Is the MMR deadlier than measles?

A recent research paper from Peter McCollough’s group says that 299 deaths in the U.S. were reported after MMR vaccines, mostly in very young children, soon after getting the shot.

The claims in this graph come from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS. According to the VAERS website, anyone can file a report about a bad reaction after getting a vaccine. But that doesn’t mean the vaccine actually caused the problem. VAERS is partly run by the CDC, but the CDC only hosts the data—it does not collect or verify it.

When you visit the VAERS website, it warns that “VAERS reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.” Because of this, scientists must be very careful when using VAERS data. The graph itself shows this problem too—it says vaccine deaths are only suspected, not proven. In fact, the reports don’t always mean there is a real link to vaccines at all.

A report in VAERS is not proof that a vaccine caused harm—it only shows that something happened after vaccination, not because of it. The numbers in VAERS also do not show how common a problem is, since millions of children get vaccines, so a number like 299 reports does not tell us the real risk. In addition, some reports may be missing details, have mistakes, or even be counted more than once, which is why scientists do not treat VAERS as proof. The study itself only describes patterns in reports and does not prove cause and effect or show that vaccines caused the deaths.

It is also important to know that young children can have health problems around the same age they get vaccines, which can make patterns appear even when vaccines are not the cause. Because of all this, scientists look at both the benefits and the risks when judging vaccine safety, not just these reports.

It’s also important to remember why there are so few measles deaths today. Kids get vaccinated, which means they don’t catch measles and don’t die from it. Before the vaccine, about 500 children used to die from measles every year in the United States.