Two Expert Scientists Debate The Mortality (Death) Effects of COVID-19 Vaccines: Was it Really 17 Million?

This article explores the epidemiological evidence regarding the mortality effects of the COVID-19 vaccines, and recent claims made by Bret Weinstein.

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How many people have died from COVID-19 vaccines? It’s an impossible question to answer, especially given the fact that multiple countries have ineffectual vaccine injury surveillance systems.

The CDC claims that serious vaccine injuries occur in approximately 1 in a million people, yet they claim such a number without a proper adverse events reporting systems in place. Why don’t they provide any sources or data for their claim?

It’s already well known that serious adverse reactions (like death and permanent disability) are subjected to widespread and significant under-reporting when it comes to prescription drugs. But what about vaccines? And what about vaccines prior to COVID-19 jabs?

Three Harvard medical scholars (professors Ross Lazarus, Michael Klompas, and Steve Bernstein) emphasized in a 2011 report titled “Electronic Support for Public Health–Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS)” that:

“Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs and vaccines that endanger public health. New surveillance methods for drug and vaccine adverse effects are needed.”

Other than this information, there doesn’t seem to be any adequate data regarding vaccine injury surveillance. The authors also failed to specify what type of injuries are mostly unreported. I guess we can’t really know that because they are indeed unreported. If we’re talking about a sore arm, or getting sick after a flu shot, it doesn’t mean anything.

This is why vaccine injuries and serious adverse events were considered extremely rare among medical professionals before COVID-19 shots. But things have changed.

The COVID pandemic marked the first time in history when renowned vaccine experts, developers, scientists and doctors were labelled as “anti-vaxxers” en masse.

But there were signals for concern before COVID-19. For example, after 30 years of observation, it was shown that children vaccinated with the DTP shot were dying of other causes at 10 times the rate of the unvaccinated. We would have never known about this if no one looked.

What else have we missed? Could we be missing something now? This was actually what led to the passing of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which has since protected vaccine manufacturers from any liability. 

“This law also created the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, to “protect” and warn the public of potential vaccine danger; a system that has been shown to underreport injuries as commonly as it gets ignored.”

-Dr. Madhava Setty, a board certified anesthesiologist, electrical engineer, author.

Then COVID-19 Vaccines Came Along

On July 16th, 1999, the CDC recommended that healthcare providers suspend the use of the licensed, RotaShield – a rotavirus vaccine – after only 15 cases of intussusception were reported to VAERS. But now, multiple vaccine injury reporting systems, including VAERS, have had millions of serious adverse reactions reported as a result of COVID-19 vaccines.

In fact, more than 50 percent of vaccine injuries reported to VAERS since its inception are all due to COVID products. This is a jaw-dropping fact. Yet during the pandemic these signals were cast away as mere “conspiracy theories” as a result of “misinformation.”

Sure, VAERS is a self-reporting system that lends itself to inaccurate and fabricated reports, but it’s safe to say a concerning signal has been detected. So why not properly investigate and acknowledge that there could be cause for concern?

“They are not being ignored because they are fabricated or inaccurate; they are being ignored because our health authorities have chosen not to investigate them.”

- Setty

All of this has led to multiple experts in the field with differing opinions on just how many people have died as a result of COVID-19 vaccination. One thing for certain is people have died as a result of COVID-19 vaccination.

17 Million Deaths?

Bret Weinstein, an American podcaster, author, and former professor of evolutionary biology made an appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show on January 5, 2024, stating his opinion that COVID-19 vaccines have caused at least 17 million deaths worldwide.

To put this estimate into perspective, if 17 million people died from the jab, that would be 17 million/8.1 billion if everyone in the world were vaccinated, or 0.21% of the population killed. But only 5.55 billion people have been vaccinated with any vaccines so that’s 17 million /5.55 billion = 0.31% of all vaccinated people killed.

Weinstein cited the research of respected academics, Denis G. Rancourt, Marine Baudin, Joseph Hickey, and Jérémie Mercier.

But other academics who have also been raising awareness about deaths caused by the vaccine, and other harms associated with it were quick to criticize the 17 million estimate. One of them is Tracey Beth Høeg, M.D., Ph.D,. practicing PM&R and epidemiologist.

“I have deep sympathy for people who have lost a loved one to COVID-19 vaccination and I am dedicating this post to them. My criticism of Rancourt et al’s analysis stems from the fact I think people are owed as accurate of data as possible. In regards to my current position, I don’t think COVID-19 vaccines should continue to be used and I have made this clear publicly on multiple occasions including here. This is based on lack of evidence of efficacy and an incompletely defined risk profile. 

Now I want to give quick shoutouts to Denis Rancourt and his colleagues for attempting to answer a very difficult question and inspiring this post. I am sure he will have responses to what I wrote and they are welcome. Second, I did not get into all of the parts of Bret’s interview that I loved, but I thought this tweet from Aaron Kheriaty summed up my feelings brilliantly:

Controversial claims and interpretations should lead to conversations and more data, not cancellations. Bret actually said in the interview that we need more physician scientists doing honest investigative journalism about current health issues like post-vaccination deaths and excess mortality. In that spirit, I hope this post can start a productive discussion. Please feel free to point out anything you feel I got wrong or things I should have included.”

You can read Høeg’s entire criticism of the 17 million death claim here, and the data she used to pick apart the claims made by Rancourt et al.

It was posted on the “The Illusion of Consensus.” It’s a platform created by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, and journalist Rav Aurora.

It was great that she pointed out that “Controversial claims and interpretations should lead to conversations and more data, not cancellations.” Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen with information, data and opinions from experts that “go against the grain.”

Sometimes it seems, with all things COVID-19 especially, that experts opposing government measures for COVID-19 were actually in the majority. But mainstream media and big government have tremendous power when it comes to manipulating the perception of the masses to whatever best suits their interests.

What was also posted was an actual debate between Høeg and Rancourt after Høeg published her criticism, which was refreshing to see.

“In this important Illusion of Consensus debate, two excellent scientists,. @tracybethhoeg and @denisrancourt discuss the epidemiological evidence regarding the mortality effects of the COVID-19 vaccines.”

- Bhattacharya

You can access the debate here.

What’s the point of sharing this? The point is that respected academics and brilliant minds are so far apart in their opinions regarding how many people have or could have died as a result of COVID-19 vaccination, that no solid conclusions can be made.

All of this results from a lack of proper injury surveillance systems and a failure to investigate vaccine injury claims. Government health authorities continue to ignore the screams and cries of those who have been injured, and all of the research pointing to the mechanisms of action that may be responsible for such serious injuries.

The point is, you’re not going to find what you’re not looking for, and big pharmaceutical companies have a long history of simply not looking.

Perhaps this is why our publication has often stated we must be careful about running around screaming that everybody will die, or that COVID-19 vaccines have special trackers in them, or whatever. In many ways, these unfounded claims do more harm than good in synthesizing information when it comes to controversial issues like this. There is more than enough data and science to clearly show cause for concern. Unsupported claims tend to land everything in the “conspiracy theory” category and as a result, they are easily made “viral” for the purpose of ridicule.

"Another CDC scientist told us: “I used to be proud to tell people I work at the CDC. Now I’m embarrassed.” Why are they embarrassed? In short, bad science. The longer answer: that the heads of their agencies are using weak or flawed data to make critically important public health decisions. That such decisions are being driven by what’s politically palatable to people in Washington or to the Biden administration. And that they have a myopic focus on one virus instead of overall health."

- Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. and Tracy Beth Høeg M.D., Ph.D. U.S. Public Health Agencies Aren't ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say.