How to Report a Vaccine Reaction Yourself

Views 10468


Orginally published on www.mercola.com by Barbara Loe Fisher

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • If you get a vaccine, including a COVID-19 vaccine, and your health deteriorates within hours, days or weeks of being vaccinated, the person who gave you the shot is required by federal law to file a report with the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)
  • VAERS is the centralized vaccine reaction reporting system in the U.S., which was created under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986
  • VAERS records the timing of the vaccination and onset of the adverse event; the age and current illnesses or medications taken by the person who reacted; past history of vaccine reactions; the name of the state where the person lives and other important information to help record and evaluate reported vaccine reactions
  • The U.S. is operating under a public health emergency declaration and there is an even greater need to step up efforts to report vaccine reactions to VAERS, especially injuries and deaths, that occur after vaccination
  • If the vaccine provider refuses to file a vaccine reaction report with VAERS, you can do it yourself

As COVID-19 vaccines are being rolled out and given to millions of Americans in every state, it is critical that doctors and other medical workers who are administering the vaccines actively report every serious health problem, injury and death that happens after vaccination to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

Known as VAERS,1 the centralized vaccine reaction reporting system was created under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.2,3 If you get a vaccine, including a COVID-19 vaccine, and your health deteriorates within hours, days or weeks of being vaccinated, the person who gave you the shot is required by federal law to file a report with VAERS.4

If he or she refuses to file a vaccine reaction report, you can do it yourself. Click to learn how to report a vaccine reaction to VAERS.

DPT Vaccine-Injured Children's Parents Got VAERS in 1986 Act

In 1982, when Kathi Williams and I joined with other parents of DPT vaccine-injured children and founded the educational charity known today as the National Vaccine Information Center,5 we discovered there was no centralized vaccine reaction reporting system in the U.S. and no requirement for doctors to report vaccine reactions.

Back then, the government's Monitoring System for Adverse Events Following Vaccination6 was split into two parts: Doctors vaccinating children in public health clinics were supposed to report serious vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths to the Centers for Disease Control; and doctors in private practice and vaccine manufacturers could choose to report to the Food and Drug Administration7,8 -- but there was no requirement to report vaccine reactions.

 

As parents who had watched our children have serious reactions and regress into chronic poor health after DPT shots,9,10 we argued that every vaccine provider and every vaccine manufacturer should be required to report vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths to the government.

To ensure transparency, we wanted those vaccine reaction reports to be accessible to the public and to independent researchers investigating vaccine safety issues. We also wanted a way for individuals who had experienced a vaccine reaction to be able to file a vaccine reaction report themselves if a vaccine provider refused to do it.

That is why we worked with Congress in the early 1980s to secure vaccine safety informing, recording, reporting and research provisions in the 1986 Act.11,12,13

We insisted that the government publish written information describing vaccine reactions and disease risks to be given to parents before children are vaccinated;14 that doctors and other vaccine providers be required to keep a permanent record of all vaccines given and the manufacturer's name and lot number;15 and that serious health problems following vaccination be recorded in the child's permanent medical record, along with the requirement that vaccine providers and manufacturers be required to report adverse events to a centralized vaccine reaction reporting database monitored by health agencies and open to the public.16

Ultimately, Congress agreed with parents that federal health agencies should create a new centralized Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. VAERS was finally launched in 1990 -- four years after the 1986 Act was passed.17

VAERS: A Post-Marketing Vaccine Safety Surveillance Tool

VAERS records the timing of the vaccination and onset of the adverse event; the age and current illnesses or medications taken by the person who reacted; past history of vaccine reactions; the name of the state where the person lives and other important information to help record and evaluate reported vaccine reactions.18,19

 

CDC officials say that, "about 85 to 90 percent of the reports [to VAERS] describe mild side effects such as fever, arm soreness and crying or mild irritability. The remaining reports are classified as serious, which means that the adverse event resulted in permanent disability, hospitalization, life-threatening illness or death."20

Government officials repeatedly emphasize that vaccine-related injuries and deaths reported to VAERS are rarely caused by the vaccine.21,22,23

The reality is that federal health agencies are unable to follow up every vaccine reaction, so the system remains a broad post-marketing surveillance tool for picking up red flags that signal unusual or frequent vaccine complications, which may not have been identified in prelicensing clinical trials24 or -- in the case of COVID-19 vaccines -- were not identified prior to the FDA granting vaccine manufacturers an Emergency Use Authorization to distribute experimental COVID-19 vaccines.25

And because VAERS is open for public view and analysis, it is an invaluable database for research and public education.26,27,28,29 You can search the VAERS database of vaccine reaction reports filed since 1990 by going to NVIC.org and accessing the user-friendly MedAlerts search engine.

