Jay Bhattacharya has faced a wave of criticism after reports he stopped publication of a CDC study said to show the “benefits” of COVID vaccination while overseeing the agency.

The paper had been slated for the CDC’s in-house journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

The reaction from public health figures and legacy media was immediate and largely one-sided, focusing on suppression rather than the evidence itself.

Now the study has been released.

Published exclusively on Inside Medicine, it reports a 50–55% reduction in COVID-related urgent care visits and hospitalisations — a figure already being used to reinforce claims about vaccine effectiveness.

But the central question has been largely sidestepped — is the study itself reliable?

Critics have not been deterred by the weak study design. If anything, they have doubled down and defended it.

What actually happened

Read more

Recently, I wrote about why the lipid hypothesis won’t die — how the cholesterol story keeps evolving, not by confronting uncertainty, but by shifting the goalposts.

It began with total cholesterol. Then LDL. Then came subfractions, ApoB and Lp(a) — and now, another contender has entered the frame: remnant cholesterol.

Each shift comes with the same promise that this is the missing piece, the explanation for the risk we still can’t account for.

Yet after decades of treatment with cholesterol-lowering drugs, cardiovascular events remain common, even when LDL is low — what’s often described as “residual risk.”

Remnant cholesterol is now being positioned as the explanation for that gap. Some have gone further, promoting it as the next major treatment target.

But our new study suggests it’s time to pause.

When you look at the evidence — not modelling or genetic analyses, but clinical trials where people take drugs and outcomes are measured — the story looks very different.

What is remnant cholesterol?

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Last year, I reported on Robi v Merck — a jury trial in the United States examining claims that Merck’s Gardasil HPV vaccine caused serious harm.

The trial began in January 2025. A jury was empanelled, witnesses were called, and expert evidence was tested in open court.

Then, after 17 days, the proceedings were abruptly adjourned.

Since then, the case has been repeatedly delayed.

Read more

In 2020, Dr Peterson was prescribed the benzodiazepine ‘clonazepam’ during a period of intense personal stress.

According to his family, the medication triggered a prolonged and debilitating reaction that left him with ongoing neurological symptoms.

In her latest update, his daughter says those symptoms have returned, despite him having been off the medication for years.

She describes episodes of akathisia—an extreme state of inner agitation—in stark terms: “the worst thing I’ve ever seen anyone go through… intolerable discomfort that makes people want to crawl out of their skin.”

She also recounts her own experience after stopping an SSRI antidepressant, saying the withdrawal lasted more than two years and left her, at times, unable to function.

Her account is confronting, but it is not unique. It reflects a pattern that has been described for decades and is often under-recognised.

The first time I heard about it

I first came across akathisia more than a decade ago while working on a documentary about antidepressants for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC TV).

I interviewed patients, as well as psychiatrists and researchers from around the world.

Many patients who had tried to reduce or stop their medications reported a cluster of symptoms—marked agitation, insomnia, and anxiety—that did not fit a straightforward relapse of their original condition.

In one conversation, a patient described the sensation as “unbearable,” saying she felt an urge to jump out of her skin and that it induced suicidal thoughts. The account was consistent with what others reported.

The documentary was researched for months, interviews were completed, and scripts were written. It reached the final stages in the edit suite before being pulled at the last minute.

The network was concerned about the public’s reaction—specifically, that the program might lead some viewers to question their medication, or even stop it—despite repeated messaging that these drugs should not be stopped abruptly and require medical supervision.

That decision censored real patient experiences from the public—especially those that challenged prevailing clinical assumptions.

What is akathisia?

Akathisia is still often described in clinical settings as “restlessness.”

But that description fails to capture the reality of the patient experience.

It is a severe, whole-body state of inner agitation.

It has been described in medical journals as “an intense inner restlessness and a compelling need to be in constant motion,” often accompanied by marked distress and an inability to remain seated.

Case reports describe a feeling of terror, a persistent sense of dread, and an urgent need to escape one’s own body.

