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Fact check: No evidence that a 2-year-old died after getting Pfizer COVID-19
vaccine
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FACT CHECK: NO EVIDENCE THAT A 2-YEAR-OLD DIED AFTER GETTING PFIZER COVID-19
VACCINE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




McKenzie Sadeghi   | USA TODAY

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Kids and COVID-19: Here's when the FDA plans to authorize the vaccine for
children
The FDA says teens are next in line for the COVID vaccine. Here's what parents
should know about the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
Just the FAQs, USA TODAY



THE CLAIM: A 2-YEAR-OLD GIRL IN VIRGINIA DIED AFTER RECEIVING THE PFIZER
COVID-19 VACCINE DURING CLINICAL TRIALS



As pharmaceutical companies test vaccine effectiveness in adolescents and
children, a post has surfaced on social media claiming a 2-year-old girl in
Virginia died after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize the Pfizer
vaccine for adolescents ages 12-15 by mid-May, but studies for children ages 6
months to 11 years are still underway. 

The claim originated in an article April 30 from Natural News shared as a screen
grab to Facebook on May 1 and headlined, “Two-year-old baby DIES during Pfizer’s
Covid-19 vaccine experiments on children.”



The article claims the child received her second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine on
Feb. 25, suffered “some kind of serious adverse reaction” on March 1 and died
March 3. The report also said she had been hospitalized since Feb. 14,
suggesting "she may have gotten sick from the first shot." 



The claim relies entirely on an entry from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention and the FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS),
which allows anyone to submit an unverified report. 

Fact check: No, the COVID-19 vaccines won't give you genital herpes

In a message to USA TODAY, the user cited Natural News, which is rated by Media
Bias/ Fact Check as a “questionable source based on the promotion of quackery
level pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, as well as extreme right-wing
bias.” Natural News did not return a request for comment. 




VAERS REPORT IS NOT AUTHENTIC

The original VAERS report of a 2-year-old dying after receiving the Pfizer
vaccine no longer exists. CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said via email
that it was removed from the system for being "completely made up." 



VAERS is an "early warning system" established in 1990 in response to the
National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to detect possible vaccine safety problems
in U.S.-licensed vaccines, according to the CDC.

But there are limits to the data, and it is not possible to use the system to
determine whether the vaccine caused or contributed to a reported death. 

"A report to VAERS does not mean that the vaccine caused the adverse event, only
that the adverse event occurred some time after vaccination," a CDC
disclaimer says. "The reports may contain information that is incomplete,
inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable."

The agency adds that because a majority of VAERS reports are voluntary, "they
are subject to biases" that result in "specific limitations on how the data can
be used scientifically." 



Fact check: CDC data on adverse effects of vaccine cannot determine cause

There have been instances of people abusing the VAERS database and filing false
reports. For example, anesthesiologist James Laidler submitted a report claiming
a flu shot turned him into the Incredible Hulk, Vice reported.  


INACCURACIES IN THE REPORT

Aside from the VAERS entry about the 2-year-old being discredited, the original
report contained inaccuracies. 

The article claims the child received the second dose on Feb. 25, but Pfizer did
not start vaccine trials with children 6 months to 11 years until March,
according to the company's site.

Results from those trials are expected in the second half of 2021. Pfizer says
it hopes "to receive authorization for vaccination of these younger kids by
early 2022."




Similarly, Moderna did not give the first doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to
children under 12 years old until mid-March. 

Fact check: COVID-19 vaccinated people don’t ‘shed’ virus, infect others

From Dec. 14, 2020, through May 3, VAERS received 4,178 reports of deaths among
those who received a COVID-19 vaccine. But the CDC says a review of medical
records, autopsies and death certificates related to reports "has not
established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines."


OUR RATING: FALSE

The claim that a 2-year-old girl died after receiving the Pfizer COVID-19
vaccine is FALSE, based on our research. The CDC said the report was removed
from the VAERS database for being "completely made up." VAERS allows anyone to
submit an unverified report, and the data can contain inaccurate information.
Clinical trials of the Pfizer vaccine in that age group had not started at the
time the report claimed the vaccine was administered to the child. Further, the
CDC says it has not identified a correlation between reported patient deaths and
COVID-19 vaccines. 


OUR FACT-CHECK SOURCES: 

 * Snopes, April 20, Did a 2-Year-Old in Virginia Die After Getting COVID-19
   Vaccination? 
 * The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed May 6, Vaccine
   Adverse Event Reporting System
 * CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund, May 6, email correspondence 
 * Vice, Feb. 3, Anti-Vaxxers Misuse Federal Data to Falsely Claim COVID
   Vaccines Are Dangerous
 * Pfizer.com, accessed May 6, Studies in additional populations
 * USA TODAY, March 16, When can children get COVID-19 vaccine? Will it be safe?
   Here's what experts want you to know
 * Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 5, Reported Adverse Events
 * USA TODAY, April 8, Fact check: CDC data on adverse effects of vaccine cannot
   determine cause



Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition,
ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

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