by James A. Bacon
Dave Singer is a radiologist at a Virginia hospital. He’s not a front-line physician with primary responsibility for patient care, but, as an in-house expert in reading x-rays, CT scans, MRI scans, and other medical images, he reviews hundreds of cases weekly. His vantage point allows him to spot patterns that might elude physicians who, by the nature of their jobs, focus on individual patients.
Since the COVID-19 epidemic, or, more precisely, since the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccines, Singer has observed dozens of anomalies. Medical syndromes that he encountered rarely — uncommon types of internal bleeding, blood clots, and cancers, especially among younger patients — have surged in frequency at his hospital.
Drawing upon large bodies of data, scientists in other countries have drawn increasing attention to the risk of vaccine side effects. According to these high-altitude studies, many countries are experiencing higher-than-expected, or “excess,” mortality rates even as the COVID epidemic has receded. Some of the elevated mortality may be attributable to suicides, drug overdoses, delayed medical diagnoses or other repercussions of the COVID shutdowns. Vaccine side effects may be another contributing factor.
Singer’s experience provides a ground-level view. He believes that side effects are far more common than the U.S. medical establishment is willing to acknowledge. One reason — not the only one, but a big one — is that there is no system for capturing information about possible vaccination side effects. There is a system for reporting COVID infections and vaccinations, but doctors and hospitals don’t collect data on potential side effects in the same comprehensive way. Some actively suppress such reporting.
Our COVID statistics, Singer says, are “artifacts of how we measure COVID infections and COVID deaths” — not an accurate reflection of reality.
Dave Singer is a pseudonym. Like many health care practitioners in Virginia, he fears professional retribution, including the loss of medical-practice privileges. In one widely publicized Virginia case, Paul Marik, a front-line physician treating COVID patients in Norfolk, who advocated the use of ivermectin, lost his practice privileges at Norfolk General Hospital. Singer shared his story on the condition that his real name not be revealed.
By way of preface, I am not an “anti-vaxxer.” Knowing that older patients are at greater risk of hospitalization and death from the COVID-19 virus , I (age 71) have taken the double dose and one booster. But it is undeniable that COVID-related risks vary by age and the presence of pre-existing conditions. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that the mRNA-based vaccine might entail its own risks. Accordingly, I would describe myself as a vaccine “agnostic.” I just want the practice of medicine to be informed by the best science possible, and that requires tolerating diverse viewpoints.
Unfortunately, the “science” in the U.S. has fallen victim to political polarization and culture wars. The keepers of the official narrative tried to stamp out “disinformation” in social media and impose professional sanctions against dissenters. I do not present Singer’s perspective as an infallible counter-narrative, just as an informed viewpoint that deserves to be heard and subjected to critical scrutiny.
As Singer tells his story, he did not start out distrusting the evolving narratives of the Centers for Disease Control. In the early phases of the COVID pandemic, little was known about the virus. By necessity, official guidance was updated as scientists learned more. It wasn’t until early 2021, when the vaccine based on novel mRNA technology was released, that alarm bells went off. Singer began taking note of “anomalies,” any one of which could be dismissed as anecdotal. But when he strung dozens of outliers together (see the list at the bottom of this article), it was difficult to attribute them all to randomness.
To be sure, his viewpoint was profoundly impacted by two tragic cases in his own family.
His 67-year-old aunt took two mRNA shots in the spring of 2021. As Singer describes the medical tailspin that followed in clinical language, that fall she developed in rapid succession new-onset atrial fibrillation, blood clots in both legs, and a diagnosis of gastric cancer. She was unable to begin chemotherapy for several weeks due to leukopenia (low white blood cells). At the end of 2021, she took a third mRNA shot after pressure from family and physicians. About a month later, she developed acute renal failure and died within one week.
Another death that made a deep impression was that of his wife’s 81-year-old grandmother. She was living independently, working on the family’s farm and driving herself to church, dances, and other social functions when she took two mRNA shots. In the fall of 2021 she pulled a leg muscle on a rowing machine and subsequently developed marked leg swelling and blotchiness. Tests showed a markedly elevated d-dimer (a blood-clot indicator), although no actual clots were found with ultrasound or CT. Leg swelling and pain increased, and over the next three to four weeks she experienced rapid cognitive decline. A mere month after her rowing injury, she no longer recognized family members, was unable to walk, and became incontinent. Her decline climaxed with simultaneous arterial and venous blood clots resulting in a stroke and pulmonary embolism on the same day. She died before Thanksgiving in 2021.
