COVID vaccines could be partly responsible for a rise in “unprecedented” excess deaths in the US and other Western countries over the past three years, according to a new study.
Researchers from the Netherlands’ Vrije Universiteit analyzed mortality data from 47 Western countries and found that excess mortality has “remained high” since 2020, despite the widespread rollout of COVID vaccines and various containment measures.
The study, published in BMJ Public Health, urges government leaders and policymakers to “thoroughly investigate the underlying causes of persistent excess mortality.” This trend has “raised serious concerns” about the potential unintended consequences of the vaccines.
Vrije Universiteit, ranked 150th out of more than 20,000 universities globally by the Center for World University Rankings, conducted the research.
“Although COVID-19 vaccines were provided to guard civilians from suffering morbidity and mortality by the COVID-19 virus, suspected adverse events have been documented as well,” the researchers wrote. They highlighted reports from medical professionals and citizens about serious injuries and deaths following vaccination, which have been recorded in various official databases across the Western world.
The study found there had been more than 3 million excess deaths across the US, Europe, and Australia since the pandemic began. Over 1 million of these excess deaths occurred in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. The figures remained high in the following years, with 1.2 million excess deaths in 2021 and 800,000 in 2022.
The death toll includes fatalities directly linked to the virus as well as “indirect effects of the health strategies to address the virus spread and infection,” the study notes. Documented serious side effects of the vaccines include ischemic strokes, acute coronary syndromes, and brain hemorrhages.
“This commonality hinders clinical suspicion and consequently its detection as adverse vaccine reactions,” the study stated.
More than 1.1 million Americans have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic broke out, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The researchers stress that while vaccines have been crucial in reducing the severity of COVID-19, the persistence of high excess mortality warrants further investigation to understand the full impact of vaccination and other pandemic-related health strategies.