No Legal Sanctions for Doctors Failing to Report to VAERS

Sadly, even though it has been a federal law for vaccine providers and vaccine manufacturers to report to VAERS for more than three decades, there are no legal consequences for failing to report. A 2011 federally funded study found that less than 1% of vaccine reactions that happen in the U.S. are ever reported to VAERS.30

That's because Congress made it a federal requirement in the 1986 Act to report but did not include legal penalties when vaccine companies or vaccine providers fail to report. The result is that 99% of vaccine reactions, including injuries and deaths, which are taking place every day among the highly vaccinated U.S. population, go unreported.

Reporting to VAERS Should Be a Priority for COVID-19 Vaccines

Today, the U.S. is operating under a public health emergency declaration31 and there is an even greater need to step up efforts to report vaccine reactions to VAERS, especially injuries and deaths, that occur after vaccination. COVID-19 vaccines were fast tracked to market in record-breaking time.32,33,34,35 Most of the participants in clinical trials were healthy people between 17 and 55 years old.36,37

This means that while COVID-19 vaccines are being given to millions of Americans, VAERS becomes an extremely important mechanism for detecting a pattern of vaccine-related serious health problems that may not have been detected in clinical trials that only included thousands of subjects and did not include certain high-risk categories of people -- like those over age 8538,39 or pregnant women40,41 or people with certain underlying health problems.42,43

During this time when there is a national COVID-19 vaccination campaign underway, you can help by reminding medical workers giving COVID-19 vaccines to file reaction reports with VAERS. Vaccine administrators are not supposed to be making their own judgments about whether an adverse event following vaccination was or was not caused by the vaccine.

They are simply supposed to file a VAERS report as required under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act whenever a person suffers a serious deterioration in health after vaccination, especially if it results in a permanent injury or death.

If a Vaccine Provider Fails to Report to VAERS -- DIY

Remember, if you or your minor child have gotten a COVID-19 shot and have suffered a reaction44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54 but the person who gave the vaccine refuses to make a report to VAERS, you can file a report yourself. It's your health. Your family. Your choice.


References

Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)

National Vaccine Information Center. 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act

U.S. CDC. Fact Sheet for Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS): A National Program for Monitoring Vaccine Safety

42 U.S.C. United States Code, 2016 edition. [...] Subpart c – ASSURING A SAFER CHILDHOOD VACCINATION PROGRAM IN THE UNITED STATED STATES Sec. 300aa-25

Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Committee. Adverse Effects of Pertussis & Rubella Vaccines [...] Washington, DC. The National Academy Press 1991

Stetler HC, Mulen JR et al. Monitoring System for adverse events following immunization. Vaccine 1987; 5(3): 169-174

Ellenberg SS, Chen RT. The Complicated Task of Monitoring Vaccine Safety. Pub Health Rep 1997; 112

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. VAERS Data Use Guide. June 2017

Fisher BL. The Moral Right to Conscientious, Philosophical and Personal Belief Exemption to Vaccination. [...] May 2, 1997

10 Fisher BL. Vaccine Safety Concerns of Parents. Oral Presentation for Institute of Medicine [...] Jan. 11, 2001

11 Fisher BL. Statement of National Vaccine Information Center: Compensating Vaccine Injuries: Are Reforms Needed? [...] Sept. 28, 1999

12 Fisher BL, Williams K, Wrangham TK. NVIC Response to Government Accountability Office (GAO) inquiry on History and Implementation [...] July 11, 2014

13 National Vaccine Information Center. NVIC Position Statement on the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act May 2018

14, 15, 16 42 U.S.C. United States Code, 2016 edition. (Vaccine Information Statements were substantively weakened by amendments to the 1986 Act in H.R. 2022)

17 CDC. Current Trends Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System – United States. MMWR Oct. 29, 1990; 39(41): 730-733

18 MedAlerts.org. Search the Government's VAERS Data

19, 20 CDC. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS): Information Collected from Reports. Apr. 8, 2021

21 Zhou W, Pool V et al. Surveillance for safety after immunization [...] 1991-2001. MMWR Jan. 24, 2003; 52(1): 1-24

22 CDC. Making the Vaccine Decision: Addressing Common Concerns. Mild Side Effects Are Expected. [...] Aug. 5, 2019

23 CDC. Vaccine Recommendations and Guidelines of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP): Preventing and Managing [...] Feb. 4, 2021

