Disclaimer

About VAERS Data

The data presented on VaccineWatch comes from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a national early warning system jointly managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Reports Do Not Prove Causation

VAERS reports represent temporal associations, not causal relationships. When an adverse event is reported to VAERS after vaccination, it means the event happened after the vaccine was administered. It does not mean the vaccine caused the event. The event could be:

• Coincidental — the event would have occurred regardless of vaccination
• Related to an underlying medical condition
• Caused by a medication, illness, or other factor unrelated to the vaccine
• A natural occurrence at baseline population rates

Limitations of Passive Surveillance

VAERS is a passive surveillance system, meaning it relies on voluntary reports. This introduces several significant limitations:

• Underreporting: Many adverse events go unreported. Studies suggest that only a fraction of actual adverse events are ever reported to VAERS.
• Stimulated reporting: Media coverage, public concern, or legal incentives can increase reporting for specific vaccines or conditions, inflating numbers independent of actual risk.
• Unverified data: Reports are not verified for medical accuracy before inclusion. Anyone can submit a report, and submissions may contain incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading information.
• No denominator data: VAERS does not include the number of vaccine doses administered. Without this denominator, it is impossible to calculate rates or compare relative risk between vaccines.
• Duplicate reports: The same adverse event may be reported multiple times by different reporters (healthcare providers, patients, family members).

Misuse of VAERS Data

VAERS data has been frequently misrepresented in public discourse. Common misuses include:

• Citing raw report counts as evidence that vaccines caused specific outcomes
• Comparing raw numbers between vaccines without accounting for doses administered
• Presenting death reports as evidence that vaccines kill people, when most deaths in the database are coincidental and occur at expected background rates
• Ignoring that VAERS was designed as a signal detection system, not a proof-of-causation database

How VAERS Data Should Be Used

VAERS serves an important purpose as an early warning system. It is designed to:

• Detect unusual patterns (safety signals) that warrant further investigation
• Identify previously unknown adverse events
• Monitor known adverse events for changes in frequency
• Provide data for more rigorous epidemiological studies

When VAERS detects a signal, it is investigated further using more rigorous methods such as the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) project, or other controlled studies that can actually determine causation.

Our Commitment

VaccineWatch presents VAERS data transparently with appropriate context. We are committed to:

• Presenting data as-is without editorializing or making causal claims
• Providing context about data limitations on every page
• Not using data to advocate for or against vaccination
• Linking to official CDC/FDA resources for authoritative information

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