- Anti-vaccine groups have been circulating death lists, purportedly linked to the
COVID vaccine . - But the system these reports are hosted on, VAERS, acknowledges some reports are unverified, and may be false or inaccurate.
- This is because anyone can submit a report to the system without authorization from a healthcare professional.
From circulating "death lists" to broadcasting screenshots of reports of disturbing side effects, anti-vaccine groups have been using statistics from a vaccine database to discourage others from taking the COVID jab.
But the database in question - known as the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) - does not require a medical professional to verify their symptoms before reports are logged - leading to misconceptions and misinterpretations of the data listed on the site.
In fact, the database clearly acknowledges in a disclaimer on its website that "reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable."
In response to fervor over the database, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (
Anyone can submit a report - but that doesn't mean you should
Insider independently confirmed that it was possible to submit a report to the VAERS without the authorization of a medical professional. One can file a VAERS report either through an online system or via a downloadable PDF form, both of which do not require a qualified healthcare professional to verify the symptoms.
Patients are allowed to report symptoms that they've experienced themselves and register the outcome of these symptoms - including "life-threatening illness" or "disability or permanent damage" - without verification.
This is not a recent development - as it was possible in 2005 for a curious physician, James Laidler, to enter a report into VAERS claiming that a flu vaccine turned him into The Hulk.
The VAERS website does warn people that filing a false report with the intent to mislead the Department of
Rife misinformation based on unverified VAERS reports
VAERS acknowledges in its disclaimer that there were instances in which reports in its database were misrepresented on media sites and social media as verified cases of vaccine deaths.
It also highlighted that "additional scientific investigation" is required to establish causality between the administering of the vaccine and any adverse events - noting that the CDC and the US Food and Drug Administration will follow up on all serious adverse event reports.
But not everyone has acknowledged that the data in the VAERS database may not be 100% accurate.
For one, the Washington Post wrote on Thursday that Fox host Tucker Carlson cited data from VAERS in an anti-COVID jab rant, claiming without independent verification that a "total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccine in the United States."
Carlson said: "Again, more people, according to VAERS, have died after getting the shot in four months during a single vaccination campaign than from all other vaccines combined over more than a decade and a half. Chart that out. It's a stunning picture."
Politifact also checked several claims on vaccine side effects supposedly listed on VAERS - including an article from former GOP congressman Ron Paul which erroneously claimed COVID jabs caused 50 times the number of adverse events as compared to flu shots - and debunked them.
Similarly, videos and posts have circulated with claims of climbing death tolls registered in the VAERS system, which indicate that people have been wildly misinterpreting the results that they obtain from the search function on VAERS and taking every symptom or side effect that surfaces in every VAERS report as fact.
Another video, viewed around 2,100 times during a live stream, shows a woman navigating the platform and describing the possible adverse reactions and side effects one might be afflicted with by getting the COVID vaccine.
These social media users are allowed to access the data, as the VAERS system allows for lists of side effects to be viewed by members of the public based on vaccine type and manufacturer and other metrics such as age and sex. But the system itself does not highlight if the claims made in these reports have been checked and verified by the authorities.
Experts reiterate that correlation is not causation
Speaking to science journal Nature, vaccine expert Kathryn Edwards, professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, said that health authorities must strike a "delicate balance" when information is disseminated about the side effects of COVID vaccines.
Edwards added that, at times, it might be hard to even prove if the adverse reactions were due to the vaccine, particularly if the reported symptoms strike the patient days after the jab was administered.
Nature also cited a study that detailed how challenging it was to link any adverse events through vaccines - as this has to be done through specific lab tests. This is because correlation is not causation - and work has to be done by scientists to determine what caused the reaction, before comparing it with the probability that this symptom occurred purely by chance.
Professor Paul Tambyah, deputy director of the infectious diseases translational research program at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine in the National University of Singapore, told Insider that even if VAERS submissions required doctor verification, the average individual medical practitioner could not determine if reports of side effects are related to vaccines.
"It is only the health authorities who have access to national databases or aggregates of individual reports who can analyze the data and do the detailed statistical analyses to show the links," Tambyah said.
"The public should be encouraged to report unverified complications so the health authorities who have access to objective data such as hospital admission statistics can investigate any possible association and take the necessary action," Tambyah added.