FDA: COVID vaccines killed children

The memo that changes everything

On Friday 29 November 2025, Dr Vinay Prasad, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (the FDA’s vaccine division), sent all his teams a three-page document that will go down in the annals of American public health.

“This is a profound revelation,” he writes bluntly. “For the first time, the US FDA will acknowledge that Covid‑19 vaccines have killed American children.”

The sentence is unequivocal. No conditional, no nuance: COVID vaccines killed children.

According to the document obtained by the New York Times and published on 28 November, a recent internal review established that at least ten paediatric deaths are directly linked to mRNA vaccines, most of them from myocarditis occurring in the days following the injection. Prasad promises that “the detailed data will be published in the coming weeks”.

Four years of official denial

The contrast with the official statements of 2021‑2024 is striking.

For four years, the FDA, the CDC and all the federal agencies hammered home the same message: “no child deaths have been caused by COVID vaccines” and the benefit‑risk ratio remains “extremely favourable” even among under‑18s. Any suggestion to the contrary was immediately labelled “disinformation” and censored on social media.

Thousands of parents who reported serious side effects, doctors who questioned the merits of paediatric vaccination, researchers who pointed to worrying signals in the databases – all were ignored, marginalised or attacked.

This memo definitively buries that line of communication. The acknowledgement comes from inside the system itself, from the country’s most senior vaccine official.

A new FDA

The timing and context are essential to understanding this announcement.

Vinay Prasad was appointed in May 2025 after the forced resignation of his predecessor Peter Marks in March. Marks had left office following a direct dispute with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose appointment had been confirmed in February 2025 – almost ten months ago now.

RFK Jr., who fought for years to obtain transparency on the side effects of COVID vaccines, immediately reshared the New York Times article on X with a simple but powerful comment: “The truth is finally coming out.”

For those who have followed his fight since 2021, this moment represents a vindication. What Kennedy denounced as a dangerous lack of transparency is now acknowledged at the highest level of the FDA itself.

The New York Times, true to its editorial line, presents this announcement as “the Trump administration casting more doubt on vaccine safety”. But for those who have questioned the official narrative, it is the truth finally emerging.

Structural reforms announced

Prasad’s memo does not stop at an observation. It announces a complete and immediate overhaul of the rules for authorising vaccines:

• Mandatory randomised trials for all subgroups, including children and pregnant women – gone are the days when adult data were simply extrapolated
• Strengthened post‑marketing surveillance – an implicit admission that the current system failed to detect these deaths
• Abandonment of mere antibody measurement as an efficacy criterion – a return to real clinical criteria (hospitalisations, deaths)

The document even ends on a clear note to staff: those who do not feel in tune with this new direction of transparency are invited to “explore other professional opportunities”.

It is a revolution within the agency.

The predictable reactions of the establishment

The reactions were not long in coming, and they are revealing.

The American Academy of Pediatrics immediately denounced the announcement as “premature and irresponsible”. Peter Marks, the ousted former director, said he was “deeply concerned” about the risk of “destroying vaccine confidence”.

Note the priority: not “finding the truth about these deaths”, not “protecting children”, but “preserving vaccine confidence”. Communication takes precedence over safety.

Vinay Prasad replied soberly on X: “Full transparency is our goal. The data are coming.”

What the VAERS data had long been revealing

For those who have followed the issue from the start, this official acknowledgement of ten deaths is no surprise – it is a belated confirmation of signals that have been present for years.

An independent analysis published in June 2024 by Children’s Health Defense^[2] had already highlighted the scale of the problem. Analyst Albert Benavides, by manually examining VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) reports, had identified systematic manipulation of the data.

The official figures: 197 child deaths (ages 0‑17) following COVID vaccination as of 31 May 2024.

The reality in the reports: some 418 documented cases among under‑18s, plus around a hundred more where the descriptions explicitly mention “children, infants or babies” despite an age listed as “unknown”.

The real total: nearly 538 reported deaths, with up to 30% of COVID reports masked by empty or deleted age fields – despite clear details in the narrative summaries.

Concrete examples illustrate this point:

• A 13‑year‑old boy, “always healthy”, who died of myocarditis
• A 16‑year‑old with an “abnormally large” heart
• A 5‑year‑old child who suffered cardiac arrest three days after the injection

Benavides asks the uncomfortable question: “If the age is correctly documented in the report summary, why not update it ethically?”

