I had a reader reach out to me following my column last week, concerned that data I reported in my opinion piece could make people think twice before taking the COVID-19 vaccine.

I certainly hope so. I hope people think twice before they take it. I hope they think twice before they don’t take it. I hope they think twice before making any potentially life altering decision, medical or otherwise. Think about it. Review the data. Then make a decision, don’t do it just because someone you saw on television told you to do it.

The data in question was simple. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the vaccine tracking program operated jointly by the FDA and CDC, has stated that around 177,000 people have suffered life threatening side effects from the vaccine. Over 6,000 have died.

That means roughly 0.08% of all those who have been vaccinated have had a life threatening reaction. If we reach our government’s goal of vaccinating 100% of the US populace, that is 262,400 who will likely be negatively affected. On a global scale, that is 6,080,000.

On the VAERS website, there is now a page on how to report COVID-19 vaccine data. The short and long of it is that the government required all adverse outcomes to be reported following vaccination. Reporting of the result is not concrete proof that the vaccine led to that outcome.

This means that anyone who took the vaccine one day and died the next will be officially reported as a death on the VAERS report.

While all of that is accurate, its important to also keep in mind that VAERS uses the EXACT same reporting system to report data on the flu vaccine, the chicken pox vaccine and every other vaccine that is administered in the United States. They have been doing so since the program was founded in 1990.

We are expected to trust the annual reports that come out about other vaccines, but when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, we are supposed to question the data. The FDA/CDC feels so strongly about that that they they’ve even created a web page to tell journalist “How to report VAERS data.”

Basically, when it comes to COVID-19, the government tells us we are supposed to blindly accept everything the government tells us about the virus, but then they tell us that we should question the data they give us on the vaccine. In other words, do not question the data that makes you scared of the virus, and question all data that makes you afraid of the vaccine.

I question everything. I accept nothing a face value. I hope that each of you are the same.

Think about it. The intention is to foster the idea that there are no negative side effects of the vaccine, which is not remotely true. Even the simplest and most common household drug, such as Tylenol, will cause a life threatening reaction in some users.

Consider this. The reporting protocol used by VAERS is almost identical to the FDA protocols used to determine and report side effect from all other medication. You know when you see a television commercial for some new acid reflux drug or diabetes medication and right at the end they have the fast talking guy who reads off the list of comical (compulsive gambling), uncomfortable (uncontrollable diarrhea) and scary (death) side effects? Those are there because the law requires them to be listed in all advertisements for any drugs.

Those side effects are reported in the same fashion, except instead of being compiled by VAERS they come from FDA approved bio-medical research clinics. If someone takes a new drug and has a heart attack...BOOM its a side effect. If someone takes a new drug and gambles his life savings away...BOOM its a side effect.

Clearly there is no direct correlation between the drug and a gambling addiction. But once reported it becomes and official side effect, and the drug companies are required to report it as such in each and every advertisement.

The same cannot be said for the COVID-19 vaccine. That information has been reported and collected using the same reporting techniques, but instead of following the law and making them known, instead they come up with “how to report” instruction for journalists.

Journalist, politicians and health officials should always be up front with the data. But they aren’t. I’ve been directly told by a regional health department official that he was only going to release the data that he needed to release in order to make people afraid.

Since we are being up front here, looking at the data that is presented to us, lets make it an open book.

According to national statistics, as of July 2020, the United States had seen a 20% decrease in the amount of deaths from stroke, heart attack and cancer. Any rational person knows that this data is not true, yet that is the data that has been reported. This is why we must question everything.

The truth of the matter is that we saw a 20% decrease in these deaths because people suffering from stroke, heart attack and cancer are among the peak at-risk group when it comes to COVID-19. The people who died from these causes were listed as COVID-19 deaths, even though some of them were marked for death already.

I could name at least two people I personally know who had stage four cancer and were just days or weeks away from death when they contracted COVID-19. Yet their official cause of death was COVID-19.

Information is power, and right now the government has all of the power. I have no desire to spread fear or lies, only information and through it power.

Right now we are divided between people who want to rule us with fear, and those who want to go on as if nothing is going on. The truth is, most likely, right in the center.

The problem, in my opinion, is that we’ve only been given select portions of the information. As that health department official told me over a year ago, he was only going to give out the information that would scare people in to being what he considered safe.

Anytime the flow of information is controlled so closely, it breeds conspiracy theory. It causes divide. It forces people to do things they don’t want to do. It makes them turn on others. Its not good for anyone except those who hold the information.

So yes, I do stand by my decision to mention the VAERS data in this column last week. I also admit that even with that data, the odds of someone dying or becoming deathly ill from taking the vaccine is extremely low. But low does not mean zero. If there is a chance, even remotely, that taking the vaccine could kill you or cause you very serious medical problems, you should know about it. You have a right to know about it.

You should also know that the odds of that happening are lower than the odds that the virus itself could kill you. Its all information that we should be given so that we can make better decision for ourselves and stop listening to the conspiracy theories.