And one of the most frequent sources antivaxxers like to cite is VAERS, or Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. They love to "dumpster dive" into VAERS data and claim VAERS numbers are proof that vaccine caused injuries or even deaths, even though VAERS itself CLEARLY states that VAERS does NOT establish "cause-and-effect" relationship between the vaccine and the reported adverse event.
Here's an example of an adverse event reported to VAERS. Patient had Pfizer COVID shot on Jan 9, 2021. Patient had a single car accident on Jan 23rd, 2021. She spun out into a snowbank. She was transported to ER, treated, and released. She was found unresponsive on Feb 1, 2021 and pronounced dead. An autopsy revealed she had a brain bleed.
Yes, that's a genuine VAERS entry, 1004811-1, of which a screenshot is included below. I can't link it because VAERS doesn't allow direct linking. You will have to zoom in the see the details.
The death and the vaccination are clearly unrelated, but as per proper procedure, it's included in VAERS, and the report was submitted on Feb 5th, 2021. In fact, CDC instructions to health care providers were to include the data in VAERS, "regardless if the reporter thinks the vaccine caused the AE (adverse event)". The reason is simple: CDC needs a way to know if there's a side effect they never considered or expected, and the only way to know is to report EVERYTHING, so the data can be mined later for commonalities.
So if you search for "COVID vaccine" and "death", you would probably end up counting this one, and probably dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands like it, where if you look at the details, there's just no way they could be linked.
Not that it stopped antivaxxers and pundits like Tucker Carlson from claiming "vaccines killed thousands" when the data they cited does NOT indicate such a thing, and organizations across the country had to put out FAQs debunking such fearmongering.
When confronted, most antivaxxers will reply with "but I just want a safe vaccine" or variations thereof, often with emphasis "but even one adverse event is one too many".
Some antivaxxers will then trot out the "COVID isn't that dangerous" trope, esp. with the "children tend to have milder symptoms" bit.
So you remind them "so you are comparing a KNOWN risk of COVID such as death, long COVID, and MIS-C, vs a POTENTIAL unknown risk of vaccine adverse reaction that has so far not been observed?"
Some may be smart enough to admit defeat, but some will segue into VAERS dumpster diving.
That's when you remind them that they're processing garbage data and drawing bogus conclusions, as we had discussed above.
And what's when they block you because they can't beat you with the truth.
