Japanese government didn’t declare COVID-19 mRNA vaccines to be deadly

An 8 November 2024 post on X (formerly Twitter) claimed that “leading medical experts” in Japan declared COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were the “most deadly drug in [the] history of humankind”. The post further claimed an association between COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and more than two hundred diseases, though it failed to specify which diseases.

The post was published by Jim Ferguson, who unsuccessfully campaigned with the Brexit Party in 2019 as member of Parliament (MP) candidate in the U.K. Ferguson previously shared false information related to Japan and COVID-19 mRNA vaccines on X in March 2024, when he claimed that the country had banned the vaccines due to a “crisis of skyrocketing sudden and unexpected deaths”.

At the time of writing, Ferguson’s November 2024 X post had been viewed nearly 450,000 times, and Ferguson himself had nearly 245,000 followers. The post was also shared on other social media platforms including Facebook.

In his post, Ferguson linked to an article by the website The People’s Voice, a source known for publishing disinformation and conspiracy theories. Although the article bore the headline “Japan Officially Names Covid mRNA Vaccine ‘Most Deadly Drug in History of Humankind’”, the article itself didn’t cite any official announcements from the Japanese government that supported the headline. Instead, the article cited “leading medical experts and members of the Japanese parliament” who allegedly spoke at an “emergency press conference”.

While COVID-19 vaccination is associated with a slightly increased risk of health conditions like myocarditis and blood clots, there’s no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are deadly or responsible for “significant spikes in over two hundred of the world’s deadliest diseases”. We explain more below.

Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare recommends the use of COVID-19 vaccines

A fact-check published by USA Today on 11 November 2024 reported that there was no evidence Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare had held an emergency press conference about the alleged deadliness of COVID-19 vaccines. The last publication from the Ministry on their website was dated 7 November 2024 and had nothing to do with COVID-19 or COVID-19 vaccines. At the time of writing, the most recent update about COVID-19 dates back to September 2022.

The Ministry also published information about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines on their website in Japanese, including data from both domestic and overseas reports. Their current recommendations regarding COVID-19 vaccines are likewise published on their website in English:

“People aged 65 and older, those with underlying medical conditions and health care workers will be vaccinated twice a year while the others once a year. Vaccinations remain free of charge.”

Mortality rate isn’t higher among people who received COVID-19 vaccines compared to unvaccinated people

In his post, Ferguson claimed that COVID-19 vaccines are deadly, and that “leading medical experts” in Japan delivered a “code red warning to the public” about this alleged danger. He referenced a systematic review as support for this claim, but didn’t provide the review’s title, authors, or journal in which it was published.

Instead, Ferguson linked to an article published by The People’s Voice on 7 November 2024. Written by Baxter Dmitry, the article claimed, among other things, that “Pfizer’s experimental mRNA […] killed 17 million global citizens”.

For context, Dmitry has a history of spreading misinformation about vaccines, including the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Among these is the claim that the Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine caused about 17 million deaths, which was based on a highly flawed analysis, as Science Feedback demonstrated in a previous claim review.

Science Feedback also addressed variations of the claim that COVID-19 vaccines are the most “deadly drug in the history of humankind” in previous claim reviews, including that COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of death and that they didn’t actually save any lives. As noted in these reviews, evidence shows that people vaccinated against COVID-19 don’t have a higher mortality rate than unvaccinated people^[1,2].

A large retrospective study on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination also found that vaccines saved an estimated 1.6 million lives in the World Health Organization (WHO)’s European region between 2020 and 2023^[3].

In short, evidence shows us that the claim that COVID-19 vaccines are “deadly” is baseless.

COVID-19 vaccines aren’t more dangerous than atomic bombs or thalidomide

The People’s Voice article claimed that COVID-19 vaccines caused more damage than atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II, and that they’re more dangerous than the cancer treatment drug thalidomide.

Such hyperbole relative to COVID-19 vaccines isn’t new. The concept of Holocaust distortion, for example, has been used to compare COVID-19 vaccination with the persecution suffered by Jewish people and others targeted by Nazis during the Holocaust. This comparison typically refers to vaccines as “medical experiments”. Science Feedback discussed this phenomenon in claim reviews that can be found here and here.

The People’s Voice article applied a similar principle to make claims about the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines, in this case comparing them to atomic bombs and thalidomide. But these claims are unsubstantiated.

First, the notion that COVID-19 vaccines are deadlier than atomic bombs is false. Reuters reported in 2007 that the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945 instantly killed tens of thousands of people. Additional estimates suggest that up to 40% of Hiroshima’s population died from complications of radiation poisoning by the end of 1945. Similar mortality rates occurred in Nagasaki, where a second atomic bomb was dropped three days after the Hiroshima bombing.

And as explained in the previous section, evidence shows people vaccinated against COVID-19 don’t have a higher mortality rate than unvaccinated people. The claim that COVID-19 vaccines are deadlier than atomic bombs simply isn’t true.

Thalidomide is a drug currently used for cancer treatment. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was used to relieve morning sickness in early pregnancy until scientists discovered that it caused severe birth defects in infants born to mothers who used the drug^[4].

Drugs manufactured at that time weren’t subject to the same rigorous safety testing that is used today. The discovery about thalidomide’s risks actually led to new legislation in the U.S. requiring drug makers to demonstrate the safety of their products prior to their release on the market. Manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines follow the same safety protocol.

In short, the People’s Voice article cobbled together historical and medical events unrelated to COVID-19 vaccines to cast doubt over their safety. The article didn’t share any scientific evidence to support the claim that COVID-19 vaccines are deadly.

COVID-19 vaccines are associated with some rare health risks, but benefits of vaccination outweigh these risks

Health agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) share that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at reducing the risk of severe illness and death. These agencies routinely monitor and evaluate vaccine safety and efficacy.

It’s important to note that the risk of certain conditions, including myocarditis and blood clots, is associated with certain COVID-19 vaccines. However, studies show that these conditions are rare and more likely to occur in individuals with specific underlying risk factors^[5,6].

And it’s worth noting that COVID-19 itself leads to a greater risk of myocarditis, blood clots, and other serious health problems compared to the risks associated with vaccination, as shared by Science Feedback in previous claim reviews. All things considered, the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines outweigh their risks.

Conclusion

The claims about the deadliness of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines aren’t substantiated by credible scientific evidence. Scientific research, as well as reports and recommendations from health authorities including Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, support the safety and efficacy of these vaccines.

REFERENCES

• 1 – Xu et al. (2021) COVID-19 Vaccination and Non–COVID-19 Mortality Risk — Seven Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 14, 2020–July 31, 2021. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
• 2 – Bilinski et al. (2022) COVID-19 and Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 20 Comparison Countries, June 2021-March 2022. JAMA.
• 3 – Meslé et al. (2024) Estimated number of lives directly saved by COVID-19 vaccination programmes in the WHO European Region from December, 2020, to March, 2023: a retrospective surveillance study. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
• 4 – Kim and Scialli. (2011) Thalidomide: The Tragedy of Birth Defects and the Effective Treatment of Disease. Toxicological Sciences.
• 5 – Li et al. (2022) Comparative risk of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome or thromboembolic events associated with different covid-19 vaccines: international network cohort study from five European countries and the US. BMJ.
• 6 – Katoto et al. (2023) Systematic review and meta-analysis of myocarditis and pericarditis in adolescents following COVID-19 BNT162b2 vaccination. npj Vaccines.