Are all events reported to VAERS caused by vaccinations?
No. Because VAERS accepts all reports of adverse events following vaccination, not all events reported to VAERS are caused by vaccines. Some events may occur coincidentally after the administration of a vaccine while others may in fact be caused by a vaccine. Studies help determine if there is more than a temporal (time) association between immunization and adverse events. An occurrence of an adverse event following the administration of a vaccine is not conclusive evidence that the event was caused by the vaccine. Various factors (e.g., medical history, other medications given near the time of the vaccination) must be examined to determine if they could have caused the adverse event. Many adverse events reported to VAERS may not be caused by vaccines.
Again, VAERS accepts all reports of adverse events following vaccination, so not all events reported to VAERS arecaused by vaccines. In fact, limitations such as differential reporting rates, simultaneous administration of different vaccine antigens, temporal reporting bias and lack of background vaccination rate data generally prevent the determination of vaccine-event causal associations using VAERS data. Without fully understanding its limitations, results from VAERS can easily be misinterpreted.
