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While this article has many flaws, my direct personal experience with VAERS gives me very little confidence that incident reporting is working well. I'm in my

While this article has many flaws, my direct personal experience with VAERS gives me very little confidence that incident reporting is working well. I'm in my early 40s. I had a major heart attack (100% obstruction of left anterior descending artery) 21 days after my J&J shot in Q2 2021. I now have a stent and significant and permanent heart damage. My health for the decade leading up to it was impeccable. All my labs are well within normal. I exercise 6 days a week: Olympic and power lifting, running, rowing, cycling. I am careful with my diet and carried <15% body fat at 180 lbs. (male). I worked hard to take care of myself. I have no known genetic factors for increased clotting, and while they were placing the stent, they observed virtually no plaque in my arteries and no evidence of rupture. My cardiologist and a second opinion I sought independently could not identify any risk factor to which to attribute my heart attack. Both were highly suspicious of my vaccination. My cardiologist reported my case to VAERS. I was asked to send a copy of my vaccination card. A month later, I got another e-mail asking to send a copy of my vaccination card. When I called and asked what happened to my first submission, the person had no idea. When I asked whether I could confirm that the current submission worked, they said they had no mechanism for that. My cardiologist, a professor of cardiology at Stanford, got a phone call that was mostly reminding him that it was a crime to make a false report. Neither of our interactions gave us any confidence that the report was taken seriously at all. All in all, I simultaneously think that COVID vaccinations are net positive and strongly suspect that there is significant under-reporting of adverse events. (I imagine that some will think I am a figment of someone's imagination. How I desperately wish that were true.)

dekhn 5y ago
you're saying you had a heart attack 3 weeks after your vaccine shot, ... somehow because you are in good health the vaccine is a likely enough cause to file with VAERS, but your main issue is that the procedure around the reporting seemed incompetent? With regards to the heart attack, probably just base rate fallacy. ostensibly healthy people have heart attacks at a surprisingly high rate (and it's also something easy to detect). With regards to VAERS, I can imagine that they get an absurdly high number of prank calls and so they have to warn people not to break the law.
- throwaway_58456 5y ago
  > somehow because you are in good health the vaccine is a likely enough cause to file with VAERS, but your main issue is that the procedure around the reporting seemed incompetent? I'm actually not sure what you are asking me here. Could you clarify? The report made to VAERS was suggested and done by my cardiologists on my behalf, with my consent. I provided my anecdote here to relate my experience with possible/rare COVID vaccine-related complications and the reporting thereof. > With regards to the heart attack, probably just base rate fallacy. ostensibly healthy people have heart attacks at a surprisingly high rate (and it's also something easy to detect). Probably, but my point is that my experience with the competence and extreme skepticism of the folks of VAERS with whom I interacted also lead me to suspect that events are being under-reported. Also, my understanding is that my presentation is quite rare: 100% major blockage with no risk factors and no heart disease as observed by catheter. Could you cite the literature behind your statement? I am genuinely interested. > With regards to VAERS, I can imagine that they get an absurdly high number of prank calls and so they have to warn people not to break the law. I imagine that this is the case, but it doesn't change the fact that it may lead to under-reporting.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    I think it's already well understood that VAERS is a combination of udner-reporting and over-reporting, as well as nearly every other sin of self-reported medical symptoms. They already have to deal with an overwhelming level of denial of service attacks. ANd it's a political football. Those things help explain your experience. What I am having trouble understanding is how the cardiologist quite reached the point that it made sense to report this as a potential adverse event when it's more likely explained by base rate fallacy. They are the doctor, they may get to make that call, but it just seems like there's no correlation between the two events and self-reporting it would just add even more noise to a very noisy metric. VAERS doesn't exist to detect ultra-rate events, or if it did, that ship sailed long ago when anti-vax got weaponized.
    - throwaway_58456 5y ago
      > What I am having trouble understanding is how the cardiologist quite reached the point that it made sense to report this as a potential adverse event when it's more likely explained by base rate fallacy. Could you cite literature about the base rate to which you are referring? I have not encountered it. Most of what I see describes cases in which people don't have risk factors and have a heart attack, after which they discover significant heart disease (of which I have virtually none). Please pass it along, as I would like to learn more about cases like mine. Regarding reporting, quoting https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html: "Healthcare providers are strongly encouraged to report to VAERS: - Any adverse event that occurs after the administration of a vaccine licensed in the United States, whether it is or is not clear that a vaccine caused the adverse event. - ..." "Healthcare providers who administer COVID-19 vaccines are required by law to report the following to VAERS: - A life-threatening AE - Inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization - A persistent or significant incapacity or substantial disruption of the ability to conduct normal life functions - ..." I think my case meets these standards easily. Again, I'm not terribly surprised by any of this (except the skepticism leveled at my distinguished cardiologist). I just wanted to share an anecdote about my personal experience with vaccination and reporting to give some color to the discussion.

