This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/vaers-undercounting-deaths-after-covid-shots/
VAERS analyst Albert Benavides joined “The Defender In-Depth” this week to discuss evidence he’s gathered suggesting VAERS is undercounting COVID-19-related deaths and injuries among people of all ages.
by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., The Defender
VAERS — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System — is undercounting child deaths following COVID-19 vaccination and also the total number of reports of deaths and injuries among people of all ages following the vaccines, according to VAERS analyst and expert Albert Benavides.
Benavides, founder of VAERSAware.com, joined “The Defender In-Depth” this week to discuss these and other statistical anomalies in VAERS — and why the undercount may be occurring.
According to Benavides, VAERS — which is administered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — has access to more detailed and updated information than what is visible publicly and is “throttling” many reports.
‘More than double’ children’s deaths are ‘hiding’ in VAERS
Benavides told “The Defender In-Depth” that according to official VAERS figures as of May 31, “you’ll get 197 deaths officially” for people under age 18 following COVID-19 vaccination.
However, he said, his research shows that when looking at VAERS reports where the age is officially listed as “unknown,” child deaths total 538.
“So more than double the kid deaths are actually hiding in the unknown age bucket,” Benavides said.
According to Benavides, 3,000-5,000 reports relating to COVID-19 vaccines are added to VAERS monthly. He said he isolates the “unknown age” reports from each new monthly batch into a spreadsheet, “and then from there, I’ll go right to the deaths.”
He then reads the written summaries accompanying the reports, where the patient’s age is often listed, even if the “age” field indicates “unknown.”
“I’m a one-horse pony show myself, and I’m here running circles around this data,” Benavides said. “This is not difficult.” He noted that most VAERS reports are submitted electronically, and the metadata should be easy to review and process.
“You could easily go through there and find the missing stuff to populate,” he said. “You would think that somebody within the VAERS system would ethically populate the field. And they’re not.”
Benavides noted that VAERS maintains two versions of its database — but only one is public-facing. However, reports where the data are “cleaned up” or updates were submitted are not included in the public-facing data.
“The public one is the initial reports [and] only the initial report is made public,” Benavides said. “Whatever additional information they collect, that part stays for them internally as part of the same database. But we only get to see the initial report as is, with no cleanup at all.”
Benavides, who said he has experience submitting VAERS reports for family members, said follow-up emails are sent regularly requesting updated information from reporters.
“They have that information … they use it to append initial reports with follow-up data,” which are not made public, Benavides said. “They merge the data internally for them. But we only see the initial report that will be petrified in time.”
30% of VAERS COVID vaccine reports list ‘unknown’ age
Benavides referred to a paper he co-authored with evolutionary biologist Herve Seligmann, Ph.D., showing child reports have more missing ages in the VAERS age field by proportion or percentage compared to older cohorts — particularly reports involving children age 5 and younger.
“They have the … highest percentage of missing ages that were actually there in the summary narrative, and it’s almost on a perfect curve, on a perfect slope, as you go into the cohorts for the adolescents and into the adults and to the older people,” Benavides said.
Unknown age reports are not just found among children, Benavides said, noting that “30% of all COVID reports, [of] the 1.6 million COVID reports that we have in there, 30% have unknown age. So, it’s not just kids, it’s everybody. It’s everywhere.”
Benavides said he’s identified over 360,000 “unknown age” reports where the patient’s age was “documented in the narrative” accompanying the report.
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VAERS likely ‘not publishing all legitimate reports received’
At a congressional hearing in February, FDA and CDC officials claimed VAERS is not a fully trustworthy indicator of vaccine injuries and deaths because “numerous false reports” are submitted.
However, according to Benavides, most of the “unknown age” reports use “professional language” — an indication that “they were submitted by a hospital or an institution of some sort — or were initially filed with vaccine manufacturers.
“I think it’s difficult to file a false report,” Benavides said, noting there is a 4- to 6-week adjudication process following the submission of a VAERS report, to “determine that it’s not a duplicate or not a fake or false report and maybe [to] request additional information.”
Instead, Benavides said VAERS is likely not “publishing all legitimate reports received.” Benavides said he’s identified at least 32,000 deleted COVID-19 vaccine reports after initial publication, 1,100 of which involved deaths.
He said this is a disproportionate figure, compared to the 2% of overall reports that involve deaths.
“If only 2% of the reports are deaths … organically it should be the same type of proportion,” he said.
Benavides said he’s observed other anomalies in VAERS involving COVID-19 reports, noting that while 16% of overall COVID-19 reports do not list a U.S. state, 32% of COVID-19 death reports do not have a state listed.
Benavides also disputed claims included within many VAERS reports stating that follow-up with the reporter is not possible, to request clarifications or additional information.
“You have all the might of the intelligence of the CDC, FDA and, in addition, the manufacturer,” Benavides said. “I believe that you could probably find out who it was [that submitted the report] or get the information you’re seeking.”
He said there are deleted VAERS reports that state, “This is submitted by a contactable physician.”
Benavides described another practice he’s observed, “throttling, the purposeful delay of publishing reports” in VAERS. He noted one example where a death report was published in the database 927 days after receipt, “and they conveniently forgot to check … the death box.”
Benavides, who has recently participated in several live discussions on X Spaces with COVID-19 vaccine injury victims, referred to cases where people “filed reports and … either never had them published [or] were published and then later deleted,” unbeknownst to the reporters.
“That’s another form of throttling,” Benavides said.
Benavides said throttling, missing or incomplete reports “is no accident,” because under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, “they’re obligated, entrusted to maintain a pharmacovigilance system.”
“These are not just simple oversights. It’s with design that they’re doing [this], curating the reports of what we’re allowed to see and when we’re allowed to see it.”
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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV's "Good Morning CHD."
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