Data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the number of injuries and deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID vaccines showed 38,444 reports of adverse events since Dec. 14, 2020.

On March 8, The Defender contacted the CDC with questions about how the agency is investigating reports of deaths and injuries after COVID vaccines. We provided a written list of questions asking the status of investigations on deaths reported in the media, if autopsies are being done, the standard for determining whether an injury is causally connected to a vaccine and the known issues with VAERS — namely whether healthcare providers are reporting all injuries and deaths that might be connected to the COVID vaccine, and what education initiatives are in place to encourage and facilitate proper and accurate reporting. We asked for a reply within two days.

As of today, 11 days later, the CDC has not answered our questions. Instead, when we call them, they respond saying, “they have received our email, they will escalate it and it is in the system.” When we asked if we could speak with the person reviewing the email, we were told that information could not be provided. When we emailed them to follow up, we received no response.

Every Friday, VAERS makes public all vaccine injury reports received by the system as of Friday of the previous week. The 38,444 adverse events reported between Dec. 14, 2020, and March 11 include 1,739 deaths and 6,286 serious injuries.

This week’s data included reports of 478 cases of Bell’s Palsy. Of those, 66% of cases were reported after Pfizer-BioNTech vaccinations — almost twice as many as reported (36%) following vaccination with the Moderna vaccine.

The first Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID vaccine was administered in the U.S. on March 2. As of March 11, nine anaphylactic reactions associated with J&J’s vaccine had been reported to VAERS. As The Defender reported earlier this month, the J&J vaccine contains polysorbate 80, known to trigger allergic reactions, The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines contain polyethylene glycol (PEG), also known to trigger anaphylactic reactions.

In the U.S., 98.2 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of March 11.