The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday released new data showing a total of 1,255,355 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 29, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
The data included a total of 27,758 reports of deaths — an increase of 226 over the previous week — and 226,703 serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 1,937 compared with the previous week. There were 8,224 additional total adverse events reported to VAERS over the previous week.
Of the 12,779 U.S. deaths reported as of April 29, 16% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 20% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 59% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
In the U.S., 575 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered as of April 29, including 339 million doses of Pfizer, 217 million doses of Moderna and 19 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
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The most recent reported death involves a 14-year-old girl from Tennessee who died after receiving her second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
According to the VAERS report, the girl had a previous history of cancer but was hospitalized 29 days after receiving her second dose of Pfizer with severe COVID-19 and COVID pneumonia. She became “critically ill,” developed respiratory failure and bradycardia and later died.
As of April 29, 5,480 pregnant women reported adverse events related to COVID-19 vaccines, including 1,711 reports of miscarriage or premature birth. Of the 3,626 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported — seven fewer cases than what was reported two weeks ago — 51% were attributed to Pfizer vaccinations, 40% to Moderna and 8% to J&J.
The FDA on Thursday put strict limits on the use of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine, citing the risk of a blood-clotting condition the agency described as “rare and potentially life-threatening.”
In a statement Thursday, the FDA said the risk of vaccine recipients developing thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) after receiving the vaccine “warrants limiting the authorized use of the vaccine.”
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The agency described TTS as “a syndrome of rare and potentially life-threatening blood clots in combination with low levels of blood platelets with onset of symptoms approximately one to two weeks following administration of the Janssen [J&J] COVID-19 vaccine.”
Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said limiting the authorized use of the Janssen vaccine “demonstrates the robustness of our safety surveillance systems and our commitment to ensuring that science and data guide our decisions.”
However, Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., Children’s Health Defense chief scientific officer and professor of biology at Simpson University, had a different take on the news.
“It seems like the FDA pays lip service to the fact that the spike protein can cause clotting, and to the widespread reports of clotting, by punishing Janssen, who has become the ‘whipping boy’ of the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers through the pandemic,” Hooker said.