for misinterpreted vaccine safety data

Key Figures

• Steve Kirsch — Tech entrepreneur who founded the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation and promoted VAERS misinterpretation
• Jessica Rose — Researcher who published VAERS-based analyses popular in anti-vaccine circles
• Peter McCullough — Cardiologist who cited VAERS data in public advocacy against COVID-19 vaccines
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — Through Children’s Health Defense, published regular VAERS-based “roundups”
• Tom Shimabukuro — CDC official who led the agency’s review of VAERS death reports

Timeline

Sources & Further Reading

• VAERS official website and reporting guidelines — vaers.hhs.gov
• CDC, “Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination” — ongoing surveillance reports
• Lazarus et al., “Electronic Support for Public Health — Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS),” Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (2010) — the frequently misapplied underreporting study
• Shimabukuro et al., “Safety Monitoring in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS),” Vaccine 33, no. 36 (2015)
• Su et al., “Myocarditis After mRNA-Based COVID-19 Vaccination,” The Lancet (2022)
• Timothy Caulfield, “The anti-vaccine movement’s misuse of VAERS,” Nature Medicine (2021)

Related Theories

• Anti-Vaccination Movement — the broader social movement that VAERS misuse feeds into
• COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories — the pandemic-era context for VAERS manipulation
• Thimerosal / Mercury in Vaccines — earlier vaccine safety conspiracy theory that established the playbook