This is why akathisia has been associated with suicidal ideation—not necessarily driven by depression, but because the sensation becomes unbearable, and death is perceived as a means of escape.

In some cases, symptoms can persist—a pattern now described in the literature as benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction, or BIND, where neurological and psychological symptoms can continue for months or even years after the drug is stopped.

This has been described in cases like Peterson’s.

Akathisia is not limited to benzodiazepines.

It has long been recognised as a potential adverse effect of a range of psychotropic medications, including antidepressants and antipsychotics.

It is frequently described as ‘rare,’ but the volume and consistency of patient reports suggest it may be more common than often assumed.

Withdrawal and the problem of misdiagnosis

For many years, withdrawal from antidepressants was described as mild and short-lived. That position has begun to shift, particularly as more patients have remained on these medications for years.

Research now shows that withdrawal symptoms are common. More than half of people stopping antidepressants report some form of withdrawal, and a proportion describe those symptoms as severe.

The difficulty is that withdrawal symptoms—anxiety, agitation, insomnia, and despair—overlap with the conditions these drugs are prescribed to treat.

When a patient deteriorates after reducing a dose, the symptoms are often misinterpreted as relapse.

The medication is reinstated or increased, and the cycle continues.

Why tapering cannot be rushed

Patients are often advised to taper over a few weeks, but that is inadequate for many.

Mikhaila Peterson addresses this directly, saying: “If you have a doctor that suggests you wean off of a long-term psych med in two to four weeks — run.”

She argues that reductions need to be much slower and individualised to avoid severe withdrawal.

There is now ample evidence to support this approach.

Researchers such as Dr Mark Horowitz have shown that tapering, for some people, may need to follow a hyperbolic pattern—smaller and smaller reductions as the dose decreases—because of the way these drugs interact with receptors in the brain.

In practice, this can mean tapering over many months or years.

Guidelines from NICE and some medical colleges now recognise that withdrawal can last months and that tapering must be individualised.

Suicidality

Antidepressants are commonly prescribed to treat conditions in which suicidal thoughts may occur.

But in placebo-controlled trials involving children and adolescents, SSRIs were associated with an increased risk of suicidal ideation—approximately 4% on the drug compared to 2% on the placebo.

That signal led to formal black box warnings from regulators.

In other words, in the very population where these drugs are often used to reduce suicide risk, the trials detected an increase in suicidal thinking during treatment.

Separate experimental work has shown that even healthy volunteers, with no psychiatric history, can develop agitation and suicidal thinking when exposed to these drugs.

These findings do not apply to every patient. But they suggest that in some individuals, these medications can produce the very symptoms they are meant to treat.

That reality is still not being communicated clearly.

The gap that remains

After years of reporting on this, it is evident that people are not routinely given clear information about what stopping these drugs may involve.

They are told about the benefits, but are not given meaningful details about withdrawal, akathisia, the need for slow tapering, or the possibility of persistent sexual dysfunction after the medication is discontinued.

That is a failure of informed consent.

The Peterson case has brought attention back to a problem that has never gone away.

Patients have been describing these experiences for years — often dismissed, often misdiagnosed, often left to navigate it alone.

As Dr Horowitz suggests, if a drug can induce physical dependence and withdrawal, then a plan for stopping it should be part of the prescription.

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Resources:

Inner Compass Initiative (ICI): theinnercompass.org

Prescribed harm: prescribed-harm.com

Antidepressant Coalition for Education: antidepressantinfo.org

MISSD (MISSD.co)

Taper Clinic: taperclinic.com

Brisbane ACT Centre: brisbaneactcentre.com.au/tapering/

Further reading:

Quitting antidepressants can be tricky

Starting a medication is easy...stopping it can be much harder

Antidepressants can cause ‘chemical castration’

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President Donald Trump has nominated Dr Erica Schwartz to lead the CDC, following a year of instability at the agency.

Schwartz brings strong credentials. A former deputy surgeon general, she has spent decades inside federal health agencies, including leadership roles during national emergencies.

Her nomination now heads to the Senate for confirmation.

