Denial only serves the aims of anti-vaxxers.
On the Friday after Thanksgiving, Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, made a claim that shocked the public-health establishment. “For the first time,” he wrote in a leaked email to his staff, “the US FDA will acknowledge that COVID-19 vaccines have killed American children.” The agency had supposedly identified at least 10 children who died from getting COVID shots.
To say the email was poorly received by vaccine experts and physicians would be an understatement. Prasad’s claim provoked a rapid series of rebuttals. A response from 12 former FDA commissioners, published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, called Prasad’s memo “a threat to evidence-based vaccine policy and public health security.” All of the potential vaccine-related deaths reported to the government, presumably including those to which Prasad referred, had already been reviewed by the agency’s staff, the former commissioners wrote, and “different conclusions” had been reached.
Elsewhere, doctors and scientists declared that absolutely no evidence links COVID-19 vaccines to death in children; and that in order to suggest otherwise, Prasad and his colleagues had engaged in an “evidence-manufacturing mission,” a “dumpster dive” for shoddy data, or—worse—a campaign of lying.
Prasad is among the public-health officials who, under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have been systematically undermining the nation’s confidence in immunizations. Prasad has not yet offered up any documentation to support his assertion, and his count of vaccine-related deaths may well turn out to be inflated. The memo’s overheated rhetoric and lengthy recitation of political grievances also raise some doubts about his claims.
Yet there’s something troubling—and telling—in the fact that his memo has provoked people to deny even the possibility of COVID-vaccine-related deaths. The idea that mRNA-based shots have, tragically, killed a very small number of children is not far-fetched. It also doesn’t imply a catastrophic threat to public health, given that tens of millions of doses of these vaccines have safely been given out to young people. From the start of the coronavirus pandemic, lack of nuance has been a problem with public-health messaging—one that anti-vaccine advocates have made use of to great effect. Now, in a moment when public health in America is under existential threat, this insistence that no evidence exists for vaccine-related deaths risks adding to the crisis.
“Some Children May Have Died”
Then provides no solid evidence that any of the purported deaths were from the vaccine. Claims scientists have to allow for the possibility when every case was examined and no conclusive evidence was found to link the vaccine with the deaths.
What’s next? Geographers have to be open to the possibility that the earth is flat? Physicists should allow for the chance that perpetual motion is possible? Atheists really should say their prayers, you know, just in case?
The Atlantic really likes to ride that centrist rail.
Actually, it’s even worse than that, the FDA clown is saying some children have died, not may have. The author just ignores all of that to so he can get on his “you ivory tower academics are too close minded!” soap box.
Then provides no solid evidence that any of the purported deaths were from the vaccine.
And also no mechanism of how the vaccine could have caused death. This quack is an example of anti-evidence based medicine, the idea that medicine should only be driven by opinion, not evidence and proof.
Doctors are not scientists.Doctors are not scientists.
I was with you until this. Doctors are scientists. That doesn’t mean all of them are good scientists. Some, like Vinay Prasad, are bad scientists and bad doctors—he’s more podcaster and political hack than doctor.
Most medical research is done by MDs. Even doctors that are purely clinicians have extensive scientific training. It’s absurd to say, “doctors are not scientists.”
There is no way to determine if deaths were from a vaccine or from a COVID infection when you look at a large group of people. How many kids died from falling down stairs? Did the vaccine cause that?
Prasad is a clown. No mention of exactly how these vaccines caused death. All this is based on shitty data analysis that presumes these children did not have any other underlying cause of death.
of course, back in 2021, Prasad declared COVID vaccines similar to the beginnings of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. He ended his medical career when colleagues outed him:
Bioethicist Arthur L. Caplan said that Prasad’s arguments were specious and ignorant, and science historian Robert N. Proctor said that Prasad was “overplaying the dangers of vaccination mandates and trivializing the genuine harms to liberty posed by 1930s fascism”.
In November 2021, Prasad expressed his opinion that pediatricians should warn parents about risks of COVID immunization such as myocarditis.However, physician Jonathan Howard noted that Prasad was selectively omitting that myocarditis from the vaccine was always mild and that COVID disease itself carried much higher risks, including a worse form of myocarditis.
He was also anti-Mask. Prasad is one of hundreds of examples of how far someone can get with a medical degree that should be nowhere near patients or policy. He is the antithesis of problem-based medicine. Basically the US born version of Andrew Wakefield.
Now he’s so fucked his career in medicine he has no choice but to be RFK’s lackey. But, this is where RFK is getting his information from.
For perspective, this author’s previous article was Do Childhood Vaccines Cause Tornadoes? It hasn’t been ruled out.
He seems obsessed with making the rather pedantic point that researchers should never state that anything is impossible based on absence of evidence.
Yeah, it’s a shit argument bordering on sealioning.
how many died without the shot?
way too many variables to consider to even think vaccines are dangerous but that won’t stop low IQ from doing whatever sadly
Also, just going from the quotes in the article, it seems like this author is attacking an argument nobody is actually making. This article says we can’t dismiss the possibility that this could happen, but the FDA is saying it already definitely did happen and the researchers are saying it didn’t, which is a whole different conversation and all the currently available evidence points to the researchers being 100% correct about it.
10 kids. 10. Not hundreds, not thousands, 10…
People died without the vaccine in the thousands and millions.
I feel for the parents I really do but 10 kids died from the vaccine from what this states.
Fuck off off here with your throat cancer Jr.
the second sentence of the ‘leaked’ email contradicts itself and the entire premise: “These deaths are related to vaccination (likely/probable/possible attribution made by staff)”.
From the appointment of RFK Jr. onward, the word of the FDA is less than worthless. A brief look at Prasad’s wikipedia page shows a history of “skepticism” of established practices, which is almost certainly why he was appointed in May 2025.
Ok ,anti vaxxer
I’m one of the most pro vaccine people you’ll ever meet.
The point of the article is that, when you deny that it’s even possible that even a tiny fraction of children may have had fatal reactions to the vaccine, then you’re rolling out the red carpet for antivaxers to identify a single case of a child that possibly had a reaction, then allowing them to concoct a conspiracy theory that you’re covering up the real risks in exchange for your Big Pharma paycheck.
Being honest about the true quantified risks allows those in positions of authority to compare it to things that are equally, or even more, risky (drink coffee, drive to work, eat a burger, etc), that people do all the time without hesitation because it’s worth the risk.
This allows the public to understand the actual risks in a way that makes sense to them, thus allowing them to make informed decisions rather than just believing whatever crackpot with a book to sell they last heard from on the popular Crackpot of the Day Podcast (byline, “We’re just asking questions!”)
This allows the public to understand the actual risks in a way that makes sense to them
The same public who gambles in casinos and buys lottery tickets?
So, your position is that because some people make poor life decisions, the government should lie to everyone?
Ignore the science and just do what Daddy Trump tells you to do. That sounds like an excellent plan you’ve got there.
He’s not wrong, but this headline just affirms anti-vaxxers’ stance. Tell people how many lives were saved.
People have probably died after tying their shoes (20 mins before they were hit by a car). Doesn’t mean they died from tying their shoes. 😮💨
Really sad watching people downvote this.
It just show how cultish everyone is across the board. You’re either with them, or against them.
Its sad to watch so many downvote a 3 paragraph news statement without bias (and if bias could be inferred, it’s left leaning.)
