FDA Announces COVID Vaccine Deaths Inquiry, Despite Evidence Showing Safety

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced this week that it will investigate whether there is a link between vaccinations for coronavirus and deaths in the United States, despite mountains of evidence that COVID-19 shots are both safe and effective.

“FDA is doing a thorough investigation, across multiple age groups, of deaths potentially related to coronavirus vaccines,” a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The announcement — which comes nearly five years after COVID-19 vaccines became available within the U.S. — has sparked major concerns among medical experts, who have repeatedly warned that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is peddling harmful disinformation and endangering vital public health institutions in the U.S.

The announcement also comes just weeks after a memo written by FDA chief medical and scientific officer Vinay Prasad, a noted anti-vaxxer, was made public. The memo baselessly claims that there is reason to believe “healthy young children who faced tremendously low risk of death were coerced, at the behest of the Biden administration, via school and work mandates, to receive a vaccine that could result in death.”

Prasad alleges in the memo that there were 10 instances of children dying due to the vaccine, but offers no details on the circumstances of their deaths. He also claims that COVID “was never highly lethal for children” and that its effects “are comparable” to other respiratory viruses — contradicting one analysis of pediatric mortality data that suggests COVID is more lethal for children than the flu.

The memo drafted by Prasad relies on reports from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a means for the public to submit reports of adverse responses or possible deaths following vaccines. The system is used to identify concerns and develop hypotheses, not to establish causality.

“This memo’s unverified claims may contribute to confusion about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for children,” KFF health information analyst Joel Luther wrote in an article on Prasad’s conclusions.

Leading health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), continue to recommend vaccinating children against coronavirus.

“COVID-19 continues to be a cause of hospitalization and death in the pediatric population,” the AAP said in October. “COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective in protecting individuals and populations against serious outcomes associated with [coronavirus] infection.”

A recently published study in France, which followed up on tens of millions of vaccinated adults over the course of several years, found there was “no increased risk” of mortality following vaccination. Meanwhile, those individuals exhibited a 74 percent reduced risk of death from COVID, the study found.

The study’s findings further support “the safety of the mRNA vaccines that are being widely used worldwide,” the authors concluded.

The efficacy of coronavirus vaccines was notable in the U.S. during the pandemic. By July 2021, death rates from COVID had fallen significantly from the year prior, likely due to widespread vaccination.

“No vaccine is perfect, but when you talk about the avoidability of hospitalization and death [due to COVID], it’s really sad and tragic that most, all of these are avoidable and preventable,” then-director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci said in an interview that month.

Under Kennedy’s watch, HHS has repeatedly taken actions to erode public trust in vaccines. Earlier this year, Kennedy dismissed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which provides recommendations on vaccines. He then stacked the board with anti-vaxxers.

More recently, the Trump administration announced that it would issue new guidance advising against vaccinating infants against Hepatitis B, with President Donald Trump himself errantly claiming that, since the virus is primarily spread through sexual contact, the vaccine isn’t necessary for children.

In fact, the vaccine is beneficial for children, including infants, who can contract Hepatitis B through other means, including from infants who may have contracted the virus from their parents during childbirth.

“Parents need to understand that the hepatitis B virus can be spread by infectious blood and body fluids, and not solely through sexual contact,” an article from the nonprofit group Vaccinate Your Family explained in March 2024.

Under Kennedy’s leadership, the U.S. has also experienced multiple measles outbreaks, risking the country’s current designation of having “eradicated” the virus. As of the start of December, there have been 1,828 confirmed cases of measles, up from 285 cases reported last year.

Many in the medical community have spoken out against Kennedy’s leadership, including six former U.S. surgeon generals in an op-ed published in October.

Kennedy’s actions “are endangering the health of the nation,” those individuals wrote.

On Wednesday morning, Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens (D) filed articles of impeachment against Kennedy.

“I am not one for political theater,” Stevens said in an interview about her decision to file the impeachment articles. “I’m for standing up for the health and safety of the people I represent. It’s pretty clear that these are life-and-death issues for folks.”

In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Stevens said that Kennedy “represents the single largest self-created threat to public health, public trust and the future of scientific progress in the United States.”

“If we don’t act, Americans will suffer. The secretary must go,” Stevens added.