Early reactions have been divided.

Former US surgeon general Jerome Adams welcomed the choice, calling Schwartz “a battle-tested leader” with a long record of public service—a response that mirrors the broader establishment reaction.

Others were sharply critical.

Attorney Aaron Siri, a close ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., argued the agency doesn’t need “another cheerleader for industry,” warning that her leadership would “likely be a disaster.”

These responses reflect two very different views of what the CDC should be—and what this appointment signals.

The CDC has been on a merry-go-round of acting directors, abrupt exits, and internal disagreements spilling into public view. Stability has been in short supply.

In that environment, the priority shifts to getting someone through the Senate and into the role.

That constraint has already been tested.

Read more

In this interview for Reality Check Radio (RCR), I speak with Retsef Levi, an MIT professor and former member of the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP), who also chaired its Covid-19 vaccine workgroup.

Levi looks back on the final phase of ACIP’s work before it was abruptly halted last month.

He says discussions within his Covid workgroup were wide-ranging, with “no suppression about any topic.”

But efforts to include vaccine injury within the workgroup’s remit met “strong objections” from CDC leadership, with lawyers drawn into a debate over whether it even fell within ACIP’s scope.

Levi is blunt about the health system itself, describing the way vaccine injuries are recognised and managed as “utterly broken,” with no clear diagnostic pathways and patients often left without answers.

In our conversation, I put the key questions to him — what was on the agenda for the cancelled meeting, how decisions were being shaped, and how he responds to claims the process was being constrained or influenced.

I also put to him a policy document prepared by the Covid workgroup — leaked to MD Reports — and ask him to respond to it.

Levi describes the internal dynamics of the committee, the role of workgroups, and the challenge of navigating risk, uncertainty, and public trust.

He also raises unresolved questions about DNA fragments in mRNA vaccines, saying regulators and manufacturers have failed to provide clear, basic data on what was tested and what was found.

More broadly, Levi addresses reports of child deaths caused by Covid vaccination — including data referenced by the FDA but not publicly released — and says it should be made available to the scientific community.

His account sits alongside other perspectives that have emerged in recent weeks, including from former vice-chair Robert Malone, who publicly criticised the government for not defending the credentials of those appointed to ACIP.

Levi says he understands Malone’s frustration, but takes a different view. He does not feel he needs the government to defend his credentials, adding that his track record speaks for itself.

For anyone trying to understand what was unfolding inside ACIP before it was halted, this conversation is worth hearing in full (75 minutes).

FURTHER READING:

Leaked report to federal advisers calls for urgent recognition of Covid vaccine injuries

Court ruling forces cancellation of ACIP meeting

The presentation ACIP never heard

ACIP charter rewritten — sweeping changes reshape vaccine advisory panel

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The bar for treating high blood pressure has shifted — again.

Last August, the American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) quietly revised their guidelines.

The numbers haven’t changed since 2017, but the rules for treatment have.

Doctors are now encouraged to start medication earlier — even in people considered lower risk — a move that could push millions more onto lifelong treatment.

It’s part of a familiar pattern in medicine: the steady expansion of who counts as “unwell.”

Read more

Today, the federal government published an updated charter for its vaccine advisory panel — the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP.

The changes significantly expand its scope, reshape its membership, and reframe how vaccine decisions are made.

The document, signed off by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was posted on the CDC’s website. It replaces the previous charter with a version that goes well beyond routine renewal and is effective through April 1, 2028.

The move comes just weeks after a federal judge halted most of the committee’s membership, leaving ACIP effectively paralysed.

At first glance, the structure appears familiar. The Health Secretary still appoints members. The committee remains advisory, and its recommendations still flow through the CDC.

But beneath that surface, the changes are substantial — and far-reaching.

Read more

It’s one of the most commonly performed operations for shoulder pain.

In England alone, nearly 30,000 of these procedures are carried out every year. Since 2007/08, it has cost the National Health Service more than £1 billion.

The operation is called arthroscopic subacromial decompression, or ASD.

