“The vaccines are killing more people than the virus is.”
Countries including the U.S. routinely keep track of the safety of new drugs or vaccines via adverse event reporting systems, where members of the public and doctors can report symptoms that appear after someone has received a drug. But these reports, health experts have long cautioned, do not prove that a particular symptom was caused by that treatment. For example, a person may have a heart attack the same week they start a new medication; it doesn’t necessarily mean the drug caused the heart attack. Adverse event reports are meant as a possible signal of risk, so medical professionals can investigate further.
Since the vaccines were released to the public, adverse event reporting systems have allowed us to discover some rare risks not seen in the earlier clinical trials, such as a higher chance of myocarditis among young people given the mRNA vaccines or a rare blood clotting condition associated with the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines. But antivaxxers have used adverse event reports to falsely argue that the vaccines have caused huge numbers of deaths.
The risks of vaccination still pale in comparison to the risks of covid-19 (infection by the virus is linked to an even higher chance of myocarditis that what is seen from the shots). And there is no good evidence showing that vaccines are killing people en masse.
