Tucker Carlson Engages in Wildly Irresponsible Speculation About People Dying After Getting Covid Vaccines

Josh FeldmanMay 5th, 2021, 9:17 pm
 

Tucker Carlson opened his show Wednesday night with some irresponsible speculation about the covid-19 vaccines.

Carlson actually started his show Wednesday night by saying, “Here is a very simple question. How many Americans have died after taking the covid vaccines?”

Carlson devoted the intro of his program to raising questions about the “downside” of the covid-19 vaccines.

“You probably already had your shot, and good for you,” Carlson said, before telling unvaccinated people they’re going to be forced to get the shot, even through “social pressure.”

Carlson — who has said on his show a few times recently he is personally pro-vaccine — told his audience “vaccines are not dangerous” and that “that’s not a guess, we know that pretty conclusively from the official numbers.”

But he went on talk up “the apparent death rate from the coronavirus vaccines,” referencing data from VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System).

The CDC’s web page about VAERS says, “As an early warning system, VAERS cannot prove that a vaccine caused a problem. Specifically, a report to VAERS does not mean that a vaccine caused an adverse event. But VAERS can give CDC and FDA important information. If it looks as though a vaccine might be causing a problem, FDA and CDC will investigate further and take action if needed.”

VAERS data alone cannot determine if the vaccine caused the reported adverse event.
This specific limitation has caused confusion about the publicly available data, specifically regarding the number of reported deaths. In the past there have been instances where people misinterpreted reports of death following vaccination as death caused by the vaccines; that is a mistake.

At one point Carlson said this:

The debate is over what it means. Again, there’s a lot of criticism of the reporting system. Some people say, well, it’s just a coincidence if someone gets a shot and then dies, possibly from other causes. No one really knows is the truth.

And Carlson was called out for his monologue:

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Josh Feldman - Senior Editor

Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac