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Fact Check Analysis Corrections Blue Feed Red Feed Corona Virus



FACT CHECK: ANONYMOUS 'WHISTLEBLOWER' DID NOT DOCUMENT 45,000 DEATHS FROM COVID
VACCINE: SHE GUESSTIMATED THAT NUMBER


FACT CHECK

 * Jul 20, 2021
 * by: Dean Miller

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Guess ≠ Proof

Did the anonymous "whistleblower" in a July 19, 2021, lawsuit against the
Secretary of Health and Human Services document her claim that 45,000 people
died within three days of receiving a COVID vaccination? No, that's not true:
It's her "opinion" that a five-fold multiplier of a list of unverified reports
is warranted. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has repeatedly said that
informal list of vaccine injury reports cannot be used to precisely tally
vaccine effects. Declaring herself an expert in data analytics, the witness says
-- without providing her statistical model -- that it is her opinion the number
of deaths (about 9,000) reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System
(VAERS) should be multiplied by five. To access VAERS data, users must confirm
that they understand the data is subject to several statistical limitations.
This is because health issues and deaths that, chronologically, occur after
vaccination may be caused by underlying illnesses or other factors unrelated to
a vaccination, none of which is known until each report is authenticated and
each cause of death is investigated.

The claim was being cited widely on social media, including in a video published
on the 3AM Lowdown BitChute account on July 19, 2021, titled "45,000 dead from
vaccination in 3 days, lawyer Thomas Renz sues federal government -
[07/18/2021]" (archived here) which opened:

> Please like, share, subscribe and click the "????" icon for news updates of
> the strange, UFOs, weird and paranormal. Opinions, comments & your possible
> explanation are always welcome. Please be respectful of others' opinions.
> Thank you. ???? Buy me ...

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:



The lawsuit by America's Frontline Doctors, an organization of anti-vaccine
activists, describes the anonymous witness as follows:

> Plaintiffs' expert Jane Doe45 is a computer programmer with subject matter
> expertise in the healthcare data analytics field ... In her expert opinion,
> VAERS under-reports deaths caused by the Vaccines by a conservative factor of
> at least 5.

A copy of the witness' statement, found online in pdf form, explains her opinion
as follows:

> I am a computer programmer with subject matter expertise in the healthcare
> data analytics field ... I earned a B.S. degree in Mathematics...It is my
> professional estimate that VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System)
> database, while extremely useful, is under-reported by a conservative factor
> of at least 5 ... This would indicate the true number of vaccine-related
> deaths was at least 45,000.

The witness does not provide her analytical model and there are not 45,000 COVID
vaccine death reports in the government vaccine safety system. She does not
explain how or if she has adjusted for the multiple limitations on the accuracy
and authenticity of VAERS data. And, she does not warn the court about the
limitations the VAERS operators emphasize, which is that VAERS' mission is to
collect a wide-open, likely repetitive, messy and incomplete list of anyone's
anecdotal, amateur, professional and even malicious reports of post-vaccination
problems. The VAERS site repeatedly notes the list cannot be used to determine
causation of deaths or injuries. Even her starting-point number of 9,000 is only
a tally of reports of people who got vaccinated against COVID and later died,
regardless of what their health condition was or what they died of.

But in the video repeating the claim, Attorney Thomas Renz says, at the 2:50
mark:

> We know, based on what she has said, that there have been at least 45,000
> deaths from this vaccine.

Neither Renz nor his witness make it clear the VAERS list is not a precision
instrument of measure. It is a warning system. Monitoring it, the FDA and the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hope to spot patterns in the reports,
which can be added to the list by anyone with an internet connection. A pattern
is not itself evidence, since the reports that make up a pattern have to be
checked for authenticity.

For instance, a March report to VAERS by a 59-year-old Michigan man mocked VAERS
misusers by reporting marital strife as an adverse event, writing:

> To demonstrate my point I am filling a report and the adverse event and
> outcome of receiving the covid vaccine was an extremely angry wife who thinks
> the vaccine is going to A kill me and B cause me to spread covid and C may
> result in divorce.

Even when an authentic post-vaccination health event is reported, the CDC and
FDA have to then seek medical records and interview caregivers to find out if it
was coincidental or vaccine-caused, which is why they caution against using
VAERS data to declare causes of death or injury.

Prominent on the VAERS webpage is this disclaimer, to which Lead Stories has
added underline emphasis to save readers time:

> VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following
> vaccination ... While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS
> reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed
> to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is
> incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS
> are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific
> limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS
> reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind ...
> 
> Key considerations and limitations of VAERS data:
> 
> Vaccine providers are encouraged to report any clinically significant health
> problem following vaccination to VAERS, whether or not they believe the
> vaccine was the cause.
> Reports may include incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified
> information.
> The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions
> about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with
> vaccines.
> ...
> 
> VAERS data available to the public include only the initial report data to
> VAERS. Updated data which contains data from medical records and corrections
> reported during follow up are used by the government for analysis. However,
> for numerous reasons including data consistency, these amended data are not
> available to the public.


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Lead Stories is working with the CoronaVirusFacts/DatosCoronaVirus Alliance, a
coalition of more than 100 fact-checkers who are fighting misinformation related
to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about the alliance here.

> Lead Stories staff writer Dean Miller has edited daily and weekly newspapers,
> worked as a reporter for more than a decade and is co-author of two
> non-fiction books. After a one-year Harvard Nieman Fellowship, he served as
> Director of Stony Brook University’s Center for News Literacy for six years.
> As Senior Vice President/Content at Connecticut Public Broadcasting, a dual
> licensee, he oversaw radio, TV and print journalists, and documentary
> producers. He moved west to teach journalism at Western Washington University,
> edit The Port Townsend Leader and write the twice-weekly Save The Free Press
> column for the Seattle Times. Miller won the 2007 national Mirror Award for
> news industry coverage and he led the team that won the 2005 Scripps Howard
> first amendment prize. 
> 
> Read more about or contact Dean Miller

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Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest
false, deceptive or inaccurate stories (or media) making the rounds on the
internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

LEAD STORIES IS A:

 * Verified signatory of the IFCN Code of Principles
 * Facebook Third-Party Fact-Checking Partner
 * Member of the #CoronavirusFacts Alliance

Follow us on social media

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