Flawed Paper on COVID-19 Vaccines, Deaths Spreads Widely Before Retraction

The COVID-19 vaccines have been shown in trials and real-world application to be safe and effective. But a paper shared widely online claimed that vaccines cause two deaths for every three lives saved. Experts say the analysis misinterpreted data and was flawed — and it has now been retracted by the journal that published it.

Unverified reports of adverse events that occur following receipt of a vaccine have been a key source of misinformation for months. As we’ve repeatedly documented, anyone can submit a report to the U.S. system and the reports alone are not proof of a link to a vaccine.

In the latest iteration of that type of data being misrepresented, a peer-reviewed paper published in a scientific journal used it to dubiously claim that the COVID-19 vaccines were causing deaths at such a scale that they nearly rival the number of lives saved through the vaccines.

“For three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination,” the paper, published on June 24 in Vaccines, claimed.