The United States Food and Drug Administration has launched a broad investigation into deaths that may be linked to COVID-19 vaccines, according to a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department under President Donald Trump.
This confirmation follows the controversial appointment of vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health Secretary, a move that has signaled a major shift in the administration’s approach to public health policy and vaccine oversight.
Andrew Nixon, the spokesperson for Kennedy’s department, stated that the FDA is carrying out a “thorough investigation, across multiple age groups, of deaths potentially related to COVID vaccines.” The existence of this probe was first reported by major news outlets, including Bloomberg and The Washington Post, before receiving official acknowledgment from the administration.
The review gained significant attention and became highly controversial after an internal FDA document was leaked in late November. The memo, attributed to a senior agency official, claimed without providing supporting evidence that COVID vaccines were linked to at least 10 infant deaths. This allegation intensified debate around the probe, which was initially expected to focus primarily on possible child fatalities.
The spokesperson declined to provide specific details about the investigation’s methodology, the data sources being examined, or a timeline for when findings might be made public. This lack of transparency has contributed to uncertainty surrounding the scope and nature of the review.
The FDA’s new direction under the leadership of Health Secretary Kennedy has raised substantial concerns within the medical and scientific community. Kennedy has a long public history of promoting vaccine-related misinformation and conspiracy theories, including baseless claims in 2023 that described the vaccines as “deadly” and alleged the virus was ethnically targeted.
Health authorities worldwide have consistently affirmed that COVID-19 vaccines have undergone extensive safety and efficacy studies, with the benefits of vaccination far outweighing the risks of rare severe side effects for the vast majority of people.
