Vaccines Can Cause Injury and Death. Scientific Fact, Not Disinformation.

In a prepared statement released on Aug. 12, 2025, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Local 2883, urged the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to provide a “clear and unequivocal stance in condemning vaccine disinformation.”^{1 2 3} The union, which represents CDC workers, said:

Their leadership is critical in reinforcing public trust and ensuring that accurate, science-based information prevails.^{1 2 3}

It’s unclear what exactly the union means by “vaccine disinformation,” although it likely has something to do with the growing public concern, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, that vaccines may not be as safe as previously thought, and that they can, in fact, cause serious injury and death. This concern over vaccine safety is regularly expressed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and other government health authorities, including Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Marty Makary, MD, MPH and Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD.^{1 2 3 4}

Somehow, even just mentioning the possibility that a vaccine can cause any number of adverse reactions that can lead to the onset of diseases, severe illnesses, and other chronic health conditions has been labeled as vaccine disinformation or misinformation. But this characterization is not based on science. To the contrary, there have been many studies published in medical journals highlighting a wide range of health problems associated with vaccines, especially the COVID shots during the past few years.^{5 6}

Many Severe Adverse Reactions to the COVID Shots

The media has reported on numerous studies linking the COVID shots to heart attacks and strokes due to inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis) and inflammation of the heart membrane (pericarditis), damage to the eyes, cancer, and blood clotting (cortical sinus venous thrombosis) and immune disorders.^{7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17}

Additionally, there have been several studies highlighting neurological disorders following COVID vaccination—disorders resulting in paralysis such as Bell’s palsy, transverse myelitis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), and even Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The most common neurological adverse reaction is headache, mild to severe.^{18 19 20 21 22}

In a study published in the European Journal of Medical Research in 2023, Roya Hosseini and Nayere Askara wrote:

The first and most common systemic side effect of COVID-19 vaccines is headache, which is mild to severe and is felt in the frontal area of the head. Post-vaccination headaches can be caused by stress, vascular spasm, and intracerebral or subarachnoid hemorrhage. Vaccines based on mRNA and adenovirus have been reported to be most likely to cause headaches.²²

There have also been studies on cases of psychiatric adverse reactions occurring after receipt of COVID shots, including altered mental states, psychosis, mania, depression, and functional neurological disorder.^{23 24 25 26 27} In an article in The Vaccine Reaction in 2022, Rishma Parpia wrote:

Recent case studies published in the medical literature reveal that patients, who had no personal or family history of mental illness, also developed psychotic disorders following mRNA COVID shots. Although these reports give evidence for a correlation, researchers have expressed concern about asserting a causal association between the shots and psychotic disorders and are calling for further studies to be conducted.²⁸

Studies published in the journals Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health, and Vaccines (Basel) concluded that central nervous system complications can arise from COVID-19 vaccination” and that the most common or persistent manifestation of these complications is a “constant headache” along with myalgia (muscle pain, often in the neck and back).^{29 30 31}

The COVID Shots and Suicidal Thoughts

Then there are the more isolated cases of individuals developing suicidal thoughts following COVID vaccination and long bouts of depression. In one case study published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, a 72-year-old woman who had no history of a psychiatric disorder, attempted suicide after developing serious side effects to China’s CoronaVac vaccine. According to the case study:

The patient had depressive mood, loss of joy, anhedonia, fatigue, psychomotor retardation, feeling of worthlessness and recurrent suicidal thoughts nearly every day for a two-month period. She received the first dose of CoronaVac vaccination on the 24th of February in 2021. After the first injection she developed nausea, vomiting, dizziness, fatigue and hypertension. … Because of these symptoms, she was scared to get the second dose of vaccine. Fatigue, and other depressive symptoms increased and got worsened and she made superficial cuts with kitchen knife on the dorsal faces of both her ankles and wrists five days prior to suicide attempt.³²

Documented cases of direct association between COVID shots and suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts are hard to find. But it’s reasonable to speculate about the possible indirect association between them, given the links between psychiatric disorders such as psychosis and depression and suicide. A 2020 study in the journal Psychiatry Research found that 80 percent of “depressed individuals report suicidal thoughts.”^{33 34 35}

Perhaps even more reasonable to consider is the possible indirect association between the COVID shots and suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts, given the relationship between chronic headaches and suicide. A major cohort study published in the journal JAMA Neurology earlier this year concluded that “attempted and completed suicide was elevated among persons diagnosed with migraine, tension-type headache, trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias, and posttraumatic headache disorder.”³⁶

“We don‘t exactly know why there’s an association between headaches and suicide, but our research lays the groundwork for future work into the complicated relationship between headaches and other psychiatric disorders,” said Holly Elser, MD, PhD, MPH, the lead researcher on the study. “Bad headaches can lead to feelings of hopelessness or demoralization, or worse, as we have found.”³⁷

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