CDC Buried COVID Vaccine Death Data in Lancet Study, Internal Documents Reveal

From Children's Health Defense's Suzanne Burdick

Researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) altered their own study on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events to downplay deaths linked to the shots, according to documents obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

CHD sued the CDC in 2023 to obtain the documents after the agency failed to respond to CHD’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The 100-page document tranche included an earlier draft of the CDC study that differed significantly from the version the authors published in June 2022 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., CHD senior research scientist, who analyzed the FOIA documents, said the CDC “severely edited” the study “to promote safety and to de-emphasize death.”

The first four words of the draft’s title were “Reactogenicity and Adverse Events.” However, the published version’s title began with “Safety of mRNA vaccines.”

Reactogenicity refers to the side effects or adverse events someone experiences after taking a vaccine or medication.

The study authors, members of the CDC’s COVID-19 Response Team, analyzed reports of adverse events following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination during the first 6 months of the vaccine rollout in the U.S.

The researchers pulled the reports from two federal vaccine safety monitoring systems — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and V-safe.

Although there were 4,496 deaths reported to VAERS during that time frame, the study authors stripped details about the deaths from the article’s abstract.

The lead study author, Dr. Hannah Rosenblum, wrote in a comment on the draft, “Note all death results/interpretation has been removed from abstract.”

That’s a big deal, Jablonowski said — because the abstract, which appears at the top of a study and summarizes it, is typically read much more than the full body of an article.

The published version also omitted a figure that revealed key statistics about deaths reported following COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS. The figure depicted the percentage breakdown for the top 10 leading causes of death — including diseases of the heart, COVID-19 disease and “unknown/unclear” — as listed on death certificates or autopsy results.

The draft also originally included a table showing similar information, Jablonowski said. “But when the authors published the study, they buried the table in the study’s supplemental materials, where it was sure to be read by very few.”

Although the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) contributed to the study, the article included the disclaimer that its findings and conclusions “are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the CDC or the FDA.”

Study author under investigation for allegedly destroying records on COVID vaccine adverse events

The FOIA results come at a time of renewed scrutiny over the CDC’s handling of COVID-19 vaccines and adverse events, including death, associated with the shots.

The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel had planned to discuss COVID-19 vaccine injuries at its meeting this week. However, a federal judge on March 16 blocked the meeting.

Jablonowski said it was unethical that the CDC study authors altered their manuscript to emphasize safety and downplay death. He said:

“When the study was published, America was weighing whether or not to get a booster, or perhaps a second booster dose. They had to weigh what the Trusted News Initiative was telling us about the shots being ‘safe and effective.’

“Is it really 95% effective if we still get sick and need a booster every few months? Could the sudden surge of people dying suddenly have anything to do with the vaccine’s safety?”

A CDC study that “honestly and clearly” conveyed the risks of adverse events and death associated with the shot would have helped the public make a decision, Jablonowski said.

One in 10 U.S. adults who received a COVID-19 vaccine suffered “major” side effects, and over a third (36%) experienced “minor” side effects, according to a national survey conducted in November 2025.

Based on a U.S. adult population of 258 million in 2020, the results mean that about 17 million adults who got a COVID-19 vaccine experienced major health effects, and roughly 63 million had minor side effects, said Rasmussen Reports, which conducted the survey.

Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, former director of the CDC Immunization Safety Office and one of the study’s authors, has been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the Office of Inspector General for allegedly deleting or destroying agency records and communications related to COVID-19 vaccine adverse events.

In an April 2025 letter, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) called on the agencies to investigate Shimabukuro.

Study authors claim COVID vaccine death pattern ‘similar’ to other vaccines

The CDC study downplayed deaths potentially caused by the COVID-19 vaccines in other ways, too, Jablonowski said.

For instance, the study states, “The concentrated reporting of deaths on the first few days after vaccination follows patterns similar to those observed for other adult vaccinations.”

The study authors didn’t provide information on what a typical pattern of death following other vaccines looks like, Jablonowski said. “So I downloaded VAERS data and plotted the curves myself.”

The curves showed that death reports decreased over time following both COVID-19 vaccines and other vaccines. However, the number of death reports following COVID-19 vaccinations was higher than those reported after other vaccines.

The CDC study authors also tried to dismiss the high concentration of deaths reported following COVID-19 vaccination by insinuating that the VAERS reports were biased. They wrote:

“This pattern might represent reporting bias because the likelihood to report a serious adverse event might increase when it occurs in close temporal proximity to vaccination.”

At least one commenter on the draft pushed back on dismissing the patterns of VAERS death reports as being a result of reporting bias. A person with the initials B.R. commented in the draft that a VAERS death report filed soon after a person received a COVID-19 vaccine “may also reflect a true event.”

Jablonowski suggested the individual was likely Dr. Robert Ball, the deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology at its Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

It’s unclear if Ball initially served as a draft author, as the CDC redacted some of the draft authors’ names in its FOIA response. Ball was not listed as an author of the final publication.

Ball did not immediately respond when asked if he had been involved in the study.

Study authors mum on why they changed the study

When the study was published, all its authors were members of the CDC’s COVID-19 Response Team.

It’s unclear how many of them still work at the CDC.

However, it is clear that the CDC does not want the study authors to publicly comment on why they altered their manuscript before publishing it.

When The Defender asked the study’s corresponding author, Julianne Gee, why she and her co-authors removed all death results from the abstract, a CDC public affairs specialist referred The Defender to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

HHS did not respond by the deadline.

As originally published in The Defender.