A recently published study does not say that vaccines against Covid-19 may have caused excess deaths worldwide, contrary to social media claims.
The magazine that published the analysis has issued a statement calling news from “several outlets” about the document “erroneous reports” and emphasizing that “the research does not support the claim that vaccines are a major factor contributing to excess deaths.” since the beginning of the pandemic.”
Health data experts interviewed by Reuters also said that while the article, published by BMJ Public Health, looks at excess mortality during the 2020-2022 pandemic, it does not say that Covid vaccines were causing the deaths.
But widely shared social media posts, citing a Daily Telegraph article, indicated the study said the research vindicates earlier claims of a link between vaccines and excess deaths.
“Finally, recognition from mainstream media in the UK,” read a post on Post X, which received more than four million views, came from an account that had previously shared misleading information about Covid vaccines.
“The researchers only looked at trends in excess mortality over time, not its causes,” the BMJ Public Health statement said.
Public health data scientists also told Reuters that the document did not establish a link to vaccines and said it actually showed that excess deaths had started to decline in 2022.
Excess deaths are an estimate of the number of mortalities during a specific period above and beyond what would be expected based on past patterns, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
During the Covid pandemic, there were around 1 million excess deaths in 47 Western countries in 2020, 1.2 million the following year and 800,000 in 2022, according to the study, which bases its calculations on figures from Our World in Data.
Figures from the World Mortality Dataset (WMD), which tracks the impact of the pandemic, show that excess mortality in the same 47 countries fell to 175,000 in 2023, in contrast to the Telegraph headline’s suggestion of a continued “rise” in the excess deaths.
“The paper says there were excess deaths in most of these countries in 2020 and it didn’t stop in 2020, it continued in 2021 and 2022,” said data scientist Jeffrey Morris, professor of public health and preventive medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. , he said in a telephone interview. “Honestly, that’s all this document shows. “I don’t know why they published this article.”
The analysis mentions certain Covid vaccines and alleged harms, but does not say they are the cause of excess deaths.
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Study does not show why Covid vaccines may have caused excess deaths
“Although Covid-19 vaccines were provided to protect civilians from suffering morbidity and mortality from the Covid-19 virus, suspected adverse events have also been documented,” the authors write in the article’s introduction.
“There is also a lack of consensus in the medical community on concerns that mRNA vaccines may cause more harm than initially anticipated,” they add later in the discussion section.
“The authors of the study are not saying that it is the vaccines that cause the excess deaths,” Stuart McDonald, vice president of Continuing Mortality Research, said in a telephone interview. “But they imply. “There is this insinuation that it is all about lockdowns and vaccines, which is simply not supported by the data.”
If someone wanted to argue that it was the vaccines that caused the damage, McDonald said, comparing WMD data on excess deaths with Our World In Data figures on vaccine acceptance, then a problem The big thing they would have to explain was why the most vaccinated countries (New Zealand, Denmark and Australia) had the lowest excess deaths and the least vaccinated (e.g. Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro). – had the largest excess of deaths.
No one disputed that people had been harmed, but cases were very rare and overall, vaccines had significantly reduced mortality around the world, McDonald added.
Analyzes by scholars Ariel Karlinsky and Dmitry Kobak, who created weapons of mass destruction, indicate a simpler explanation, McDonald said. They show that the peaks of excess mortality align with the peaks of Covid death.
The study’s lead author and The Telegraph did not respond to requests for comment. The Princess Maxima Pediatric Oncology Center, based in the Netherlands, linked to three of the four authors of the study, issued a statement distancing itself from the study.
“We, as the Princess Máxima Center, want to emphasize that we strongly support vaccination and that this publication should certainly not be read as an argument against vaccination,” he said.
“The study does not in any way demonstrate a link between vaccines and excess mortality; that is not explicitly the researchers’ finding. “We therefore regret that this impression was created.”
World Child Cancer issued a statement, saying it was wrongly listed as funding the study.
Reuters has previously addressed misleading claims that public mortality data indicates Covid vaccines are a cause of widespread deaths.
In conclusion, the study offers no evidence of a continued increase in excess deaths after the Covid-19 pandemic nor of a causal link between Covid vaccines and excess deaths.
With information from Reuters.
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