Quantifying "crazy" VAERS reports

Any idiot can dismiss VAERS entirely by pointing to the "crazy" reports, and some idiots actually do

One of my first articles talked about how you can calculate a Machine Learning based “medical jargon” score for the narrative text using spaCy’s biomedical NER models.

I refer to this medical jargon score as ENTITY_SCORE in the rest of this article. In my view, you can use this score as a proxy for checking if it is a fake/prank report.

Anyone can fill out a VAERS report

It is not a good idea to file prank reports to VAERS and is apparently a felony.

Pranksters are taking great risks to prank to joke in that it considered a felony to file a false report aka "federal crime". More over if you've ever filed a report you will quickly notice they want to know everything about the submitter just short of your ss#. Your address, tel#, relationship to patient, at the very least they have would also have an IP address to the submitter? 2) They have a very reasonable and comfortable "up to" 4-6wks to authenticate and request additional info if needed, before finalizing and publishing report. 

From a previous comment

But let us say there are still some very determined folks who will figure out a way to slip one through.

Recently I saw this video by the famous “fact checker” Dr Susan Oliver.

Do these crazy VAERS reports actually matter for the discussion?

First of all, let me be clear that I do think there are many crazy VAERS reports.

But there are also 100X non-crazy VAERS reports, and most of them for COVID19 vaccines.

So why do people even bring up the “crazy” VAERS reports?

In the video, the section about the “crazy” VAERS reports starts at 7:10 and goes on for 2:45 seconds, which is nearly 20% of the video’s duration. Also, it comes before the discussion about the actual science.

Based on this, I hope you agree that Dr Susan Oliver thinks these crazy VAERS reports is somehow representative of VAERS itself. Surely she is not so stupid as to dedicate an entire 20% of a video discussing these crazy VAERS reports otherwise?

NER analysis of the foreign dataset

As you might be aware, the narrative text of the EU and UK VAERS reports were recently deleted by the CDC.

Normally people might think this is a bit suspicious, but let us give the CDC the benefit of the doubt and accept that the real reason these reports were deleted was over “privacy concerns”.

So I got a copy of the last available dataset which still had the narrative text (I believe this is mid-Nov 2022) from another VAERS analyst.

In this article, I will be doing a “jargon score” analysis for this narrative text. And you don’t have to take my word for it that I did it correctly.

For every single VAERS report I include in this list, I provide a link to the full report on the VAERS Wayback machine so you can verify that the NER score I have calculated is accurate.

Also, UK is not even part of the EU anymore, so there is no reason to remove their data from VAERS!

How many “crazy” VAERS reports are there?

Thankfully, Dr Susan Oliver’s crack team of internet sleuths went the extra mile by also providing a list of crazy VAERS reports. It was provided in the description of the YouTube video.

You can check out the list here.

At first, I expected to see a document with thousands or maybe tens of thousands of “crazy” VAERS reports.

After all, the total number of death reports for COVID19 vaccines looks like this:

Source

But the total number of “crazy” VAERS reports in that document is only 306.

That’s right. They could still find only 306. If RFK Jr. sent his anti-vaxxer army to file one “crazy” VAERS report per day since vaccine rollout, we should have at least double that number by now, isn’t it?

So I did the NER analysis on the crazy list.

Since the people who created the list could not be bothered to add the entire text of the writeup, I wrote a script to download that information and also add it as one of the columns.

And this is the result:

List of crazy VAERS reports annotated with the entity score

It gets more interesting.

The total number of crazy VAERS reports with an ENTITY_SCORE of more than 10 for the Snippet provided by Susan Oliver’s team is actually zero.

But that isn’t a fair comparison, given that for the non-crazy reports I use the full writeup to calculate the ENTITY_SCORE.

So a more reasonable comparison is to see the reports where the full writeup (the SYMPTOM_TEXT field) has an ENTITY_SCORE >=10

Only 15 such reports from the original 306 make the cut.

Interestingly, I would say this proves that the ENTITY_SCORE is actually a pretty good automated way to see if a VAERS report is not a prank.

Rants are not “crazy” reports

Let us focus on the 15 reports from the crazy list which have an ENTITY_SCORE of 10 or higher.

You can read some of these reports and ask yourself if it looks like a prank. I think the SNIPPET column is just taking some emotional sentences and using that to mislead people.

