Important: VAERS reports alone cannot determine if a vaccine caused an adverse event. Reports may contain incomplete, inaccurate, or unverified information. Correlation does not equal causation.
Critical Context Required
A death report in VAERS does NOT mean a vaccine caused the death. VAERS accepts all reports of death following vaccination, including deaths from pre-existing conditions, accidents, and natural causes. The elderly population that receives many vaccines has a high background death rate regardless of vaccination.
VAERS contains 27,732 death reports following vaccination (1990–2026). This page presents the data transparently while providing the context necessary to interpret it correctly.
A VAERS death report means someone died at some point after receiving a vaccine and a report was filed. It does NOT mean:
VAERS death reports include people who died of heart attacks, cancer, car accidents, and other causes that happened to occur after vaccination. In clinical trials, death rates in vaccinated groups are typically similar to or lower than death rates in placebo groups.
Approximately 8,000 Americans die every day from all causes. When millions of people are vaccinated in a short period, some will inevitably die within days or weeks of vaccination by pure coincidence.
Example: If 10 million elderly Americans receive a vaccine in one month, roughly100,000 of them would be expected to die within that month anywaybased on normal mortality rates — completely unrelated to the vaccine.
This is why raw VAERS death counts are misleading without comparison to expected background rates. See our denominator problem analysis for more.
The table below shows vaccines with the most death reports. Higher numbers primarily reflect the population receiving the vaccine and the intensity of reporting — not relative danger.
| Vaccine | Death Reports | Total Reports | Death Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Covid19 (covid19 (pfizer-biontech)) | 26,537 | 1,121,388 | 2.4% |
| Hib (pedvaxhib) | 2,413 | 60,298 | 4.0% |
| Hep B (engerix-b) | 1,522 | 73,280 | 2.1% |
| Dtap (no Brand Name) | 1,457 | 66,714 | 2.2% |
| Pneumo (prevnar) | 1,436 | 27,970 | 5.1% |
| Polio Virus, Inact. (ipol) | 1,284 | 44,360 | 2.9% |
| Polio Virus, Oral (no Brand Name) | 1,227 | 27,089 | 4.5% |
| Influenza (seasonal) (fluvirin) | 1,081 | 119,695 | 0.9% |
| Dtp (no Brand Name) | 940 | 23,850 | 3.9% |
| Dtap + Hepb + Ipv (pediarix) | 769 | 15,041 | 5.1% |
| Rotavirus (rotateq) | 684 | 25,020 | 2.7% |
| Pneumo (prevnar13) | 593 | 33,058 | 1.8% |
| Measles + Mumps + Rubella (mmr Ii) | 497 | 89,976 | 0.6% |
| Influenza (seasonal) (no Brand Name) | 491 | 32,816 | 1.5% |
| Covid19 (covid19 (moderna Bivalent)) | 454 | 42,946 | 1.1% |
COVID-19 vaccines account for 26,991 of 27,732 death reports (97%). This disproportionate share reflects several factors:
CDC reviews every VAERS death report for COVID-19 vaccines. After reviewing thousands of reports, the CDC has confirmed that deaths causally linked to COVID vaccines are extremely rare — limited primarily to a small number of cases involving thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) after the J&J vaccine and anaphylaxis.
VAERS death reports trigger a review process:
The vast majority of death reports, upon investigation, are found to be unrelated to vaccination.
Large-scale epidemiological studies consistently show that vaccinated populations do not have higher death rates than unvaccinated populations. In fact, some studies showlower all-cause mortality in vaccinated groups — likely because healthier individuals are more likely to get vaccinated (the "healthy vaccinee" effect).