Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

As for VAERS, let me explain it. Then it will no longer be "unexplained."

Why might the number of reports in VAERS be higher than typical for other vaccines?

First: PUBLICITY. Anyone can report anything to VAERS.

https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1419539034565607424

There's a well-established link between media reports about a vaccine and AE reports in VAERS: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

(There's also a relationship to "litigation." pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16452357/)

But neither of these are related to "safety."

Given the massive amount of media attention to the pandemic and these vaccines, it's actually surprising that the rates of reported adverse effects are so low.

Second, DEMOGRAPHICS. The population that received these vaccines is very different from the usual vaccine recipients.

Typically, we give children vaccines: HepB, rotavirus, DTaP, Hib, PCV13, PPSV23, polio, flu (Type B, IIV and LAIV4), MMR, VAR, meningitis A and B are all given before 15 months, w/ 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th doses all before the age of 6.

This is why, thank God, American children no longer die of these diseases.

But Covid19 vaccines were distributed in reverse chronological order. First they went to people over 90 with multiple comorbidities; then to people over 90;

then to people over 80 with multiple comorbidities, etc. Covid19 vaccine uptake has by comparison been very low among younger people, who think “only old people get Covid.” (They’re quite wrong.) reuters.com/world/europe/m…

In no other vaccine rollout have we ever prioritized the eldest and sickest this way. So yes, we would expect many more reports to VAERS, for the following reasons:

a) Compared to 90-year-olds with serious comorbidities, healthy two-year-olds enjoy very low morbidity and mortality.
b) The recipients are mostly not yet verbal, so their feelings about vaccines are apt to be confined to “ouch.”

c) The recipients usually aren’t old enough to understand “vaccine side effects,” so they’re not apt to have psychosomatic symptoms owing to all the fearsome things they’ve read in the news about vaccines.
d) They’re also not old enough to type.

e) Their parents, too, are less likely to file reports on their behalf, because unless you live in Marin County, you think childhood vaccines are routine.
The media has paid 10,000, maybe a 100,000 times more attention to C19 vaccinations than, say, diphtheria vaccines.

So you'd *expect* reports in VAERS to skyrocket after C19 vaccine rollout, especially thanks to the diligent efforts of anti-vaxxers to publicize it and persuade people to file false or spurious reports.

THIRD: We're in the middle of a pandemic that's lopped 1.5 years off our national life expectancy! Of course people are reporting more adverse effects. Not everyone is lucky enough to get two doses and then wait two weeks before being exposed to the disease.

FOURTH: This is perhaps the most important of all.
THE REPORTING REQUIREMENTS ARE DIFFERENT.
Look at the change in the CDC guidelines, and remember, healthcare workers are *required by law* to report what the CDC tells them to report.
vaers.hhs.gov/faq.html

Covid19:

The requirements for other vaccinations, like typical childhood vaccinations:

With other vaccines, the CDC “strongly encourages” healthcare workers to report adverse effects.

Most pediatricians have a lot of experience with vaccines—and worried mothers—and know that if a 2-year-old runs a fever after getting his Tdap, it doesn’t need to be reported.

They also know that if the same kid starts wetting the bed two months later, that doesn't need to be reported, either.

***NB The specified time period for reporting VAEs is usually very short: vaers.hhs.gov/docs/VAERS_Tab…

A day, or at most a month. For tetanus, the reporting period is 7 days. The time period is short because we *know* that none of these vaccines cause long-term AEs. This has been studied and studied and studied. These vaccines have no long-term effects except keeping you alive.

If a vaccine has an adverse effect, you'll know it in minutes, usually. Or days. At the very most, two months. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…) (There's no reason to think mRNA vaccines would be any different.)***

To be on the (safest imaginable) side, the CDC issued different rules for reporting Covid19 vax AEs.

So now healthcare providers are *required by law* to report "any important medical event that might jeopardize the patient" if it occurs after getting a C19 vaccination.

Even if the doctor thinks the effect couldn’t possibly have been caused by the vaccine. Even if there's no plausible biological mechanism. Even if the cause of death is a gunshot wound.

So if you’re a vaccinated 90-year-old double-heart-lung transplant patient with diabetes and high blood pressure and you have a heart attack, *by law,* the doctor must report this to VAERS. The doctor isn't just "strongly encouraged" to report it. He or she is obligated.

Unlike our other vaccines, the period during which it's "strongly encouraged" or mandatory to report adverse events isn't a week, or a month.

The period is the *entire time during which the vaccine is authorized under the EUA.*

So if there were 10 times the number of reports in VAERS (and there aren't), it wouldn't be surprising.

Over a period of months, many people will have significant medical problems whether or not they've been vaccinated.

Correlation is not=causation.

The longer the period in question, the more reports.

These reports are meaningless until they're investigated, confirmed by medical records, and compared against baseline risk--which shows the vaccines' risks are nugatory, almost infinitesimally small, compared to Covid19.

These things--media attention, the age and ill-health of the recipients, an overall rise in morbidity and mortality due to the pandemic, and changed reporting requirements--ensure that the "adverse event signal" in VAERS will be *extremely* high.

But this is not unexplained.