That said, I'm not sure either of those sources can rule out that the VAERS data here is a signal of real harm. That's because the signal here is very small. There are about 4 million births in the US, per year. The graph you posted said that 3,500 miscarriages were reported in VAERS in 2021. Only about half of VAERS reports are actually US data, the rest are foreign. So, maybe that's less than 2,000 miscarriages in the US.
Even if all those miscarriages were really caused by the vaccine, the rate would still be very low -- on the order of 1 in 2,000. Or likely a bit higher since not all pregnant women got vaccinated, or did so during the first trimester.
The natural rate of miscarriage is about 15%. So we're talking something like 700,000 miscarriages in a normal year. Adding 2,000 more is just going to look like noise in any population level data.
None of the vaccine trials had enough pregnant women to detect a 1 in 1,000 risk, or even a 1 in 100 risk.
And follow-up studies probably weren't large enough either (I think the largest one I've read followed 2,000 women).
We've only recently seen studies confirming that there's an elevated risk of developing dysautonomia (POTS) after a covid vaccine. The odds for that appear to be about 1 in 1,000. Patients have been complaining about that for 2 years now -- some develop symptoms resembling long covid after getting vaccinated.
There could be multiple reasons why VAERS reports surged in 2021. Heightened concern about the vaccines and heightened awareness of the reporting systems is definitely a big part of it. But it's also possible that the covid vaccines do cause more problems than other vaccines.
I wrote one blog post with some fertility data. I couldn't find a signal that the covid vaccines caused any decline in birth rates:
https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/are-covid-vaccines-causing-declining-birth-rates-f9a60c7c3f5a
Viki Male has a good FAQ with lots of studies showing that the vaccines are safe for women and don't effect fertility:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_wHIYX-tGkGBPwuax7N8BxZPR4PTTCDm/view
That said, I'm not sure either of those sources can rule out that the VAERS data here is a signal of real harm. That's because the signal here is very small. There are about 4 million births in the US, per year. The graph you posted said that 3,500 miscarriages were reported in VAERS in 2021. Only about half of VAERS reports are actually US data, the rest are foreign. So, maybe that's less than 2,000 miscarriages in the US.
Even if all those miscarriages were really caused by the vaccine, the rate would still be very low -- on the order of 1 in 2,000. Or likely a bit higher since not all pregnant women got vaccinated, or did so during the first trimester.
The natural rate of miscarriage is about 15%. So we're talking something like 700,000 miscarriages in a normal year. Adding 2,000 more is just going to look like noise in any population level data.
None of the vaccine trials had enough pregnant women to detect a 1 in 1,000 risk, or even a 1 in 100 risk.
And follow-up studies probably weren't large enough either (I think the largest one I've read followed 2,000 women).
We've only recently seen studies confirming that there's an elevated risk of developing dysautonomia (POTS) after a covid vaccine. The odds for that appear to be about 1 in 1,000. Patients have been complaining about that for 2 years now -- some develop symptoms resembling long covid after getting vaccinated.
There could be multiple reasons why VAERS reports surged in 2021. Heightened concern about the vaccines and heightened awareness of the reporting systems is definitely a big part of it. But it's also possible that the covid vaccines do cause more problems than other vaccines.