How many deaths were reported in VAERS through 2024 and how many were confirmed as vaccine-related?
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Executive summary
The FDA’s internal memo says agency staff reviewed 96 VAERS death reports from 2021–2024 and concluded that “no fewer than 10” of those child deaths were related to COVID-19 vaccination [1] [2] [3]. Public reporting shows the 96 reports were drawn from VAERS entries, but the publicly available VAERS dataset does not include the FDA’s subsequent investigational determinations or the detailed data underlying that conclusion [3] [4].
1. What the FDA memo actually reports: a narrow, internal finding
An internal email from Vinay Prasad, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, states that FDA career staff in the Office of Biostatistics and Pharmacovigilance reviewed 96 death reports submitted to VAERS between 2021 and 2024 and judged “no fewer than 10” of those deaths to be related to COVID-19 vaccination [1] [5]. The memo frames those attributions as “likely/probable/possible” and says the 10 is an underestimate because of passive reporting and conservative coding choices [5] [6].
2. What VAERS is — and what it is not
VAERS is a passive, open reporting system that accepts submissions from anyone; it is intended as an early-warning tool, not a proven-causation database [1] [4]. Multiple reports note that the raw, publicly available VAERS records list initial reports but do not contain the follow-up investigations, clinical reviews, or attribution judgements that the FDA staff performed [3] [4]. That means the public VAERS entries alone cannot confirm the FDA’s internal classifications without the agency’s supporting case reviews [3].
3. Media and partisan coverage — competing framings
Mainstream outlets (e.g., STAT, NBC) reported the memo and highlighted expert skepticism that the memo offers limited evidence in public view, emphasizing that the claim lacked detailed, reproducible data [1] [2]. Conservative and vaccine-skeptic outlets framed the memo as definitive proof that COVID vaccines killed children and called for urgent policy changes [7] [8]. Independent fact-checking-style reporting noted that the public VAERS records do not show the FDA’s internal determinations and that VAERS requires follow-up to establish causation [3] [4].
4. What experts and public-health context in the sources say
Sources citing outside expert reaction say specialists are skeptical because extraordinary causal claims need transparent clinical detail; established literature cited by some outlets reports that large observational and controlled studies found COVID vaccines safe for children overall [2]. The memo itself—according to reporting—acknowledges conservative coding and underreporting could affect totals, and the FDA staff characterized their attributions across categories like “likely/probable/possible” rather than uniformly definite causation [5] [6].
5. Limits of current public information — what’s missing
Public reporting does not include the detailed case-level evidence, adjudication criteria, or clinical autopsy/pathology reviews the FDA staff used to classify those 10 deaths as vaccine-related; the publicly available VAERS downloads do not carry those internal determinations [3] [5]. The sources do not supply a line-by-line FBI-style causal rubric, nor do they publish the individual redacted case files that would let outside scientists reproduce the agency’s coding decisions [1] [4].
6. Why this matters for policy and public trust
Prasad’s memo is being used inside the FDA to argue for stricter vaccine approval standards and to justify new regulatory steps; critics say that use of internal, not-publicly-detailed findings can erode public trust if transparency is not forthcoming [6] [9]. Supporters of the memo argue that internal career staff analysis identifying even small numbers of vaccine-related deaths demands policy reconsideration; opponents argue policy shifts require broader, transparent evidence and replication [6] [2].
7. Bottom line and open questions
The available reporting establishes that FDA staff reviewed 96 VAERS death reports from 2021–2024 and judged at least 10 child deaths to be related to COVID vaccination, using “likely/probable/possible” attribution language [1] [5]. Available sources do not publish the detailed case files or explain the exact clinical criteria or process used for each attribution, so independent verification and fuller scientific assessment are not yet possible from public materials [3] [4].