Federal health officials are preparing to present data they claim ties Covid vaccines to 25 deaths in children at the upcoming Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting, NBC News has reported. The two-day meeting, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, will review recommendations for several vaccines, including the fall’s updated Covid shots.
FDA bases claim on VAERS data
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to rely on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a publicly available database maintained jointly by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the news outlet reported citing sources.
VAERS allows anyone — including doctors, patients, and caregivers — to report adverse events they suspect are linked to vaccines. However, the reports are unverified and intended as a guide for further investigation rather than proof of causation.
Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy expert at the University of California Law, San Francisco, told NBC News: “To identify causation to a vaccine you need to show that the cause of death was something the vaccine caused, and by itself, a VAERS report would not show that — you need larger studies comparing incidents of the harm with or without the vaccine.”
The VAERS website itself warns that reports may contain inaccurate, incomplete, or biased information and should be interpreted with these limitations in mind.
Pushback from experts
A former FDA official, speaking anonymously, pushed back on the agency’s findings, the news outlet reported.
“I can tell you on a stack of Bibles that we looked through all of the autopsy reports and that we didn’t find anything,” the official said in a text message. “Unless someone was hiding them from us I don’t know what they’re referring to.”
Numerous studies support the safety of Covid vaccines in children.
Controversial changes at ACIP
Recently, Health Secretary Robert Kennedy dismissed all existing ACIP members and replaced them with handpicked individuals, including some known anti-vaccine activists. The American Academy of Pediatrics described Kennedy’s new appointments as a “radical departure” from the committee’s mission of protecting children.
One new panel member, Retsef Levi, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who is not a doctor, will lead the Covid vaccine work group. Levi has publicly claimed that Covid vaccines cause serious harm and death.
Implications for vaccine access
Recommendations made by the ACIP could influence who is eligible for Covid vaccination this fall. Kennedy has already limited access, announcing FDA approval of updated Covid shots only for people aged 65 and older and those with underlying medical conditions.
