*Statistics for 3/6/01-3/5/02 were provided by the FDA without sorting by manufacturer.

** Statistics for FLU vaccine 1988-2001 were provided by the FDA.

***February 23, 2004 phone message: To: Barbara Alexander Mullarkey, president of IVAC From: Ed Castilla, Access Litigation and Freedom of Information Branch (HFM-48), Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA

“Hello. This message is for Barbara Mullarkey. This is Ed Castilla from Food and Drug Administration. Barbara, the numbers 250,482 are the total number of reports for March 6, 2001 to 2002. Any questions, you can call me.”

VAERS is a passive system in which the FDA requires reporting of vaccines' adverse reactions/deaths. There is no penalty for doctors, nurses or pharmacists who fail to report vaccine's adverse reactions.
Only 1% of serious drug reactions are reported to the FDA – Journal of American Medical Association, 6/2/93.

Important Information from the FDA about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), January 23, 2004:

FDA states: “About 85% of vaccine adverse event reports concern relatively minor events, such as ordinary fevers or redness and swelling at the injection site. The remaining 15% describe serious events, such as seizures, high fevers, life-threatening illnesses, or deaths..."

The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not a documentation that a vaccine caused the event...over ten million vaccinations per year are given to children less than one year old, usually between 2 months and 6 months of age...infants are at greater risk for...high fevers, seizures, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Some infants will by coincidence experience such an event shortly after a vaccination...it is usually not possible to be sure whether a particular adverse event resulted from a concurrent condition or from a vaccination, even when it occurred soon afterward...Since it is difficult to distinguish a coincidental event from one truly caused by a vaccine, the VAERS database will contain events of both types.”