Here are a few of them (I took the ones with the highest VAERS_ID values because they are the most recent)

rom: To: Cc: Subject: Patient Concerns Date: May 29, 2021 6:42 PM Dear Sir/Madam, I would have liked to include her in this message but am not in possession of her official email address. To recap the encounter on April 29, 2021 : I went with my friend to the clinic,where we spent 12 most frustrating hours I expressedly told the staff with my friend present, that I have been an extremely healthy individual, who has never seen a doctor,/ER/hospital in over 40+ years. I am happy to give you my previous employers contact info to verify that I never missed a day`s work. I told the staff I suddenly fell very ill 2 days ago 2-3 weeks after my 2nd CVID 19 vaccination. with sudden massive bilateral leg edema up to the groin and extensive lower leg blood staining and mottling of my skin. The attending dr just called it Pedal Edema. He was not interested in my history (present and past), no examination, had to remove no clothes. My friend and later neighbors in the community where flabbergasted that he did not see the state of my legs. Obvious other symptoms such as abdominopelvic ascites was also present. Further tests were done and inexplicably suddenly pulmonary atelectasis and cirrhosis of the liver become important. Could that really make me so sick in two days? Absolutely incomprehensible. there was an avalanche/cascade of blood destruction with destruction of RBCs, hemolysis, loss of platelets, obvious very high total bilirubin, hypoalbuminemia and ascites. My bed sheets still show numerous blood stains where I bled from many of the skin lesions and scabs Those were all results due to one common denominator:: reaction to COVID vaccination. Forget about pulm atelectasis or liver cirrhosis making me so sick in 2 days i AM INTERESTED TO SEE YOUR EXPLANATION A quick comment for her and her comment about compassion, She is probably unaware, that are quite a few nations in this world, where medical colleagues do not charge their colleagues/family and the pastor/family of their church, I lived/worked for a for a few years in another country. One night I was called to drive into one of the park''s camps to attend to a colleagues wife who had an incomplete miscarriage and bleeding, This was quite a drive through the night back to the hospital, doing a D&C and the couple could happily continue their journey that afternoon. No charge by the hospital or me. That is compassion. Dr.

Report

Another one:

Five days 18 hours after receiving the Janssen vaccine shot, I awoke with an unusual and very painful headache. Having only been asleep for about two hours, I didn''t want to get up and tried to rearrange myself for relief. Getting slight relief, I did fall asleep again after moving around and drinking water over about an hour. I awoke two hours later (about 10:00 AM) with almost unbearable head pain throughout my head, not localized to one area. I drove to fast food restaurant, having a difficult time driving due to pain, and got a half-sweet tea. Tea, having caffeine and some sugar, can often relieve a headache. It didn''t offer the relief I expected and about 30 minutes later, I vomited up the tea. I was at that same time ordering a sandwich and detox smoothie, thinking the detox smoothie may help. It seemed to after a couple more hours, but I continued to feel like the headache was still barely there and waiting to return. I ate very well and clean all day, but even late in the evening, I cod feel remnants of a headache. The next morning, 4/12, I awoke again with that same horrible headache, but maybe just slightly less excruciating than the day before. I did not vomit. After a few hours of eating, drinking water, and taking aspirin with Tylenol, the headache subsided.

Report

Another one:

SIDE EFFECTS FROM Pfizer- April 5, 2021, Lightheaded, equal Librium issues from top of stair, I?d fall going downstairs like my muscles would give out or I couldn?t control their movement or lose balance, black outs, fatigue, seeing stars as if I was dehydrated. Muscle tightness in my back, legs, buttocks to the point they would lock up, stop working and the pain would be unbearable walking 10? to 15? (I was up to ? mile walking prior to this) without any notice and I could not move, I would have to wait 15-20 minutes before I could move or just crawl in pain. Spasms throughout my body I cannot control, previous migraines are more frequent, severe, and so debilitating I would stay in bed up to 6 hours with ice on my neck in pure darkness. My dog would have to poop and pee in the house if my neighbor wasn?t home. This is continuing to this day. More in my hips now than other joints but the muscle tightness continues. The only thing that has gone less frequent to less than once a month is spasms have dissipated (July 2021) in time. At the end of July, 2021, Soft tissue damaged areas on my head started from a motorcycle accident from 2008, became so tender to the touch it was impossible to take a shower, my hygiene is suffering which puts my health in danger. The water touching my head would bring me to tears, I went from showering every day to once a week. I stopped going to the chiropractor because it hurts to be touched. I cannot lay down or sit more than a few minutes at a time, I use Lidocaine mixed with CBD balm all over my body and scalp. Memory fog, forgetfulness, confusion, double vision, major hair loss, bumps on my skin, tender stomach, shortness of breath without humidity and inside with air conditioner on (very rare for me), legs show signs of swelling, tingling, continual extreme numbness in my extremities, I?ve broken all my coffee cups, I?ve tried to get up and have fallen because I didn?t realize my legs were numb after sleeping or sitting. All my joints, bottom of my feet, heels neck shoulders. After going to the bathroom, I?m washing my hands, and if I don?t sit back down on the toilet, I will pee myself immediately. These side effects started around mid- May 2021 and have not gone away and stabbing chest pain on the left shoulder/neck area kinda like cardio spasms around my heart that go away after 15-30 second but excruciating pain happening 2-3 within a week waking me up I started Online Virtual classes in December 2020, one on one weekly courses with a therapist/case manager and weekly group courses , and completed them in June 2021. I elected to Virtual classes due to cancelled bed dates since beginning of 2019 due to COVID. I felt like a new person ready to start ?living for the first time? and get out and into a place with no humidity. Better for my health was my concern. It took watching the news once with massive destruction going on, children being killed by drive by shootings, fires destroying buildings and businesses I once visited, places I?ve where with my sister worked as a hair stylist, and brother used to live when we talked. So much hate, what happened to the world while I was fixing myself to be mentally healthier and vaccinated to be able to rejoin the community again? Since July 2021, I feel like something inside me snapped, broke ? the media coverage, the center misleading or changing COVID reports, leader doing nothing to stop the racism/hate damage control and deaths, has taken away all my hard work away from me! The misunderstanding of COVID, the vaccine side effects has scared to into believing I cannot leave my home, or I will die.