More than 270 million Americans have received the vaccine; more than 600 million doses have been administered. In a population sample that size, random chance suggests that thousands would experience dire medical conditions in a two- to three-year time frame. The proximity in time of an mRNA vaccination and a blot clot does not necessarily mean the vaccination caused the blood clot.
Singer concedes that proving a link in any particular case is difficult. The metabolic pathway by which the mRNA vaccine might trigger clots and accelerate cancer is still being unraveled. But he saw a new pattern of patients coming into his hospital in 2021, the year the vaccines were introduced. And now, he says, an increasing body of statistical evidence shows that “excess deaths” — higher than would have been predicted based on pre-COVID mortality trends — remain elevated.
A Dutch study based on the “Our World in Data” database and published in March 2024 found 3.1 million excess deaths in 47 countries of the “western world” between 2020 and 2022. The year 2021, when COVID vaccines were available, containment measures were in place, and the epidemic was still raging, saw 1.25 million excess deaths. The next year, 2022, when containment measures were relaxed and a large percentage of the population was vaccinated, still saw more than 800,000 excess deaths.
A German study, published in February, compared excess deaths in Germany’s 16 federal states for 2020, 2021, and 2022. “In the first two years of the pandemic, but not in the third, there was a strong correlation between excess mortality and the number of reported COVID deaths, suggesting that the differences in excess mortality observed earlier in the pandemic are due to differences in the levels of exposure to COVID-19,” states the abstract. “However, this cannot explain the increase of excess mortality in the second and third pandemic years because the number of COVID-19 deaths decreased instead of increased in almost all federal states.”
“Excess mortality increased … the higher the vaccination rate in a federal state,” concluded the German study, which calls for further investigation into the possible negative effect of the vaccines.
In June an Italian study, based on the public health records of nearly 1 million people in the province of Pescara, adjusted for Immortal Time Bias, a methodological flaw in previous studies. The percentage of unvaccinated people dying from COVID exceeded the percentage for people with one or two doses but was lower than that of people with three or four doses. The same pattern held for patients who died more than 90 days after the vaccination.
The Italian population study also found statistical evidence that the attribution of death to COVID was way overstated.
The authors conclude that their analysis “shows an increase in the risk of the vaccinated compared to in the unvaccinated, as one moves from the first to the subsequent doses.”
Singer believes that analysis of U.S. data is also clouded by systemic biases in the recording of statistics. In particular, he noted, in some of the possibly vaccine-related deaths he observed in his Virginia hospital, the patient records did not take note of vaccination status.
Singer does not attribute that oversight to data suppression. But deliberate data manipulation may have occurred elsewhere. In 2023 a physician assistant sued the United Memorial Medical Center in Rochester, New York, alleging that she was fired for trying to report vaccine-related adverse events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The hospital, she charged, blocked her from submitting 170 serious adverse events in 2021.
Even with potential underreporting, 973,000 COVID-19-related events have been submitted to VAERS.
Admittedly, the symptoms described are all over the medical map, from 6,700 cases of “abdominal discomfort” to 89 cases of “yawning” and one of “zinc deficiency.” Tens of thousands of vague symptoms such as pain, malaise and myalgia have been reported. As awareness of the existence of the VAERS database spread in the media, it is possible that vaccine skeptics reported any symptom that occurred anywhere near the time a vaccine had been administered. In sum, many symptoms, perhaps a large majority, likely can be dismissed as unrelated to the vaccine. But their number is so large that the reality of side effects cannot be dismissed lightly.
To my medically-untrained mind, a few tentative conclusions seem reasonable: (1) The COVID-19 vaccines do protect against the virus (although their efficacy was way oversold); (2) the vaccines likely do have dangerous side effects; and (3) it is unknowable given the current state of knowledge whether the vaccine shots help more than they hurt.
When deciding whether to get the vaccine and boosters, people are well-advised to balance the risk of succumbing to the virus with the risk of experiencing vaccine side effects. The case for getting the jab is stronger for the elderly and those with medical preconditions, and weaker for the young and healthy.
We still have a lot to learn about COVID-19 and the mRNA vaccines. Let us keep an open mind.
Dave Singer supplied Bacon’s Rebellion the following list of cases which suggested a possible link between COVID-19 vaccinations and negative health outcomes.
On a night in mid February 2021, I observed an unusual cluster of hemorrhagic strokes from nursing homes and realized this was around the time many skilled nursing facilities were administering second doses of mRNA. If mRNA was administered in a nursing home, it was not documented in the patient’s hospital chart. Only mRNA administered within the hospital or its affiliated clinics would be recorded in patient charts. This would be true for everyone going forward. In other words, critical data were not being captured.
About a week later I saw a spontaneous perinephric hemorrhage in a 60-year-old female. There were no mRNA details in her chart, so I asked the emergency room physician and, yes, this patient had received her first mRNA shot earlier that day.
A man in his 40s with spontaneous carotid artery dissection 4 days after third mRNA shot.
A 54-year-old male with an arterial blood clot extending from the common iliac artery to the popliteal artery two weeks after third mRNA shot.
A 72-year-old male with a pulmonary vein blood clot extending into left cardiac atrium several months after third mRNA shot.
A 38-year-old male with a Type B aortic dissection several months after second mRNA shot.
A 20-year-old female with a Type A aortic dissection, mRNA status unknown.
A 37-year-old male with Type A aortic dissection and Covid infection several months after third mRNA shot.
An 80-year-old female with successful breast cancer treatment in 2009 presenting with recurrence as a malignant pleural effusion several months after second mRNA shot.
A 53-year-old male with right breast cancer ten months after third mRNA shot.
A 19-year-old female with thyroid cancer six months after second mRNA shot.
Unexpected growth of benign soft tissue masses, such as lipomas or ovarian dermoids. Several cases of malignant transformation.
An 18-year-old with sepsis, moderate lung opacities on CT, acute pulmonary embolism, splenic infarcts, and renal infarcts. There was no mRNA information in chart, but the emergency physician asked the patient upon my request, and the patient had received a third mRNA shot several months prior.
A 46-year-old male with right internal artery occlusion and large right cerebral stroke after fourth mRNA shot. Several months prior to the stroke this patient had a TIA and was prescribed anti-anxiety medication.
A 16-year-old female with right arm numbness and right sided body heaviness several months after second mRNA shot. MRI finding of a demyelinating process, such as multiple sclerosis.
A 15-year-old female with six months of alternating constipation and diarrhea and marked weight loss over a 6-month period following her second mRNA shot. Normal endoscopy, colonoscopy, and MRI enterography.
A 48-year-old with dizziness and fall and bilateral broken ankles. Death from blood clot several days later. Received third mRNA shot several months prior.
A 22-month-old female with febrile seizure, endocarditis, and embolic infarcts three months after second mRNA shot.
A female in her 60s with abdominal pain and elevated d-dimer. No pulmonary embolism but finding of massive splenomegaly and splenic rupture. Four mRNA shots were documented in chart.
A female in her 70s with abdominal pain and elevated d-dimer. No pulmonary embolism but small bowel ischemia with bowel perforation. Three mRNA shots were documented in chart.
A 68-year-old male with stroke and new diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer. Two mRNA shots were documented in chart.
A 58-year-old male with cardiac arrest five months after second mRNA shot. LVAD (left ventricular assist device) implantation, recurrent bacteremia over several months, hemorrhagic stroke.
A 13-year-old female with multiple small bowel masses resulting in bowel obstruction several months after second mRNA shot.
A 6-month-old male with necrotizing pneumonia six weeks after second mRNA shot.
A 13-year-old male with hemorrhagic stroke the day after his first mRNA shot.
A 21-year-old female with Budd Chiari, a rare condition of hepatic vein blood clots, who progressed to require a liver transplant. No doctor had documented mRNA history in her chart, but there was a single note from an emergency triage nurse indicating the patient’s symptoms began the day after her third mRNA shot.
Miscarriages. Prior to 2021, I would expect to see two-to-three miscarriages per month, but this trended up noticeably in the fall of 2021 peaking during summer of 2022 when I would see three-to-four four miscarriages on many days. The frequency subsequently trended down to two-to-three miscarriages per week. The mRNA status is not documented in the majority of these patient’s charts.
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