The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting Syst
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting Syst
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting Syst
Note: Submitting a report to VAERS does not mean that healthcare personnel or the vaccine caused or contributed to the
adverse event (possible side effect).
Notes:
Caveats: VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine
manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to VAERS. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports
alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain
information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they
are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports
should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.
The strengths of VAERS are that it is national in scope and can quickly provide an early warning of a safety problem with a
vaccine. As part of CDC and FDA's multi-system approach to post-licensure vaccine safety monitoring, VAERS is designed to
rapidly detect unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse events, also known as "safety signals." If a safety signal is found in
VAERS, further studies can be done in safety systems such as the CDC's Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) or the Clinical
Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) project. These systems do not have the same limitations as VAERS, and can better
assess health risks and possible connections between adverse events and a vaccine.
Vaccine providers are encouraged to report any clinically significant health problem following vaccination to VAERS, whether or
not they believe the vaccine was the cause.
Reports may include incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified information.
The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates
of problems associated with vaccines.
VAERS data are limited to vaccine adverse event reports received between 1990 and the most recent date for which data are
available.
VAERS data do not represent all known safety information for a vaccine and should be interpreted in the context of other
scientific information.
Some items may have more than 1 occurrence in any single event report, such as Symptoms, Vaccine Products, Manufacturers,
and Event Categories. If data are grouped by any of these items, then the number in the Events Reported column may exceed the
total number of unique events. If percentages are shown, then the associated percentage of total unique event reports will
exceed 100% in such cases. For example, the number of Symptoms mentioned is likely to exceed the number of events reported,
because many reports include more than 1 Symptom. When more then 1 Symptom occurs in a single report, then the percentage
of Symptoms to unique events is more than 100%. More information. (/wonder/help/vaers.html#Suppress)
Data contains VAERS reports processed as of the previous Friday. The VAERS data in WONDER are updated weekly, yet the
VAERS system receives continuous updates including revisions and new reports for preceding time periods. More information.
(/wonder/help/vaers.html#Reporting)
Values of Event Category field vary in their availability over time due to changes in the reporting form. The "Emergency
Room/Office Visit" value was avaliable only for events reported using the VAERS-1 form, active 07/01/1990 to 06/29/2017. The
"Congenital Anomaly/Birth Defect", "Emergency Room", and "Office Visit" values are available only for events reported using the
VAERS 2.0 form, active 06/30/2017 to present. These changes must be considered when evaluating count of events for these
categories.
Help: See The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) Documentation (/wonder/help/vaers.html) for more information.
Suggested Citation:
United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Public Health Service (PHS), Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) / Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) 1990 - Previous Friday, CDC
WONDER On-line Database. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html on Feb 1, 2021 3:55:58 AM
Query Criteria:
Event Category: Death; Life Threatening
Vaccine Products: COVID19 VACCINE (COVID19)
VAERS ID: All
Group By: Symptoms; Vaccine Manufacturer; Age; Event Category; VAERS ID
Show Totals: False
Show Zero Values: Disabled