The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is considered “an early warning system to detect possible safety issues with U.S. vaccines.”
Created as part of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1990, anyone can report possible vaccine reactions to VAERS.
Using and Misusing VAERS Reports
Just remember that just because something is reported to VAERS and is included in the VAERS database, that doesn’t automatically mean that a vaccine caused the reaction.
Additional information is sometimes requested to further look into these reactions, including medical records.
“Reports of all possible associations between vaccines and adverse events (possible side effects) are filed in VAERS. Therefore, VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event.”
Guide to Interpreting VAERS Data
For example, one study of VAERS reports found that only 3% of the adverse events following immunization “were classified as definitely causally related to vaccine received.”
Despite its limitations, VAERS works well.
It was using VAERS data that CDC and FDA vaccine experts quickly discovered that the older RotaShield rotavirus vaccine was associated with an increased risk of intussusception.
More on Misusing VAERS Reports
- Underreporting of Side Effects to VAERS
- Did 79.4% of the Reported Child Deaths to VAERS Get a Vaccine on the Day They Died?
- Side Effects and Adverse Events Following Immunizations
- Vaccines and Sudden Unexplained Death in Children
- Is It a Vaccine Reaction?
- Submitting a Report to VAERS
- Search VAERS
- Guide to Interpreting VAERS Data
- The Incredible Hulk Vaccine Side Effect: Or, Understanding VAERS
- VAERS a Few Things We Need to Discuss
- VAERS as “evidence” of vaccine harm
- On Using VAERS
- Debunking anti-vaccine arguments: VAERS, package inserts, and the VICP do not prove that vaccines are dangerous
- Gold mine or dumpster dive? A closer look at adverse event reports
- How vaccine litigation distorts the VAERS database
- How Anti-vaccination groups misuse information from VAERS
- VAERS Pseudoscience
- Vaccine Injuries from The MMR, A Review of VAERS
- Study – Causality assessment of adverse events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)
Last Updated on April 6, 2024