It’s keyhole surgery on the shoulder.

Surgeons go in and clear out tissue or shave bone to create more space — aiming to relieve pressure and ease pain.

It’s widely used and patients are told it will help.

But one of the most rigorous trials ever conducted on this procedure should make people think twice.

Read more

Across much of the world, the HPV vaccine is delivered through school-based programmes to children aged 11 to 13.

The policy is presented as straightforward: vaccinate early to prevent cervical cancer later in life.

It’s a message that suggests the policy rests on rigorous evidence.

But the clinical trials that established the vaccine’s efficacy in reducing early cervical changes did not study children at the age for which the vaccine is now routinely recommended.

That detail is rarely explained in public messaging — or to parents consenting to their children lining up for the vaccine at school.

To understand how this happened, it is necessary to look closely at the trials that first established the vaccine’s efficacy.

What did they measure? Who did they enrol? And how did those findings become the basis for recommending HPV vaccination for millions of schoolchildren around the world?

Read more

This week, Dr Robert Malone did not quietly step away from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP). He left by tearing into it.

In an extraordinary interview on The HighWire, the former vice-chair delivered a sweeping account of dysfunction inside the federal vaccine advisory system — describing ACIP as a “hot mess,” a “fool’s errand,” and a body that is no longer “providing independent advice to the government.”

Speaking at length about his resignation and the inner workings of the committee, Malone portrayed a system that had been fundamentally “captured” — shaped not only by the CDC bureaucracy but, as Malone alleges, by a “mole” operating inside the administration.

Read more

I’ve spent years looking closely at the role of cholesterol in heart disease, and I keep coming back to the same question: why won’t the lipid hypothesis die?

The idea that LDL cholesterol is a primary cause of heart disease is still debated, but it is no longer treated that way.

It’s embedded in clinical practice, built into guidelines, and repeated in public health messaging with a level of certainty that the underlying evidence does not consistently support.

What’s striking is not just that the model persists, but how it has evolved.

You can see that most clearly in the way the latest US guidelines on cholesterol management and cardiovascular risk have shifted.

Read more

Last week, a federal judge in Massachusetts forced the cancellation of a much-anticipated meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Among the materials prepared for discussion was a scientific briefing by Professor Charlotte Kuperwasser of Tufts University School of Medicine, and member of the Covid-19 vaccine workgroup.

The presentation was expected to address a central question about what happens to DNA byproducts in mRNA vaccines once they enter the body.

Earlier this week, Kuperwasser wrote for the Brownstone Institute that while these byproducts are known to be present, data on their fate in the body are not available.

The slides prepared for ACIP go further.

They set out a biological mechanism linking these manufacturing byproducts to immune responses that fail to switch off—matching the pattern of illness reported by patients with vaccine injuries.

Below is an exclusive look at the briefing slides that were never presented to ACIP—and have not been made public until now.

Read more

A social media post by ACIP vice-chair Dr Robert Malone set off a firestorm of speculation today about the fate of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee.

“ACIP has been disbanded,” he wrote on X, adding that the government would not pursue a legal challenge and would instead move to recreate the committee.

The claim spread rapidly. But within hours, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has pushed back.

“Unless officially announced by us, any assertions about what we are doing next is baseless speculation,” said HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon.

There has been no official confirmation from HHS that ACIP has been dissolved — or that a legal challenge has been abandoned.

What has emerged instead is a system caught between competing signals, with no clear public direction.

Read more

The New York Times has updated its reporting on the leaked vaccine injury report after initially failing to acknowledge that the document had already been made publicly available by MD Reports.

I contacted the paper following publication of its article to request attribution.

The New York Times promptly apologised for the oversight. Credit is due to journalists Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Apoorva Mandavilli for working to correct the story.

The leaked report — a confidential vaccine injury policy document prepared for the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — was obtained exclusively by MD Reports and published last weekend.

Since then, it has received front-page coverage in The New York Times, bringing national attention to Covid vaccine injuries — an issue that has long struggled for recognition.

