Fox News host Tucker Carlson prompted a sharp reaction from critics Wednesday night after addressing the issue of how many people have died after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
Carlson explained he is “completely in favor of vulnerable people taking vaccines” (The CDC profile is a person older than 70 with an average of 2.6 “comorbidities,” such as diabetes and heart disease). But he argued that the vast majority of the population, with a survival rate of more than 99%, should have as much information as possible to make a risk assessment.
In a typical flu season, more than 160 million Americans are vaccinated and only a small number die after receiving a shot. in 2019, it was 203 people and in 2018 it was 119.
“Every death is tragic, but big picture, we don’t consider those numbers disqualifying,” he said. “We keep giving flu shots, and very few people complain about it.”
But the question is how do those numbers compare to the death rate from the experimental, emergency-use COVID-19 vaccines.
Between late December 2020 and April 23, a total of 3,362 people were reported to have died after receiving COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., an average of 30 people every day, according to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, or VAERS.
VAERS is managed by the CDC and the FDA, Carlson noted, and “has received a lot of criticism over the years, some of it founded.”
Carlson’s segment was blasted Thursday by Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, who called it “reckless” and “dangerous.”
He said the claim that 30 people are dying daily from COVID-19 vaccines is “absolutely, 100 percent false.”
“The problem is that it continues to stir up this vaccine hesitance, or outright vaccine reluctance. It is so frustrating,” Gupta said.
PolitiFact argued that VAERS is an “open system, where anyone can submit a report.” And VAERS warns users that its reports shouldn’t be used “on their own to determine whether a vaccine caused or contributed to a particular illness.”
However, Carlson pointed out in his segment that some critics have argued that VAERS undercounts vaccine injuries.
He cited a report submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 concluding that “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported” by the VAERS system.
“So what is the real number of people who apparently have been killed or injured by the vaccine?” Carlson asked. “Well, we don’t know that number. Nobody does, and we’re not going to speculate about it.
“But it’s clear that what is happening now, for whatever reason, is not even close to normal. It’s not even close to what we’ve seen in previous years with previous vaccines,” he said.
Dr. Andrew Bostom noted on Twitter the VAERS data shows that the COVID vaccines are 23 times more likely to be associated with hospitalizations and 119 times more likely to be associated with death.
1/ Consistent with @TuckerCarlson’s 5/5/21 rpt https://t.co/kGT7222Q5v CDC VAERS data thru 4/23/21 reveal that for U.S. 18+ yo adults, C19 vaxes, relative to flu vaxes, are ~23X more likely to be associated with hospitalizations, and ~119X more likely to be associated with death pic.twitter.com/0Ykt2NZFLv
— Andrew Bostom, MD, MS (@andrewbostom) May 6, 2021
‘No one really knows’
Carlson also pointed out that only one death in the U.S. is associated with the Menveo vaccine, which is given to people around the world, often children, to prevent bacterial meningitis.
But in just the first four months of this year, the U.S. government has recorded more deaths after COVID vaccinations than from all other vaccines administered in the United States between mid-1997 and the end of 2013.
“Now, the debate is over what it means. Again, there’s a lot of criticism of the reporting system,” he acknowledged.
“Some people say ‘well, it’s just a coincidence that someone gets the shot and then dies, possibly from other causes,'” he said. “No one really knows, is the truth.”
Carlson said he spoke to a physician on Wednesday who treats COVID patients.
“He described what we’re seeing now as the single deadliest mass-vaccination event in modern history,” the Fox host said. “Whatever is causing it, it is happening as we speak. So you’d think someone in authority might want to know what’s going on.”
Further, he asked why, if “the vaccine injury reporting system is flawed — and it clearly is flawed — why hasn’t it been fixed?”
“And more to the point, why has there not been an independent vaccine safety board to assess what’s happening and reassure people who stumble across official government numbers on the internet?” he asked.
“But amazingly, none of that has been done. No one even mentions the numbers. And in fact, you’re not allowed to. You’ll be pulled off the internet if you do,” Carlson said.
This week, Facebook permanently banned the page of the pro-life LifeSiteNews for an article that cited the VAERS database. The April 10 story was headlined “COVID vaccines can be deadly for some.”
Facebook accused the site of publishing “false information about COVID-19 that could contribute to physical harm.”
LifeSiteNews Marketing Director Rebekah Roberts said the page was removed “simply because we have shared reports of doctors, nurses, expert researchers, and even the former Pfizer VP speaking out against the COVID shots.”
See the segment:
‘People who are hesitant to be coerced’
Carlson noted that one of the few elected officials who has raised the issue is Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. In a hearing last week, the senator asked Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, why so many Americans seem to be dying after the shot.
Collins didn’t acknowledge that people were dying, instead aruging that if there is too much emphasis on the potential harm from vaccines, people might be hesitant to get them.
Johnson told Carlson’s team in a conversation earlier Wednesday that he challenged Collins’ use of the term “vaccine hesitancy.”
“I told him that based on the VAERS deaths, and my conversations with people who have chosen not to get vaccinated, a better description would be: ‘People who are hesitant to be coerced into participating in the largest drug trial in history.'”
Carlson said that’s the reason why many states have more vaccine doses than they can use.
“Some people just don’t want the vaccine. That’s their right. Period,” he said. “Not all of them are crazy. Health decisions used to be considered personal choices. We didn’t ask about them. They were considered personal as recently as last fall.”
Last September, during the presidential campaign, a CNN reporter asked Kamala Harris whether she would be willing to take the coronavirus vaccine once it became available.
“Well, I think that’s going to be an issue for all of us,” she replied. “I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump.”
A month later, at the vice presidential debate, Harris was more emphatic.
“If Donald Trump tells us we should take” the vaccine, she declared, “I’m not going to take it.”
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