Antivaxxers are always looking for facts, data, and studies to misrepresent; they think it gives them credibility. And so it is that many of them are in love with the existence of VAERS — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System — co-administered by the CDC, FDA and DHS.
Why do antivaxxers love it? Well, let’s look at what VAERS is: it is, at the end of the day, what the name says it is — a reporting system where possible adverse events related to vaccination can be reported. The CDC uses it to screen for possible rare or severe side effects that might not have popped up during clinical trials.
But as a reporting system, it is literally open to ANYONE to report an adverse effect, whether it has any connection to a vaccination or not. Medical professionals are required to report possible adverse vaccine events to VAERS, but the system is also open to your strange Aunt Josephine who thinks the COVID vaccine lets her pick up 5G signals with her fillings and has turned her magnetic.
The reporters to VAERS are also kept anonymous, so cranks and people with an agenda don’t have to worry about being outed to the public.
The reports to VAERS are then taken by employees within the various departments that administer it and then do what they need to do with them and look into verifying the credible reports.
But anyone can get access to the raw report data of what’s been sent to VAERS, in all it’s unvetted, unconfirmed glory.
The antivaxxers love it, because since it is a government maintained website, it gives a veneer of credibility to their wild-ass claims.
The latest you’ll see online is the antivaxxers screeching about “5,000 COVID vaccine deaths!!! Why isn’t the media reporting this?!?!”
Well, because that number came from VAERS, and isn’t verified in any way, shape or form (Also, it’s now outdated, so you may now see claims of 6,000 or higher). Every single one of those deaths might be due to the vaccines. None of those deaths might be due to those vaccines. Until the folks at the CDC and FDA look at the information available and if necessary to follow up work to verify, the fact is, we don’t know how many of those deaths were due to vaccines, or how the death happened (was it an allergic reaction? A blood clot? Heart attack totally unrelated to the vaccine?).
But the antivaxxers treat VAERS reports like a gold standard, when all it is is a giant bucket where literally anyone can make a report.
Here is what the VAERS FAQ has to say about using their information:
What are the strengths and weaknesses of VAERS?
One of the main limitations of VAERS data is that it cannot determine if the vaccine caused the reported adverse event. This limitation has caused confusion in the publicly available data from VAERS WONDER, specifically regarding the number of reported deaths. There have been instances where people have misinterpreted reports of deaths following vaccination as deaths caused by the vaccines; that is not accurate. VAERS accepts all reports of adverse health events following vaccinations without judging whether the vaccine caused the adverse health event. Some reports to VAERS represent true vaccine reactions and others are coincidental adverse health events and not related to vaccination. Overall, a causal relationship cannot be established using information from VAERS report alone.
Strengths of VAERS:
- VAERS collects national data from all U.S. states and territories
- VAERS accepts reports from anyone
- The VAERS form collects information about the vaccine, the person vaccinated and the adverse event
- Data are publicly available
- VAERS can be used as an early warning system to identify rare adverse events
- VAERS is a tool for identifying potential vaccine safety concerns that need further study using more robust data systems
Limitations of VAERS:
- It is generally not possible to find out from VAERS data if a vaccine caused the adverse event
- Reports submitted to VAERS often lack details and sometimes contains errors
- Serious adverse events are more likely to be reported than non-serious events
- Numbers of reports may increase in response to media attention and increased public awareness
- VAERS data cannot be used to determine rates of adverse events
The FAQ goes on in the next section:
Are all adverse events reported to VAERS caused by vaccines?
No. Some adverse events might be caused by vaccination and others might be coincidental and not related to vaccination. Just because an adverse event happened after a person received a vaccine does not mean the vaccine caused the adverse event.
VAERS accepts reports of adverse events following vaccination without judging the cause or seriousness of the event. VAERS is not designed to determine if a vaccine caused an adverse event, but it is good at detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of reporting that might indicate possible safety problems that need a closer look.
Anyway, just wanted to fill folks in on some antivaxxer fuckery, and to beware any death numbers being touted by antivaxxers or any information from VAERS they are using.
Tuesday, Aug 3, 2021 · 9:07:57 PM +00:00
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Witgren
Just wanted to throw some additional info out there — even IF all “5,000 deaths” were in fact vaccine related, there are over 165 million fully vaccinated Americans, and about another 27 million have had 1 dose of a two-dose vaccine.
That’s something along the lines of a 0.003% mortality rate if you look at the fully vaccinated. And the truth is, it’s likely far less than that.
Compare that almost 612,000 official COVID deaths in the US, of 35,171,679 known cases, giving the US a case fatality rate of about 1.7% (of course, there are a lot of asymptomatic cases that were never recorded, but also studies have shown that COVID deaths have been vastly underreported — perhaps by as much as 1/3, meaning we may be more like around a million COVID deaths in the US).
So that “scary, scary” 5,000 deaths number pales in comparison to COVID deaths. Of course, a lot of antivaxxers don’t believe the COVID death counts, either, so...