24 CDC. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS): How VAERS works. Apr. 8, 2021

25 Shimabukuro T. CDC COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring by COVID-19 Vaccine Planning Unit (VPU) Vaccine Safety Team [...] Aug. 26, 2020

26 Chen RT, Rastogi SC et al. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Vaccine 1994; 12(6): 542-550

27 Singleton DA, Lloyd SC et al. An overview of the vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS) as a surveillance system: [...] 17(22): 2908-2917

28 Pellegrino P, Carnovale C, Perrone V et al. Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis Onset: [...] PLOS One Oct. 18, 2013

29 Ren JJ, Sun Y et al. A statistical analysis of vaccine adverse event data. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 2019; 101

30 Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc. Electronic System for Public Health Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. AHRQ 2011

31 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Renewal of Determination That A Public Health Emergency Exists. [...] Apr. 15, 2021

32 Lanese N. Researchers fast-track coronavirus vaccine by skipping key animal testing first. Live Science Mar. 13, 2020

33 Fisher BL. COVID-19 Meltdown and Pharma's Big Money Win. The Vaccine Reaction Apr. 13, 2020

34 The Vaccine Reaction. Poll: 69 Percent of Americans Worried Fast-Tracked COVID-19 Vaccines Won't Be Safe. Aug. 10, 2020

35 FDA. Emergency Use Authorization for Vaccines Explained. Nov. 20, 2020

36 FDA. Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine. Dec. 11, 2020

37 FDA. Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine. Dec. 18, 2020

38 Helfand BKI, Webb M, Gartaganis SL. The Exclusion of Older Persons from Vaccine [...] JAMA Int Med 2020; 180(11): 1546-1549

39 Span P. Older Adults May Be Left Out of Some COVID-19 Trials. New York Times June 19, 2020

40 Rozsa M. WHO says Moderna, Pfizer coronavirus vaccines should not be given to pregnant women. Here's why. Salon Jan. 28, 2021

41 Gillian H, Van Spall C. Exclusion of pregnant and lactating women from COVID-19 vaccine trials: a missed opportunity. Eur Heart J Mar. 4, 2021

42 Radcliffe S. Here's What We Know About the Demographics of the COVID-19 Vaccine Trials. Healthline Aug. 9, 2020

43 Odell J. Messenger RNA (nRNA) SARS Coronavirus 'Vaccines' and their Potential Autoimmunity Part 2. Bioregulatory Medicine Institute Feb. 24, 2021

44 Fisher BL. Over 3,000 "Health Impact Events" After COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinations. The Vaccine Reaction Dec. 22, 2020

45 Fisher BL. Miami Obstetrician Develops Bleeding Disorder, Dies After Getting COVID-19 Vaccine. The Vaccine Reaction Jan. 11, 2021

46 Colella G, Orlandi M, Cirillo N. Bell's palsy following COVID-19 vaccination. J Neurol Feb. 21, 2021; 1-3

47 Hendler C. Severe Reactions to COVID-19 Vaccine Close Schools in Michigan, Ohio and New York. The Vaccine Reaction Mar. 8, 2021

48 Fisher BL. Healthy Mom, 39, in Utah Dies of Organ Failure Four Days After Moderna COVID Vaccination. The Vaccine Reaction Mar. 15, 2021

49 Saudaga V, Patil S et al. Vigilance regarding immune thrombocytopenic purpura after COVID-19 vaccine. Ir J Med Sci Mar. 31, 2021; 1-2

50 Guenot M. The rare clots people get after taking COVID-19 vaccines are different from other clots and require special treatment. [...] Apr. 20, 2021

51 British Medical Journal. First reported cases of clots in large arteries causing stroke following COVID-19 vaccination. EurekAlert May 25, 2021

52 Crist C. CDC Looks Into Post-COVID Vaccine Heart Inflammation. WebMD May 24, 2021

53 The Vaccine Reaction. CDC Investigating Cases of Heart Inflammation After COVID-19 Vaccination. May 31, 2021

54 CDC. Possible Side Effects After Getting COVID-19 Vaccine. May 25, 2021

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.

This website is for information purposes only. By providing the information contained herein we are not diagnosing, treating, curing, mitigating, or preventing any type of disease or medical condition. Before beginning any type of natural, integrative or conventional treatment regimen, it is advisable to seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.

© Copyright 2008-2025 GreenMedInfo.com, Journal Articles copyright of original owners, MeSH copyright NLM.