FALSE: 2-month-old baby dies after receiving Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

At a glance

• Claim: A two-month-old baby died after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, as reported in the United States Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) case number 1015467 released on July 1, 2022.
• Rating: FALSE
• The facts: The website cited by the claim is not the official VAERS website. The VAERS case number 1015467 was not found in any data sets of VAERS released on July 1, 2022, and earlier.
• Why we fact-checked this: The claim was emailed to Rappler for verification.

Complete details

An article published on June 13 by the website Global Research claims that a two-month-old baby died due to cardiac arrest after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, allegedly reported in the United States Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) case number 1015467 released on July 1, 2022.

This is false.

The website cited by Global Research as the source of the VAERS case of the two-month-old baby, MedAlerts.org, is not the official website of VAERS. The supposed VAERS case number 1015467 is not on any official data sets released by VAERS on July 1, 2022, and earlier.

MedAlerts.org is under an organization called the National Vaccine Information Center, which an investigative report by The Washington Post says is the oldest anti-vaccine advocacy group in the United States.

The VAERS website reminds the public that the US VAERS reports are submitted by the public and “may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.”

Reuters debunked a similar claim in May 2021. – Lorenz Pasion/Rappler.com

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