The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has halted the collection of COVID-19 vaccine adverse events reports through the agency’s V-Safe page even as millions of Americans reported being “impacted” by such vaccines.
When visiting the V-Safe page, a message shows: “Thank you for your participation. Data collection for COVID-19 vaccines concluded on June 30, 2023. If you have symptoms or health problems following your COVID-19 vaccination that concern you, please contact your healthcare provider. You can also report to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).”
While V-Safe was created by the CDC to collect COVID-19 vaccination health assessments, VAERS is an older system that is co-managed by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The CDC says that it closed enrollment in V-safe on May 19, as the program was “developed specifically for COVID-19 vaccines.” According to the agency, it is “developing a new version of v-safe which will allow users to share their post-vaccination experiences with new vaccines.”
The CDC states that since the launch of V-Safe in December 2020, it has registered 10.1 million participants who completed over 151 million health surveys regarding their experiences following the COVID-19 vaccination.
According to V-Safe data accessed by the advocacy Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) in September 2022, out of the 10.1 million users who reported on the platform, 3.53 million people claimed to have been adversely “impacted” by the vaccination.
While 1.2 million reported that they were “unable” to conduct normal activities, 1.3 million missed school/work, and 800,000 required medical care.
In total, 6.45 million health impacts were reported to V-Safe.
White people were the most affected, accounting for 2.6 million of the 3.53 million impacted individuals. Among whites, females accounted for the majority share of affected individuals at 1.9 million. 200,000 Asian and 200,000 black people were also impacted.
The vaccine brand reported as having caused the most adverse events was Moderna with 1.6 million impacts, followed by Pfizer with 1.4 million.
Out of a total 71.29 million reported symptoms, pain topped the list with 19 million reports, followed by fatigue at 11.7 million, headache at 9.1 million, and muscle/body aches at 7.2 million.
