By R.E. Wermus, The Daily Signal | February 16, 2025
Medical researchers are engaged in a vigorous debate over the potential dangers of the COVID-19 vaccine after a journal urged for immediate global market withdrawal of all COVID vaccines.
A Jan. 28 study published in Science, Public Health Policy and the Law says there were 19,028 reports of American COVID vaccine-related deaths as of Sept. 6, 2024, according to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
VAERS was established in 1990 as a national early warning system to detect issues of safety in U.S.-licensed vaccines. The system is co-managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
The study, published by the McCullough Foundation, says the deaths reported in VAERS are estimated to be underreported by a multiplier of 31, estimating that American deaths from COVID vaccinations may be closer to 589,868 (19,028 x 31).
Critics of the study say the 19,028 deaths reported to VAERS should not be multiplied by a factor of 31. An article published by Unbiased Science called this number an “unvalidated factor” and said it is “derived from a single non-peer-reviewed analysis.”
The Unbiased Science article stated that during the COVID pandemic, “Any death following vaccination was required to be reported, regardless of cause. Furthermore, anyone can report data to VAERS, and the claims need to be verified after to ensure they are real.”
Debate Over VAERS Data
Nicolas Hulscher, a corresponding author of the McCullough Foundation study, told The Daily Signal, “You face major fines and imprisonment for lying and making up VAERS reports. And most of the VAERS reports are issued by the health care provider, by the companies, by hospital staff.”
When asked how doctors can be sure a patient’s death is vaccine-related rather than a coincidence, Hulscher stated, “Thousands of the deaths occurred within the same day or two of the vaccination. Many of them just died in the vaccine center. So, we can’t just discount all of them.”
A study published by the CDC in 2021 found no increased risk for mortality among COVID vaccine recipients despite the deaths reported to VAERS, sparking debate among medical professionals about issues of safety.
Concerns Over Clinical Studies
Dr. David Gortler, a former career FDA medical officer, senior medical analyst, and drug safety expert who later served as the senior advisor to the FDA commissioner under Donald Trump’s first term told The Daily Signal, “The FDA has a history of being remarkably political and selective on how it sees fit to both collect and evaluate product adverse events … mRNA injections are far from being a one-off.”
He added, “The new FDA commissioner [Dr. Marty Makary] needs to have a very carefully thought through clinically and epidemiologically sound strategy on how to overhaul and centralize safety data collection and evaluation going forward.”
Dr. Robert Chandler, an orthopedic surgeon and graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine, began working on Pfizer-BioNTech’s documents on COVID vaccines three years ago. He told The Daily Signal he saw concerning trends while reviewing preclinical studies.
“What I encountered was a series of very disturbing items, beginning with the animal studies,” he said.
Chandler explained that COVID vaccines are genetically active products that contain manmade genetic code (RNA). Synthetic RNA may cause toxicity, leading to a range of reactions such as cancer, inflammation, or autoimmune disorders.
By February 2021, over 1,000 disease types were reported to Pfizer and the FDA in relation to COVID vaccines, according to Chandler.
When asked why few in the medical community are seeking market removal of COVID vaccines, Chandler responded, “It’s almost too big to acknowledge.”
He explained, “I’ve identified several different categories of basis to take this product off the market, so there’s no shortage of documentation at this point, and I don’t quite understand what the obstacle is.”
Microbiome Research Raises Questions
Dr. Sabine Hazan, founder of the genetic research laboratory ProgenaBiome, is at the forefront of studying how the COVID vaccine affects humans’ gut microbiome. She told The Daily Signal that following her colleagues’ first dose of the COVID vaccine, their bifidobacteria levels decreased by 50% and continued declining after a second dose.
Gut microbiomes contribute to human health by protecting against pathogens, helping to develop our immune systems, and enabling us to digest food, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Bifidobacteria is a key microbe in the gut “seen in the trillion-dollar industry of probiotics,” according to Hazan. “That’s what started the whole probiotic industry, really, was bifidobacteria, this microbe that is present in newborns and disappears as we get older.”
This decrease in bifidobacteria post-vaccination caused Hazan to question if the COVID vaccine may be speeding up the aging process, a question that still lacks a definitive answer.
“If there’s a concern and we’re seeing it in the microbiome, which could predict a problem down the road, we should really focus on it and see, am I right? Am I wrong?” she said.
Hazan stated we must stop “censorship” and “interference in science” and instead work to find a solution.
“If I’m right, and there’s a problem … and we have a disappearing microbiome … that’s dangerous for humanity as a whole,” she said.
Historical Context
This is not the first time a drug or vaccine with an alleged high mortality rate was available on the consumer market.
In the 1950s, a drug called thalidomide entered the European market to help pregnant women manage symptoms such as poor sleep. After five years, there were over 10,000 cases of thalidomide-related birth defects reported, 40% of which were fatal. The drug was banned in 1961.
R.E. Wermus is a journalism intern for The Daily Signal.
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