Report

This happened within a day of vaccination:

Vertigo, body aches, headache first 2-3 days. Then a few days later major fatigue set in, chest pain, mouth breaking out in canker sores randomly, broke out in hives, rashes on my legs and arms, skin hurts to touch, dizzy, loss of balance, difficulty sleeping, night sweats, blurred vision, double vision this is probably the worst of all the symptoms, I lost my taste for 5 weeks. I have taken anti-viral homeopathic drops because it really felt like I was getting the chickenpox or something...like a nerve pain burning. I have documentation how perfectly healthy I was before this and now I am not.

Report

While clearly some people just rant incoherently in their VAERS reports, nothing in these reports discounts the possibility that the issue is vaccine related. And a rant is not the same as a prank report.

You can read the condensed summary in the SNIPPET field for each of these and decide for yourself if the VAERS report itself is crazy.

How many non-crazy reports are there?

My original goal was to come up with a list of 306 x 100 = 30600 non-crazy reports. There are a total of 550,000 foreign VAERS reports related to the COVID19 vaccine. Since my Python script is a bit time consuming, I ran my script on a subset of 120,000 foreign VAERS reports.

And it gave me 29,955 reports with an ENTITY_SCORE >=10.

Close enough I guess.

Here is the list of 29955 non-crazy reports with ENTITY_SCORE >= 10

As you can see, none of them is a “crazy” report. I think VAERS reports are taken a bit more seriously outside the US, so you don’t see the rants either. They are usually quite professional.

Given that I was able to generate nearly 30K non-crazy reports from a original, randomly selected list of 120K reports, that suggests about 25% of foreign reports have a pretty high entity score.

“But there could be many more crazy reports!”

Maybe.

In that case, the onus is on the accusers to find these “crazy” reports, not on me to prove otherwise.

Unless proven otherwise, and given that filing fake VAERS reports is a felony, we will suppose they are authentic VAERS reports.

“But this does not prove causation…”

I agree that this does not prove causation.

There are about 550K foreign reports related to COVID19 vaccines. If 25% of them are not pranks, that is more than 100K reports which need to be analyzed.

But at least you will agree that talking about “crazy” VAERS reports is not moving the discussion forward?

What is the significance of the jargon score with respect to the actual adverse reaction?

To be fair, I don’t know this yet. I believe the more jargon you have, the more serious the adverse reaction. But I haven’t done this analysis yet.

Besides, the model I have used which is called en_ner_bc5cdr_md is not customized for VAERS reports.

nlp_medical = spacy.load("en_ner_bc5cdr_md")

Building a spaCy model customized for extracting VAERS information could be a pretty big research topic all by itself, but I am not sure the Pharma companies will be too keen to sponsor such work :-)

But still, I think it is a very useful filter for identifying genuine VAERS reports. It will still produce some false positives, but it also reduces the overall workload by providing a shortcut to identify them.

Can we infer anything else from the narrative text?

I think we can, which is why it is very concerning that the data is not publicly accessible anymore.

For example, there were 44000 reports (in the foreign data set) which confimed that the patient had not tested positive for COVID19. This tells us that the COVID19 infection could not have caused the reported adverse reaction.

"Patient has not tested positive for COVID-19 since having the vaccine"

And another 28000 reports where someone vetted the report and concluded that the vaccine cannot be excluded as the cause of the adverse reaction. These are reports which need to be investigated thoroughly.

"The causal relationship between BNT162B2 and the events cannot be excluded"

In other words, I would like to see a lot more data transparency.

And if someone dismisses VAERS based on the story of the “Incredible Hulk”, that means their viewpoint should not be taken seriously.