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.
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is the nation's early warning system for vaccine safety. We've processed all 1,983,260 reports into searchable, contextualized data — so you don't have to navigate the clunky CDC interface.
VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) is a national passive surveillance system co-managed by the CDC and FDA. Created in 1990 under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, VAERS collects reports of adverse health events that occur after vaccination.
Key points about VAERS:
VAERS data is useful for:
VAERS data should NOT be used to:
The official way to access VAERS data is through CDC WONDER, which provides query-based access but has a steep learning curve and limited visualization. VaccineWatch processes the same raw data files but presents them with:
VaccineWatch processes the complete VAERS dataset, which consists of three CSV files per year (VAERSDATA, VAERSVAX, VAERSSYMPTOMS) going back to 1990. Our pipeline:
The result: 85,000+ unique pages covering every meaningful combination of vaccine, symptom, year, state, and manufacturer in the VAERS database.
Before diving into the data, read these critical context articles: