Misinformation continues to spread about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. The risk of dying from COVID-19 is exponentially higher than the risk of an adverse event from a vaccine occurring. While there are some risks associated with the COVID-19 vaccines, experts say the benefits far outweigh those risks. More than two years into the pandemic, mis-information about COVID-19 and the vaccines that protect against it continues to spread.
Much of this misinformation focuses on the safety of the vaccines and potential risks associated with them. Headlines falsely claiming the vaccines have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries remain rampant on social media and other online sources. Family medicine physician Dr. Laura Morris, hears these concerns often from her patients. “I’ve had patients say out loud that you’re more likely to die from the vaccine than you are from COVID, and so there’s clearly a lot of intentional, false information that’s out there on social media platforms, and the places where people do their quote ‘research,’” she said.
Morris, who’s also the co-chair of the University of Missouri Health Care vaccine committee, engages with these patients and points them to reputable sources of information to assure them that the vaccine is safe and that in fact, the risk of dying from COVID-19 is exponentially higher. “The deaths that can be tied to an adverse reaction from the vaccine are exceedingly rare,” she said. “You are, however, more likely to die of COVID this year and last year than almost anything else.”
Vaccine misinformation distributed across social media and other sites comes from a number of sources, many of which are not credible and blatantly false. However, as is often the case with mis-information, some claims gain traction because they begin with a kernel of truth. Many sources of false information will often cite the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
VAERS was established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1990 as an early warning system to detect potential safety issues with vaccines. It allows anyone to report adverse effects experienced after receiving any vaccine, including the COVID-19 vaccines. According to VAERSTrusted Source, more than 520 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020 through January 10, 2022.