The document formed part of ACIP’s meeting materials for the March 18 session and would ordinarily have been posted publicly ahead of the meeting and presented for discussion.

There were concerns in some quarters that publication of the leaked document on MD Reports could disadvantage the vaccine-injured. But the response has been markedly positive.

Many people with Covid vaccine injuries have welcomed the release of the proposed policy, describing it as a turning point — a moment when their experiences were finally acknowledged in a formal policy context by clinicians and scientists.

That sentiment was echoed beyond patient groups.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo wrote on X that “most Americans would be shocked to learn that there are still no diagnostic codes” to track vaccine injuries or care for affected patients, calling it “important work by ACIP.”

The fact that The New York Times chose to report the story and elevate it to the front page only reinforces that shift.

Some commentary on social media has attempted to link publication of the report to the cancellation of the ACIP meeting scheduled for March 18–19. That is incorrect. The two matters are separate.

The judge’s decision in AAP v. Kennedy was based on arguments presented during hearings that took place well before the report was published. There is no indication that the judge — already working toward a decision — was even aware of the leak.

If anything, the events of the past week suggest that without publication, the report would have been delayed given the meeting’s cancellation, or potentially remained buried.

Although the cancellation of the ACIP meeting prevented public discussion of the vaccine injury report as planned, HHS officials have indicated the judge’s decision to halt the meeting is likely to be overturned.

In the meantime, the issue has continued to move forward.

On March 18, the patient advocacy group React19 announced what it described as a “breakthrough,” confirming that a proposal for a dedicated ICD-10 diagnostic code to identify adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccines has been accepted into the CDC’s formal review process.

“While this week brought unexpected challenges, progress continued,” the group stated on X.

“Today, March 18th, React19 advanced a proposal to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics for a dedicated ICD-10 code to identify adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccines. The proposal has now been approved to move forward in the formal review process.”

Submitted by React19 co-chair Dr Joel Wallskog, the proposal reflects one of the key recommendations outlined in the ACIP vaccine injury report.

“This marks an important step toward clinical recognition, accurate documentation, and future research,” the group said, adding that the proposal will now enter a 60-day public comment period, with the potential for inclusion in the U.S. system as early as 2027.

Wallskog added, “You cannot treat what you cannot name. Today, we took a critical step toward naming these conditions and changing the future for patients.”

The decision to cancel the ACIP meeting may have delayed discussion, but the report is now in the public domain.

And the conversation it was meant to inform is no longer confined to closed doors — it is finally being heard.

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Readers who have been following developments around this week’s meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) should be aware of a significant legal development that has emerged.

The meeting has now been cancelled following a federal court ruling that has thrown the committee’s legal status into doubt.

Earlier today, a judge in Massachusetts issued a decision just as ACIP was preparing to meet. Within hours, officials confirmed the committee could not proceed in its current form.

Read more

March 16, 2026

On the weekend I published an investigation based on a confidential report obtained exclusively by MD Reports. The document is a policy paper on vaccine injury scheduled to be discussed at this week’s ACIP meeting.

The report was not publicly available anywhere. After weeks of background work and conversations with sources, I obtained a copy and published it in full on MD Reports so readers could review the document directly.

Stories like this rarely appear out of nowhere.

They usually begin quietly, through relationships built over months or years with people inside institutions — scientists, clinicians, regulators and staff who believe the public deserves to know what is happening behind closed doors.

Cultivating those sources takes time and trust. Much of investigative journalism happens long before anything is published.

After my article appeared over the weekend, the New York Times published its own story covering the same document — which is entirely appropriate.

However, the Times article does not acknowledge that the report was first made available by MD Reports, nor does it link to my original investigation.

I wrote to the reporter, Apoorva Mandavilli, asking whether the article could be updated to include appropriate attribution to MD Reports. So far, I have not received a response.

Journalism has always involved scoops that are later followed up by other outlets. I understand that. But moments like this highlight something about the modern media landscape.

Large media organisations have enormous resources and distribution networks. Independent journalists do not — certainly not me. I rely largely on readers sharing stories and supporting my work directly.