dekhn 5y ago

you're saying you had a heart attack 3 weeks after your vaccine shot, ... somehow because you are in good health the vaccine is a likely enough cause to file with VAERS, but your main issue is that the procedure around the reporting seemed incompetent? With regards to the heart attack, probably just base rate fallacy. ostensibly healthy people have heart attacks at a surprisingly high rate (and it's also something easy to detect). With regards to VAERS, I can imagine that they get an absurdly high number of prank calls and so they have to warn people not to break the law.

throwaway_58456 5y ago
> somehow because you are in good health the vaccine is a likely enough cause to file with VAERS, but your main issue is that the procedure around the reporting seemed incompetent? I'm actually not sure what you are asking me here. Could you clarify? The report made to VAERS was suggested and done by my cardiologists on my behalf, with my consent. I provided my anecdote here to relate my experience with possible/rare COVID vaccine-related complications and the reporting thereof. > With regards to the heart attack, probably just base rate fallacy. ostensibly healthy people have heart attacks at a surprisingly high rate (and it's also something easy to detect). Probably, but my point is that my experience with the competence and extreme skepticism of the folks of VAERS with whom I interacted also lead me to suspect that events are being under-reported. Also, my understanding is that my presentation is quite rare: 100% major blockage with no risk factors and no heart disease as observed by catheter. Could you cite the literature behind your statement? I am genuinely interested. > With regards to VAERS, I can imagine that they get an absurdly high number of prank calls and so they have to warn people not to break the law. I imagine that this is the case, but it doesn't change the fact that it may lead to under-reporting.
- dekhn 5y ago
  I think it's already well understood that VAERS is a combination of udner-reporting and over-reporting, as well as nearly every other sin of self-reported medical symptoms. They already have to deal with an overwhelming level of denial of service attacks. ANd it's a political football. Those things help explain your experience. What I am having trouble understanding is how the cardiologist quite reached the point that it made sense to report this as a potential adverse event when it's more likely explained by base rate fallacy. They are the doctor, they may get to make that call, but it just seems like there's no correlation between the two events and self-reporting it would just add even more noise to a very noisy metric. VAERS doesn't exist to detect ultra-rate events, or if it did, that ship sailed long ago when anti-vax got weaponized.
  - throwaway_58456 5y ago
    > What I am having trouble understanding is how the cardiologist quite reached the point that it made sense to report this as a potential adverse event when it's more likely explained by base rate fallacy. Could you cite literature about the base rate to which you are referring? I have not encountered it. Most of what I see describes cases in which people don't have risk factors and have a heart attack, after which they discover significant heart disease (of which I have virtually none). Please pass it along, as I would like to learn more about cases like mine. Regarding reporting, quoting https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html: "Healthcare providers are strongly encouraged to report to VAERS: - Any adverse event that occurs after the administration of a vaccine licensed in the United States, whether it is or is not clear that a vaccine caused the adverse event. - ..." "Healthcare providers who administer COVID-19 vaccines are required by law to report the following to VAERS: - A life-threatening AE - Inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization - A persistent or significant incapacity or substantial disruption of the ability to conduct normal life functions - ..." I think my case meets these standards easily. Again, I'm not terribly surprised by any of this (except the skepticism leveled at my distinguished cardiologist). I just wanted to share an anecdote about my personal experience with vaccination and reporting to give some color to the discussion.