To minimise warning signals and maintain the “safe and effective” narrative?

Massive underreporting in VAERS

And these 538 deaths probably represent only a fraction of the real problem.

Chronic underreporting in VAERS has been documented for years. A 2011 Harvard report estimated that fewer than 1% of actual adverse events are actually reported to the system.

If this correction factor is applied – and it is a conservative calculation – the 538 reported deaths could reflect tens of thousands of actual cases.

Of course, not all deaths reported to VAERS are necessarily caused by the vaccine. The system records temporal correlations, not automatically causal links. That is precisely why thorough investigations with autopsies are necessary.

But that is exactly what has never been done systematically. And that is what Children’s Health Defense is calling for: an urgent independent investigation, including autopsies for all suspected cases and an overhaul of the VAERS process to prevent reports from “disappearing”.

-6 to 8% for Pfizer and Moderna

While awaiting the detailed data promised by Prasad, the effects of this acknowledgement are already tangible:

• Suspension of any new COVID vaccine recommendation for children – the CDC will issue no further paediatric guidance until the review is complete
• Freeze on paediatric options in 2026 federal contracts – government orders now exclude children’s doses
• Immediate stock market drop: -6 to 8% for Pfizer and Moderna as soon as the markets opened on Monday morning
• Senate hearing convened for January under the aegis of Senator Ron Johnson, who has been leading investigations into side effects since 2021

The market reacts instantly because investors understand what is at stake: if the FDA officially acknowledges paediatric deaths, legal liability becomes an explosive issue. The legal immunity granted to manufacturers could be called into question.

The questions that remain open

Prasad’s memo, as reported by the New York Times, does not provide all the details many would like to see:

• The precise age of the ten children concerned
• Their possible pre-existing health problems
• The exact methodology used to establish the causal link
• The specific manufacturers involved (Pfizer or Moderna)
• The period over which these deaths occurred

The Times also notes that these conclusions have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Prasad promises that the “detailed data will be published in the coming weeks”.

It is a legitimate criticism: full transparency requires complete publication of the data, with the methodology, to allow independent verification.

But let us be clear: this “peer review” requirement was never applied so rigorously to justify paediatric vaccination in the first place. Emergency authorisations for children were based on limited trials, extrapolations and models – not on solid clinical evidence of net benefit in this age group at almost zero risk of severe COVID.

Why this acknowledgement now?

The question deserves to be asked: why is the FDA acknowledging these deaths now, after four years of denial?

Several factors combine:

1. A change in political leadership: With RFK Jr. as Health Secretary and Vinay Prasad heading vaccines, the FDA can no longer sweep the signals under the carpet. Political pressure for transparency has become irresistible.

2. The accumulation of evidence: VAERS signals, international studies on myocarditis, doctors’ testimonies – everything converges. Ignoring the problem was becoming untenable.

3. The end of the emergency: The pandemic is over, natural immunity is widespread, the variants have become benign. The political cost of the admission is now lower than that of maintaining the lie.

4. Legal protection: By acknowledging the problem now, the FDA can try to limit its future liability. “We acted as soon as we knew” will be the defence.

What this means for families

For the thousands of families who lost a child after COVID vaccination and who for years ran up against the indifference or denial of the authorities, this acknowledgement comes too late – but it comes.

Too late for the children who died. Too late for the parents who were called “conspiracy theorists” when they recounted what had happened to their son or daughter. Too late for the doctors struck off or censored for daring to report side effects.

But not too late to:

• Finally obtain official recognition of their tragedy
• Demand accountability and redress
• Prevent other children from suffering the same fate
• Restore a surveillance system that has clearly failed

The taboo is broken

For four years, saying that COVID vaccines had killed children automatically put you in the “dangerous conspiracy theorist” category,

Accounts were suspended, articles deleted, doctors sanctioned.

Today, it is the director of the FDA’s vaccine division himself who writes it in black and white: “Covid‑19 vaccines have killed American children.”

The taboo is broken. And it will never again be possible to say “it never happened”.

What remains now is to obtain full transparency on the real scale of the problem, to investigate all suspected cases, and to establish the responsibility of those who concealed this information for four years.

As RFK Jr. wrote: “The truth is finally coming out.”

Marcan for BAM!

[1] F.D.A. Seeks More Oversight of Vaccine Trials and Approvals - The New York Times

[2] Number of Children Who Died After COVID Shots Much Higher Than VAERS Reports Indicate, Analyst Says