David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, where he also serves as the American College of Surgeons Committee on Cancer Liaison Physician as well as an Associate Professor of Surgery and member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University. Of the US primary reports received between 2012 and 2016, 0.4% reported death as the outcome; 5% reported a serious nonfatal adverse event (as defined above), and 94.6% reported non-serious events (CDC, unpublished data). In a July 13 letter to health agency leaders, Johnson noted a press conference he . and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Based on the law of large numbers, in which very small percentages translate into a large number of actual cases or people, we would expect a lot more deaths within a couple of weeks after vaccination by random chance alone. J. Ophthalmol. No, seriously, look at the stupidity on display here: For over three weeks, the website of the US government Vaccination Adverse Reporting System (VAERS) has been inaccessible to most users. Peter Collignon and his colleagues do not exaggerate the problem of (1989) 160(3):535-537. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report. 2022 Jul 26;23(15):8235. doi: 10.3390/ijms23158235. Pediatrics It would be a dramatic improvement over the current health-care-worker-initiated reports. endstream endobj startxref MeSH The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The brain tumor pathogenesis is not fully understood at this time. During Thats why Im going to take this opportunity to point out how, contrary to how one eminent academic oncologist like to put it, refuting antivaccine disinformation is anything but LeBron James dunking on a 7 hoop. The people behind the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) have admitted that "fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported" in an early grant: native advertising "Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Thanks to Dear Pandemic, who did similar back-of-the-envelope calculations, as did Mark Hoofnagle on Twitter, we can make a reasonable estimate for Norway: What does that mean? caused the event. The CDC blocked both the data collection by the Harvard Pilgrim group, and also any implementation that could have followed from their findings. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a reporting system that anyone can report to or access data from. Voices for Vaccines, How I Went From Dressing Up As Measles to Hoping for My COVID Vaccines, April 28, 2021. 2022 Harvard Political Review. especially MATSUBARA K, NIGAMI H, HARIGAYA H, BABA K: Herpes zoster in a normal child after varicella vaccination. And of course my favorite example is the VAERS excess deaths. ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes. 2006 the published KD incidence for U.S. children under 5 rose from 11.0 and Nobel Prize winner turned homeopathy believer, antivaxxer, autism quack, and now COVID-19 crank, Luc Montagnier. (1986) 8(1):78-80. What about the US and VAERS? Epub 2021 Feb 23. A study about it found less than 1% were reported (3). VAERS reports can be submitted voluntarily by anyone, including healthcare Pediatr. %%EOF : Vaccine-associated uveitis following COVID-19 vaccination: vaccine adverse event reporting system database analysis. A certain number of 80+ year olds die every day. VAERS is a publicly available, searchable database of reports that have not been verified. NARUSE H, MIWATA H, OZAKI T, ASANO Y, NAMAZUE J, YAMANISHI K: Varicella infection complicated with meningitis after immunization. 2. Twenty-eight months following varicella vaccination (October 29, 2002), he developed breakthrough chickenpox with an estimated 30 to 40 lesions that were intensely itchy. In normal times Norway typically sees 45 deaths among nursing residents each week. References Varicella vaccination is generally considered safe [1] but there are usually no prescreening tests to determine whether an adverse reaction is likely to occur [2]. A 17-month-old female toddler received the varicella vaccination on March 20, 1996. Methods: Indeed, Facebook posts seen by the HPR with hundreds of engagements include the same verbatim instructions, copy and pasted, for users to disregard disclaimers. How can there possibly be over 16,000 reported in VAERS if nothing is going on? Physicians and patients The point of Harvard Pilgram Health Care, Inc. getting that grant was to develop a much more efficient system for capturing vaccine injuries, a system that would be built into electronic health records systems and so could flag temporal relationships between vaccinations being dispensed and symptoms subsequently reported. She was admitted to a hospital for rehydration after losing 12 lbs or more than 10% of her previous healthy weight. Share on Facebook, opens a new window Her symptoms worsened at the age of 6. SAKAGUCHI M, YAMANAKA T, IKEDA K, SANO Y, FUJITA H, MIURA T, INOUYE S: IgE-mediated systemic reactions to gelatin included in the varicella vaccine. They mention Dr. Jerry Spivaks irresponsible quote in which he said that the thought it is a medical certainty that the vaccine was related. The VAERS dataset was created to manage reports of vaccine-associated side effects. ]Jw/d}n?