The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating whether the COVID-19 vaccines were associated with any deaths across all age ranges.
“FDA is doing a thorough investigation, across multiple age groups, of deaths potentially related to COVID vaccines,” Health and Human Services (HHS) Department spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement.
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in September that his agency would be looking into whether COVID-19 vaccinations caused any pediatric deaths. At the time, he pointed to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Due the self-reported nature of VAERS, it’s difficult to definitively pin blame for symptoms on vaccines but Makary indicated it was sufficient evidence for him.
“We do know at the FDA, because we’ve been looking into the [vaccine safety] database of self reports, that there have been children who have died from the Covid vaccine,” said Makary.
The FDA commissioner has previously claimed to personally know people whose family members have diced due to receiving an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Now, it seems his agency is expanding its investigation to include all demographics.
Vinay Prasad, head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, claimed in an email to staff that “at least 10 children have died after and because of receiving COVID-19 vaccination.” In his email, he questioned whether the COVID-19 vaccine killed more children than it saved. He claimed comparing the number of children who died from the virus to those who may have died due to immunization would be a “flawed comparison.”
The COVID-19 vaccines were first deployed towards the end of 2020 under emergency use authorizations, following an expedited review. Full FDA approval would be granted less than a year later, with Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine being the first to be approved.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been highly critical of the COVID-19 vaccines, at one point erroneously calling it the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” Under Kennedy’s rule, HHS has moved to limit COVID-19 vaccine access, reducing the demographics for whom the shot is recommended.