At the same time, the environment for independent reporting has become more difficult.

Substack now requires Australian subscribers to complete age and identity verification, which has affected my subscriber base.

And social media platforms — even those that champion free speech, such as X — manage their algorithms in ways that deprioritise links to certain topics or to sites like Substack.

None of this stops the work. But it does shape the conditions under which independent journalism operates.

Investigative reporting requires patience. It involves obtaining documents, verifying information and presenting the evidence clearly so readers can judge it for themselves.

Independent reporters do this work without corporate backing or institutional funding. I do not have a team handling enquiries, research or marketing.

If you regularly read MD Reports but have not yet taken out a paid subscription, this is one of those moments where your support truly makes a difference.

A subscription is US$75 per year, which amounts to a little over $6 per month.

That support allows me to continue pursuing stories and following the evidence wherever it leads.

If you are able to upgrade to a paid subscription, I would be deeply grateful.

If not, please consider sharing my links with your networks to help others find my work.

Thanks again,

Maryanne

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A leaked report prepared for the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) finds that many people with long-term illness after Covid-19 vaccination have gone largely unrecognised by the medical system meant to monitor vaccine safety.

The document was written by the Covid-19 vaccine workgroup advising ACIP, chaired by MIT professor Retsef Levi.

The workgroup writes that reforms are “fundamental and necessary to regain public trust in vaccination programs that have moral and bioethical obligations for solidarity, justice and equity.”

The document, obtained exclusively by MD Reports, arrives amid political sensitivities surrounding the issue. ACIP’s scheduled February meeting was abruptly cancelled without a public explanation.

A senior CDC researcher familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested the report may have been politically delicate.

“Obviously there were some politics involved when the February ACIP meeting was postponed,” the researcher told MD Reports. “But I think the workgroup itself generally supported the document.”

The researcher added that they “wholeheartedly support” the policy document, noting that it is “long overdue to acknowledge and treat the vaccine-injured.”

The report has not yet been publicly released and is expected to be discussed at ACIP’s upcoming meeting on March 18–19. Levi declined to comment.

The system’s blind spot

The report focuses on what it calls Post-Acute Covid-19 Vaccination Syndrome, or PACVS.

The term refers to symptoms that persist for at least 12 weeks after vaccination and cannot be explained by another medical condition.

Patients with PACVS often present with complex, multi-system illness. Symptoms may involve the nervous system, the cardiovascular system, the immune system, the endocrine system and the autonomic nervous system.

The clinical picture varies widely. Some people develop severe fatigue, cognitive impairment, neuropathy or dysautonomia.

Others experience chest pain, immune disturbances or endocrine problems. Symptoms often fluctuate and evolve over time, making early diagnosis difficult.

Clinical features frequently overlap with long Covid — including fatigue, cognitive impairment, dysautonomia, neuropathy, chest pain and immune disturbances.

Yet many patients fall into a diagnostic no-man’s-land, particularly in the early stages of illness.

Some eventually meet criteria for recognised conditions such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), small fibre neuropathy or ME/CFS.

But even then, the path to recognition can take years.

The workgroup argues that these difficulties do not necessarily reflect the absence of disease. Instead, they reflect the limits of the systems used to detect and classify illness.

The surveillance gap

A major problem identified in the report is the limitations of existing surveillance systems.

The United States has multiple systems designed to detect vaccine injuries, but most were built to capture acute reactions — events that occur within days or weeks of vaccination.

Persistent, evolving illness does not fit easily into those frameworks.

In practice, vaccine injuries are mainly tracked through broad diagnostic codes and passive reporting systems such as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

These systems depend heavily on clinicians recognising a problem and reporting it.

But when symptoms develop gradually, involve multiple organs, or resemble other conditions, they are far harder to classify.

The report notes that there is currently no specific diagnostic code for chronic post-vaccination illness. There are also no standard diagnostic guidelines and no coordinated system for long-term follow-up.

The result is a fragmented landscape.