`nGDzh,5crb?|IlO87m:8S.A);B9+k liSC`y2WW0Z=+'kv$n6I,%AMe13em1e63?d[@f=PaVkAV{2"CeU(H3'S?V;5U n3`(*9u&PY)Ug*Q&ObFMRY;Leq,*]&kIegxKw) h_2YQ)HGA&[?/f4Fkk;k&5#{@5d5KM=I&In'$v:j\C5sft4 2] 5 Wu, a former . Additionally, the senators said the COVID-19 tests used by . The credits awarded are as follows: CME, 2.0; CNE, 2.0; CEU, .20; CHES, 2.0; and CVE, 2.0. The VAERS system keeps track of any unusual or unexpected adverse events that occur after vaccine administration. Background: to other vaccines and other serious clinical problems. VAERS Data includes information about the patients demographics, and data related to their adverse event. It relies on people to submit reports of adverse reactions to vaccines; it doesnt actively look for them, as active surveillance systems do. 5. With the authority of the CDC, whose official seal adorns the webpage, VAERS packs a shock. Basically, VAERS is a passive reporting system, in which anyone can report suspected adverse events after any vaccination to be recorded in the database. Q ZO!G("p Jpn. Still, it's a good way to detect safety signals that weren't detected during premarket testing or clinical trials . As is stated on the VAERS website: Underreporting is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. Objectives: 9. Misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine abounds on the web, but no site established by an anti-vaccine activist could hope to have the reach and recognisability of the CDC website. The database makes for gruesome reading, with side-effects of the vaccine appearing to include brain death, herpes and even one case of a gunshot wound. VAERS is a government database managed by the Centers for Disease. febrile VAERS reports vary in quality and completeness and under-reporting, especially of mild and self-limiting AEs, appears common. It is a near certainty that scurrilous and outlandish claims around the COVID-19 vaccines will be shared online in any case, but for now, malign actors transmit this information with a veneer of credibility offered by the CDC VAERS database. The lot number associated with each vaccine is recorded in the VAERS data base. Examples abound, including antivaxxers claiming that COVID-19 vaccines cause female infertility, reprogram your DNA, are unnecessary because COVID-19 is not deadly, and even kill, particularly the elderly. Vaccine. Never mind that, as I discussed, there was no evidence that these deaths, all of which were among very elderly nursing home residents, were caused by the vaccine and there was no evidence of an increase in the baseline mortality rate of nursing home residents in Norway, which averages around 400 per week. VAERS accepts all reports of suspected adverse events, in all age groups. "Underreporting" is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. Case "C" An adult female, age 47, became disabled following varicella vaccination. Accessibility Im referring, of course, to antivaxxers resurrecting old antivaccine tropes, dusting them off, and updating them for the age of COVID. Quite the vaccine. According to the VAERS website, only a "small fraction" of vaccine injuries are reported (2). Covid-19 was the eighth leading cause of death among children in recent months, according to a study published Monday. 3. Consider this part 2 of my post from two weeks ago, the VAERS edition. Hematol. J. On the other hand, more serious and unexpected medical events are probably more likely to be reported than minor ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes. A Progressive Facade: Comparing the U.S. and Canadas Treatment of Indigenous Peoples, Bringing Down the Worlds Largest Heist: Interview with Clare Rewcastle Brown, Australian PM Details Trump Relationship, Says Obama Called Him a Lunatic. 100,000 person-years. Since varicella disease is relatively benign, only a few serious adverse reactions might offset the intended benefits. This is a system that sends regular text messages to those whove been vaccinated to ask them about side effects and in general how they feel. He received a third course of Acyclovir and the rash resolved after a month. "'Underreporting' is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS," HHS says on its website. 4. Epub 2022 Aug 31. The true figure is likely to be significantly higher as Keyhole excludes Instagram and private Facebook groups from its analytics. Re: Singh etal. 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