A leaked email written by the head of the FDA, Vinay Prasad, claims that COVID vaccines have caused the deaths of at least 10 children and suggests that past safety problems were ignored or hidden by the FDA and CDC. It also argues that current vaccine rules are too weak, vaccine mandates harmed young people, and that the FDA must change how all vaccines are tested, approved, and monitored.

Prasad claims that VAERS proves that “COVID vaccines killed children.” As mentioned in this newsletter many times, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS is a reporting system where anyone can file a report about a bad reaction after getting a vaccine. But that doesn’t mean the vaccine actually caused the problem.

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 about how they use 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.

If vaccines were killing large numbers of children, we would see this in all-cause mortality and excess-death data in highly vaccinated areas—which we don’t. In fact, higher vaccination coverage is associated with lower all-cause mortality. Carefully reviewed safety data have found extremely rare deaths plausibly linked to COVID vaccines, versus hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths and many pediatric hospitalizations prevented.

With the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voting this week on when a person should receive their first Hepatitis B vaccine, we want to explain why giving the vaccine at birth is the best choice.

The hepatitis B birth dose vaccine is a major public health success. Since it became routine in 1991, it has cut new infections in children and teens by 99%. This means many young people have been protected from lifelong liver disease, liver failure, and liver cancer. Because of this vaccine, ending hepatitis B in the U.S. is now possible.

Some people, including the Secretary of Health and Human Services, have raised safety fears about the newborn hepatitis B shot. These concerns are not supported by evidence.

Hepatitis B (Hep B) can spread through sex, but that’s not the only way it spreads. Doctors recommend giving babies the Hep B vaccine at birth because many babies were being born to mothers who didn’t know they had the infection. Scientists believe that about 30–40% of people with long-lasting (chronic) Hep B got it either when they were born or when they were very young. Only about half of mothers with Hep B are found before they give birth.

Even today, around 25,000 babies in the U.S. are born each year to moms with Hep B. If a newborn catches it, about 90% of them will stay infected for life. This raises their chances of liver disease and liver cancer later on.

There are many reasons why mothers don’t know they have Hep B. The test for Hep B is harder to understand than some other tests. A mom might get infected after her first test during pregnancy, but before giving birth. Tests can also be wrong sometimes, showing a false “negative.” Mistakes can happen too—like ordering the wrong test, reading the results wrong, or not sharing the results clearly.

Hepatitis B can also live outside the body for up to 7 days, even in dried blood. That means it can spread in other ways, too, like through bites in daycare, dirty needles, or bandages left in public places. This doesn’t happen often, but it’s still possible.

The Hep B vaccine is very safe. The most common side effects are just soreness or pain where the shot was given. Serious side effects are extremely rare—so rare that none have been proven after millions of doses. Because the vaccine is safe, and babies can get Hep B at birth or soon after, doctors give the first dose right when a baby is born.

On his television show, Bill Maher talks to Lara Trump about how he gets the flu immediately after getting vaccinated and how the strain in the flu vaccine only covers last year’s flu strain.

The vaccine cannot give you the flu.

The flu shot uses a virus that is dead and cannot make copies of itself. This means the virus cannot grow, spread, or take over cells in your body the way a real flu infection does. Because it cannot copy itself, it cannot cause illness. Your body only sees the virus pieces and learns how to fight the real flu in the future.

The nasal spray flu vaccine is different. It uses a weakened virus—one that is too weak to cause illness. It can live for a short time in the cool part of your nose, which helps your immune system practice fighting it. But once it reaches the warmer inside of your body, the virus dies and cannot spread or cause disease.