Doctors struggle to document cases, insurance claims may be rejected and patients may move between specialists without a unifying diagnosis.

When cases are recorded inconsistently, they rarely appear clearly in aggregated safety data. That can create the impression that such injuries are rare — even when the surveillance system itself is unable to detect them properly.

The workgroup also raises a troubling clinical concern.

Some patients who developed symptoms after their first vaccine dose were advised, and in some cases pressured, to continue vaccination. Some reported that their symptoms worsened after subsequent doses.

The report concludes that the failure to recognise injury has distorted risk–benefit assessments, compromised patient care and eroded public trust.

Three reforms

The workgroup proposes three reforms:

First, it calls for the creation of specific ICD-10 diagnostic codes for persistent post-vaccination illness.

Diagnostic codes are the backbone of modern healthcare: without them, conditions cannot be reliably documented, reimbursed, researched or incorporated into guidelines.

The report notes that when long Covid received its own code, recognition and surveillance improved rapidly.

Second, it recommends formal diagnostic guidelines and clinician training.

Many post-vaccination illnesses do not appear on standard medical tests. Recognising them may require clinicians to evaluate patterns of symptoms and disease evolution rather than relying solely on laboratory findings.

Most doctors have never been trained to recognise vaccine injuries in that way.

Third, it proposes a national network of specialist centres for long Covid and post-vaccination injury, coordinated by the CDC.

Modelled on the Children’s Oncology Group, such a network would pool expertise, standardise care, collect biospecimens and follow patients longitudinally — shifting surveillance from passive reporting to active investigation.

What happens next?

The proposal will now go before ACIP for consideration.

The next ACIP meeting, scheduled for March 18–19, will be the first real test of whether this moves from paper to policy.

If adopted, the recommendations would mark a profound shift in how vaccine injuries are recognised, monitored and treated in the United States.

For injured patients and their families, this is more than a policy document. It signals formal recognition after years of dismissal — validation after being told their suffering was imagined or coincidental.

For clinicians who have tried to care for these patients without clear guidance, the proposals could provide long-overdue diagnostic pathways.

At its core, the report is both an admission and a blueprint: an acknowledgment that the safety systems failed to capture complex, persistent harm and a plan to correct it.

The question now is straightforward.

Will the system act — or retreat?

Post Covid19 Vaccination Chronic Injuries Proposed Action Copy (1)

820KB ∙ PDF file

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FURTHER READING:

Is it long Covid or vaccine injury?

ACIP launches sweeping Covid-19 vaccine review under Retsef Levi

EXCLUSIVE: Retsef Levi unveils new members of his Covid vaccine work group

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For years, people who developed persistent health problems after Covid-19 vaccination struggled to be heard.

Many describe the same pattern: symptoms appearing soon after an injection — crushing fatigue, neurological problems, heart disturbances and immune disorders that disrupt daily life.

Yet when they sought medical help, their experiences were frequently dismissed. Some were told the symptoms must be anxiety. Others were told it was simply long Covid.

Throughout the pandemic, scientists poured enormous effort into understanding long Covid — the chronic illness that can follow a coronavirus infection. By contrast, illness reported after vaccination received far less systematic investigation.

Now a new peer-reviewed study suggests the two conditions may be distinguishable.

Read more

In the years since the Covid pandemic, many people have been processing an experience that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years earlier.

Governments and health authorities exercised sweeping powers over personal medical decisions. Vaccine mandates have long existed in limited settings such as schools and certain healthcare workplaces.

But during the pandemic those mandates extended far beyond their traditional boundaries, reaching deeply into everyday social and economic life.

In many places, employers tied jobs to vaccination status, universities barred students from campuses and housing, and travel or access to public venues was made contingent on compliance.

Those who hesitated or declined often faced penalties. Some lost jobs, education, or professional standing. Doctors who questioned prevailing policies sometimes faced investigation, professional discipline, and in some cases lost their licences.

The experience left a lasting impression. People have not forgotten what happened, and it has changed how many now think about the limits of authority in medicine.

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