Officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have made multiple false statements this month regarding possible COVID-19 vaccine side effects, continuing a trend of mis- and disinformation from the public health agency.
Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a top CDC official, recently repeated the lie that the agency has never detected a safety signal for ischemic stroke for the old COVID-19 vaccines.
“No safety signals were detected for ischemic stroke for primary series or monovalent boosters for Pfizer or Moderna vaccines in U.S. and global monitoring,” Shimabukuro told the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a CDC advisory panel, on April 19.
CDC researchers identified ischemic stroke as a safety signal for the original Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, according to files obtained by The Epoch Times. More recently obtained documents show that the CDC detected the signal as early as May 6, 2022.
The CDC acknowledged in official documents that any adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination that meet certain criteria constitute “a safety signal.”
Shimabukuro, who also made the false claim during a meeting in February, hasn’t responded to requests by The Epoch Times for comment.
A CDC spokesperson previously doubled down on the claim, saying Shimabukuro was correct.
Ischemic stroke happens when the brain fails to get enough blood, according to the Mayo Clinic. It causes brain cells to die within minutes and often leads to death.
Another unnamed CDC official falsely told NBC that the agency hasn’t found data “suggesting a link between COVID-19 vaccines and tinnitus,” or ringing in the ears.
The CDC identified tinnitus as a safety signal in its analysis of possible signals in data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), according to the files obtained by The Epoch Times.
Bert Kelly, a CDC spokesman, told The Epoch Times in an email: “To date, we have no data to support tinnitus and its link to COVID-19 infection or vaccination.”
After becoming aware of reports made to the adverse event system of tinnitus after COVID-19 vaccination, the CDC analyzed data from a different surveillance system called the Vaccine Safety Datalink. CDC researchers didn’t identify any “clustering of tinnitus diagnoses” in the datalink system in the 70 days after COVID-19 vaccination, according to Kelly.
He didn’t make the data available.
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