Excess mortality, anticipated during the pandemic, continues to be a concern, particularly rising death rates of young adults.
The life insurance industry has been monitoring trends and a report published on insurancenewsnet.com on October 26 notes “life insurance executives and actuaries believe the numbers are alarming and could continue to drag earnings and surge death claims for years to come.”
The report references provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that shows excess deaths among young adults ages 15 to 45 are up more than 20 percent compared to the baseline of 2019. Excess deaths for all ages are down from the past two years but have not returned to pre-COVID rates despite the pandemic being considered over.
Excess mortality refers to the difference between the number of deaths in a given period and the number that would have been expected under normal conditions. While some excess deaths should have been expected because of the COVID-19 pandemic—life insurers paid out record levels of claims in 2021—cause-of-death data show that COVID-related deaths are not driving the continued surge. While COVID deaths are down, data show increased cardiac mortality in all ages, as well as deaths by stroke, diabetes, and kidney and liver diseases.
CDC Ignores COVID Jabs
“Excess mortality occurring as a result of COVID-19 vaccine deaths will impact the labor force, insurance claims, and sadly will leave many children without parents as they grow into early adulthood,” said Peter A. McCullough, M.D., a cardiologist and epidemiologist who has gained global attention for concerns he has raised about the safety of the COVID mRNA jabs.
McCullough pointed to a paper that reviewed published autopsies of people who died after COVID-19 vaccinations. “Hulscher et al. have independently adjudicated all published autopsies after COVID-19 vaccination and found that 73.9 percent of all deaths were either directly caused by the vaccine or the injection contributed significantly to the demise of the patient,” said McCullough.
McCullough says the government is incentivized against investigating concerns about the mRNA injections.
“The CDC believes it is in their best interest as an agency to promote the vaccines and have willfully ignored harms to Americans,” McCullough told Health Care News.
“The CDC along with the FDA are the government sponsors of the COVID-19 vaccine campaign,” said McCullough. “As such, they are in the business of promoting vaccines and are reluctant to investigate safety concerns, since by doing so, rates of vaccination could drop.”
Public Trust Lost
The CDC has misstepped in multiple ways, according to Drew Keyes, who coauthored a report advocating reform of the CDC when he was a senior policy analyst at Paragon Health Institute (PHI) and spoke to Health Care News before leaving PHI for another position.
“They can’t focus on their core mission anymore,” said Keyes. “I think part of it is that mission creep. They’re spread thin. They’re doing things in climate change; they’re doing things in all these other areas—gun violence.”
Because the scope of the CDC’s mission has changed so dramatically, Keyes said, “that’s hindered its ability to focus on fighting infectious diseases.”
‘Put In Guardrails’
Keyes contrasts the CDC’s performance with that of Johns Hopkins University, which created a real-time pandemic data tracker. “One university student at Johns Hopkins was able to put together something that outshined and outcompeted [CDC],” Keyes said.
“Congress needs to step in,” Keyes said. “A lot of the reason the CDC’s failing is because Congress hasn’t put in guardrails. It hasn’t directed the government’s role in this more directly and has allowed the agency to grow by fiat over the last 50 to 60 years.”
Keyes said too much of the CDC’s power lies in the lack of congressional oversight of the executive branch.
“To a certain extent I think it’s about restoring [CDC] to what it’s supposed to be doing,” said Keyes.
Harry Painter (harry@harrypainter.com) writes from Oklahoma.
Internet info:
Nicolas Hulscher et al., “A Systematic Review of Autopsy Findings in Deaths After Covid-19 Vaccination,” Zenodo, July 6, 2023: https://zenodo.org/records/8120771
