The OpenVAERS Project

[alisonfletch]

VAERS is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System put in place in 1990 in the US. It is a voluntary reporting system that has been estimated to account for only 1% (read more about underreporting in VAERS) of vaccine injuries. OpenVAERS is built from the HHS data available for download at vaers.hhs.gov.

The OpenVAERS Project allows browsing and searching of the reports without the need to compose an advanced search (more advanced searches can be done at medalerts.org or vaers.hhs.gov).

The OpenVAERS team report that:

There are two sets of books for VAERS:
1.) The injury reports that are published on WONDER (the public-facing data); and
2.) The injury reports that the public does not get to see (the hidden data, even though taxpayers paid for it).

We know this in a variety of ways:
* Tracking individuals who make reports that never show up (https://react19.org/vaers-audit/).
* Seeing records that appear and disappear in the data months later (https://medalerts.org/vaersdb/wayback/).
* VAERS stated policy that they do not include follow-up information (https://react19.org/vaers-audit/). A follow-up report is any additional report received by VAERS. Follow-up information is any information added to the original report.
* VAERS acceptance of follow-up information that never shows up in the public-facing data. An example of this is Dr. Gregory Michael who suffered from Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) and it was reported to VAERS. He died a few weeks later and his wife informed VAERS, but his VAERS report record available via WONDER does not reflect his death.

Here's the best way to think about it. VAERS is a live dynamic system that is constantly taking in new information including multiple reports involving the same patient. The data becomes richer and deeper over time and in theory it should allow researchers to understand vaccine injury better. But, that's not what happens in practice. The VAERS reports available to the public are usually just that snapshot of the initial report. All of the detailed additional information that comes in after that is hidden from the public, never to be seen again.

The VAERS we see is a Potemkin Village, where reports are in their least helpful version and oftentimes even these reports are not shown to the public.

Another key piece of evidence fell into place last week with the publication of a work contract between General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) and the CDC retrieved via FOIA by Aaron Siri. (https://www.sirillp.com/wp-content/uplo ... F09621.pdf)

From the contract:

"From 2014 through 2018, VAERS received an annual average of 53,000 reports, of which 45,500 were US reports.... Of the US reports, 5.0% were classified as serious (i.e associated with disability, hospitalization, prolongation of existing hospitalization, life-threatening illness, congenital anomaly/birth defect, or death [21 CFR 600.801). Since 1990, VAERS has received over 740,000 reports most of which describe mild and self-limited adverse events such as injection site reactions and fever. (VAERS government data archive January 18, 2019.)" (https://www.sirillp.com/wp-content/uplo ... F09621.pdf, p.5)

To recap, the official government contract with GDIT states that there are:
1. 740,000 total VAERS reports from 1990 through January 18, 2019.
2. 53,000 avg. total reports per year (2014-2018, assumed inclusive).
3. 45,500 avg. U.S. reports per year (2014-2018, assumed inclusive).
4. 5% (avg.) of U.S. reports were classified as serious (2014-2018, assumed inclusive).

GDIT clearly has access to records that the public doesn't have. Because this is what we see in the public-facing data:
1. 707,304 Total Reports (-32,696 as compared with the hidden GDIT dataset).
2. 250,952/5 yrs = 50,190 avg. reports per year (-2,810/year as compared with the hidden GDIT dataset).
3. 212,511/5 yrs = 42,500 avg. U.S. reports per year (-3,000/year as compared with the hidden GDIT dataset).
4. 10,343 total serious adverse events/5 years = 2,068 U.S. SAEs/year = 4.8% per year. (-0.2% as compared with the hidden GDIT dataset).

If our assumptions and calculations are correct, there are about 15,000 missing U.S. records (3,000/year) for this time period (2014-2018) in the publicly available reports. Malfeasance in connection with Covid vaccine injury is extreme so this discrepancy may seem small. But for pre-covid records this is a huge number. 32,696 (4.4%) of the total number of records have disappeared from the public data through 1/2019. If they were removed from the real books because they were somehow illegitimate, why would the CDC have included them in their counts in this contract? If they were legitimate reports, why are they being kept from the public?

Could the difference in numbers be a reflection of missing follow-up reports, which can be assumed to be the more severe reports? What percentage of the missing 32,696 reports contain SEVERE adverse events? There could be myriad other explanations but as usual, the CDC is not even bothering to explain why the numbers used with a private contractor do not match the numbers provided to the public.

Finally, note in the contract the following point:

"Information obtained during follow-up shall be clearly separated from information in the VAERS report when entering follow-up data into the VAERS database. The Government will provide instructions on how this will be accomplished. Follow-up information will NOT be included in the VAERS public data." (emphasis added)

HHS/CDC/VAERS have always reserved the right to not add follow up information. Follow ups are usually worse than the original reports. (https://vaccinedatascience.substack.com ... ing-factor). Why is this part of the flow of information subject to specific government intervention?

Making matters considerably worse, GDIT is being paid millions of (taxpayer!) dollars to fix and improve VAERS. But none of these improvements will be available to the public. Reading through the GDIT contract it becomes clear that they are building a new system accessible only to government agencies and the individuals they designate. They are specifically designing the public-facing portions of the new system to be the same limited subset of the data as before. That makes it impossible for independent researchers to accurately assess vaccine safety in this country. Any elected official who cares about the health and well-being of the American public should be demanding that CDC explain why it is hiding this information that is essential to public safety.

Thank you for sharing this information with others (that's how we get around the censors).

The OpenVAERS Team'
7.4.23
https://openvaers.com/?utm_source=newsl ... box-report