‘Significant Alarm Signal’ After German Health Insurer Finds 400,000 Cases of COVID Vaccine Side Effects
A German health insurance company evaluated data from more than 10 million individuals and discovered recorded figures on the side effects of COVID vaccines were significantly underreported.
The company, BKK ProVita (BKK), said its analysis revealed a “significant alarm signal” and that “a risk to human life cannot be ruled out.”
Based on its analysis, BKK said the number of side effects is many times higher than those officially announced by the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), Germany’s federal health agency that monitors the safety of vaccines and biomedicines. The results show “a significant alarm signal,” according to a letter from the company.
The PEI announced in a press release there were 244,576 suspected cases of vaccine side effects reported in 2021 following COVID vaccination, but BKK said its analysis revealed more than 400,000 cases.
BKK board member Andreas Schöfbeck told WELT, a German publication, “The numbers determined are significant and urgently need to be checked for plausibility.”
In a letter, Schöfbeck said BKK analyzed doctors’ billing data from 10.9 million insured people and found 217,000 people received medical treatment due to vaccine side effects.
“In our opinion, there is a significant underreporting of the side effects of the vaccination,” said Schöfbeck. “According to our calculations, we consider 400,000 visits to the doctor by our insured persons due to vaccination complications to be realistic to date.”
Schöfbeck said if figures are extrapolated over a year for the entire German population, which is 83 million people, it is likely 2.5-3 million people in Germany received medical treatment for COVID vaccine adverse events.
“The data available to our company gives us reason to believe that there is a very considerable under-recording of suspected cases of vaccination side-effects after they received the [COVID-19] vaccine,” Schöfbeck wrote. Based on the evaluated data “a risk to human life cannot be ruled out.”
Schöfbeck sent the letter to Dr. Klaus Cichutek, President of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, the German Medical Association, National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, the Standing Vaccination Commission and BKK’s umbrella organization.
The full letter, written by Schöfbeck, states:
“Dear Prof. Dr. Cichutek, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, announced in a press release that 244,576 suspected cases of vaccination side effects after corona vaccination were reported for the 2021 calendar year. The data available to our company give us reason to assume that there is a very significant underreporting of suspected cases of vaccination side effects after corona vaccination. I am enclosing an evaluation with my letter.
“The data basis for our evaluation is the billing data of the doctors. Our sample is taken from the anonymized database of the company health insurance companies. The sample includes 10,937,716 insured persons. So far, we have the doctors’ billing data for the first half of 2021 and about half for the third quarter of 2021. Our query contains the valid ICD codes for vaccination side effects. This evaluation has shown, although we do not yet have the complete data for 2021, that based on the available figures, we are already assuming 216,695 treated cases of vaccination side effects after corona vaccination from this sample.
“If these figures are extrapolated to the year as a whole and to the population in Germany, it is likely that 2.5-3 million people in Germany received medical treatment because of side effects of vaccination after the Corona vaccination. We see this as a significant alarm signal that must be taken into account when the vaccines are used further. In our opinion, the figures can be validated relatively easily and also at short notice by asking the other types of insurance (AOKen, substitute health insurance companies, etc.) to evaluate the data available to them accordingly. Extrapolated to the number of vaccinated people in Germany, this means that around 4-5 percent of the vaccinated people were in medical treatment because of vaccination side effects.
“In our opinion, there is a significant underreporting of vaccination side effects. It is important to identify the causes of this in the short term. Our first assumption is that since no remuneration is paid for reporting side effects of vaccinations, the Paul Ehrlich Institute is often not reported because of the great effort involved. Doctors have reported to us that it takes about half an hour to report suspected vaccine damage. This means that 3 million suspected cases of vaccination side effects require around 1.5 million working hours for doctors. That would be almost the annual workload of 1,000 doctors. This should also be clarified in the short term.
“Therefore, a copy of this letter is also sent to the German Medical Association and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians. The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds also receives a copy of this letter with the request to obtain appropriate data analyzes from all health insurance companies. Since danger to human life cannot be ruled out, we would ask you to respond to the measures taken by February 22, 2022, 6 p.m.”
In another letter sent by BKK, the company suggested vaccine side effects across Germany are at least 10 times more common than what was reported by the PEI, reported Nordkurier newspaper on Wednesday.
The letters did not disclose symptoms, the severity of adverse events or which vaccines caused the side effects.
Germany’s drug regulator has approved COVID vaccines from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, NovaVax and Moderna. Federal health officials in the U.S. and Germany say the benefits of COVID vaccines outweigh the potential risks, and side effects are “rare.”