The state also has looked into each of the four January and February deaths of Utahns reported to the federal database, and “it has not been determined that the vaccine played a role in any of those deaths,” a spokesman for the Utah Department of Health said in Tuesday.
Bad outcomes after any vaccine — anything from a flu shot to the COVID-19 vaccine — can be reported to the CDC, said state health department spokesperson Tom Hudachko. The CDC compiles that information into a database called
VAERS, for Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
VAERS is not a perfect tool, said Dr. Erik Christensen, the state’s medical examiner.
“Anybody can report something — family, next of kin, doctors. Anybody can get in there and make a report of any kind of adverse reaction that they have,” Christensen said. “It’s not a scientifically assessed adjudicator, or in any other way moderated. … It’s, ‘I think this happened, so I tell you about it.’”
The database is useful, Christensen said, for researchers to find cases and follow up to determine whether they’re valid.