Misleading: There have been more deaths in 8 months due to the COVID-19 vaccines than there have been due to all other available vaccines in 21 years.

By: Devika Kandelwal
September 17 2021

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The claim is misleading as the Daily Expose is comparing unverified data from the Yellow Card Scheme and incomplete data from the MHRA to support it. The Daily Expose, a conspiracy news site, published an article on September 14, 2021, titled, "13 reasons why you should not allow your child to get the COVID-19 Vaccine." One of the claims it made was that "There have been more deaths in 8 months due to the COVID-19 Vaccines than there have been due to all other available Vaccines since the year 2001." To support their claim, they hyperlinked a letter from the Medicine and Healthcare product Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which responded to a Freedom of Information request. One of the questions asked was, "How many deaths has there been in the last 20 years by previous Vaccines without COVID-19 Vaccines compared with COVID-19 Vaccines related death?" The Daily Expose added a screenshot from the letter in the article, which says, "The MHRA has received a total of 404 UK spontaneous suspected ADR reports for any vaccine between 01/01/2001 – 25/08/2021 associated with a fatal outcome." However, it excludes other information added in the letter. The MHRA states that "the MHRA does not hold complete information on death statistics only data concerning Yellow Card reports in which the reporter has suspected a side effect to a vaccine, some of which will include a fatal outcome." It further says in the letter, "A reported reaction [in the Yellow Card Scheme] does not necessarily mean it has been caused by the vaccine, only that the reporter had a suspicion it may have" and "It is also important to note that the number of reports received via the Yellow Card scheme does not directly equate to the number of people who suffer adverse reactions and therefore cannot be used to determine the incidence of a reaction or compare the safety profile of different vaccines." So for the Daily Expose to conclude from this letter that 404 people have died in the last 20 years from vaccines other than for those COVID-19 is misleading since it is the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that has the actual, verified information. That information is missing from the article. Furthermore, Daily Expose uses the Yellow Card Scheme data to claim that more people have died from COVID-19 vaccines. However, they are repackaging raw and unverified data from the Yellow Card Scheme to push an anti-vax narrative and support their claim. The Yellow Card scheme was introduced in 1964 by Dr. Bill Inman and is governed by the MHRA. The scheme accumulates and monitors data on safety concerns, including "suspected side effects or adverse incidents involving medicines and medical devices." Like the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the United States, the system now relies on "voluntary reporting of suspected side effects" by public members, including patients, pharmacists, and parents. Therefore, while anybody can self-report suspected side effects through the Yellow Card, the website clearly states, "reported events are not always proven side effects." Just because people report that a certain event occurred after vaccination does not mean that it was caused due to the vaccine. Correlation does not mean causation. However, the Daily Expose chose not to include this critical context. A comparison between this unverified data from the Yellow Card Scheme and incomplete data from the MHRA is what the Daily Expose is using to support this claim; however, it is entirely misleading. According to the BBC, "fully vaccinated people are much less likely to die with COVID-19 than those who aren't, or have had only one dose, figures from the ONS show." The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19, including symptoms, prevention, and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organization or your national healthcare authority.