By Rebekah Barnett<\/p>\n\n\n\n This investigation was first published on<\/em> Dystopian Down Under<\/a>, Rebekah Barnett\u2019s Substack newsletter, in partnership with <\/em>Canberra Daily<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Australians are routinely assured that deaths arising from Covid vaccination are vanishingly rare, based on the drug safety regulator\u2019s claim that it has identified only 14 deaths linked to vaccination out of more than 70 million doses given.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other thousand plus deaths reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration\u2019s (TGA) safety surveillance database, the DAEN, are widely assumed to be merely coincidental, and the TGA has encouraged this perception, frequently asserting that \u201cmost deaths that occur after vaccination are not caused by the vaccine\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, the TGA gives the impression that all reported deaths are thoroughly investigated, stating that \u201cthe TGA closely reviews all deaths reported in the days and weeks after COVID-19 vaccination\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, new documents released under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws and obtained by Canberra Daily<\/em> suggest that the public has been misled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contrary to widespread belief, the documents show that the TGA does not thoroughly investigate every death reported to the DAEN. This is even the case where people died on the same day<\/em> that they received their Covid shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Canberra Daily<\/em> can reveal that out of 35 reports of Australians whose deaths occurred on the same day as their Covid vaccination, the TGA completed a causality assessment for only 24<\/a>. The remaining 11 deaths had no causality assessment report available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, not a single one of these 35 \u2018day zero\u2019 deaths was referred to the Vaccine Safety Investigation Group (VSIG), an expert panel which is supposed to be convened<\/a> for the most serious adverse events following immunisation (AEFI), especially ones that have the potential to change the benefit-risk balance of a vaccine or to threaten public confidence in vaccine safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In correspondence with the TGA, Canberra Daily<\/em> was additionally able to confirm that the drug safety watchdog has never ruled out a causal link between the vast majority of deaths reported and Covid vaccination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, all reported deaths are considered by the regulator to be possibly linked to vaccination, despite regular public statements implying the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr Suzanne Niblett, a science researcher who uncovered the 35 day zero deaths through a series of FOI requests, called the revelations \u201cunbelievable\u201d and \u201cinexcusable\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cContinuous reports stating that only 14 deaths have been linked to these vaccines seems like a very misleading comment when you haven\u2019t actually properly analysed all of the other thousand plus deaths,\u201d Dr Niblett told Canberra Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Describing the TGA\u2019s safety surveillance systems as a \u201cblack box\u201d, Dr Niblett said it took serial FOI requests over many months to obtain \u2018time to death\u2019 information on reported deaths associated with Covid vaccination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As well as the 35 deaths that occurred on the same day as Covid vaccination, Dr Niblett found that, for reports where time to death information was available, one in four occurred within three days of a Covid shot being administered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 39% of deaths occurred within a week of vaccination and 86% within six weeks. This is what\u2019s known as a temporal relationship, which Dr Niblett stressed cannot be brushed aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTemporality is an integral component of assessing whether a causal link exists between a medicine and an adverse event,\u201d said Dr Niblett, who is working to publish her findings<\/a>, produced in collaboration with a working group of scientists and healthcare professionals affiliated with the Australian Medical Professionals Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The World Health Organisation (WHO) stipulates in its guidelines<\/a> that the temporal relationship between an AEFI and administration of a drug is one of the criteria that should be considered by regulators when assessing causality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it is also acknowledged that temporal association does not automatically imply causality, as in large populations, coincidences can occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concerning Dr Niblett and her colleagues was the fact that for 25% of reported deaths following Covid vaccination the TGA didn\u2019t hold time to death information at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019d think you\u2019d be following up to find out that kind of detail,\u201d said Dr Niblett, questioning how the TGA could possibly conduct proper reviews of post-vaccination deaths in the absence of such essential information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A spokesperson for the TGA told Canberra Daily<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n All deaths reported to the TGA are carefully reviewed to assess whether vaccines could have caused or played a role in the fatal outcome. This review considers the strength of the evidence available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not designed to determine if an event was not linked, but rather whether the clinical conditions which led to a fatal outcome represent an emerging safety signal for the vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Importantly, cause of death is determined by coroners and treating doctors, not the TGA.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The spokesperson highlighted that certain criteria<\/a> must be met for a VSIG to be convened, such as there being no other obvious explanation for the death, and there being sufficient information provided in the report to allow for a meaningful assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the majority (73%) of Covid vaccine death reports have been made by health professionals or state or territory health departments, it is unlikely that an obvious alternative explanation for the deaths, such as a car accident, would prevent convening of a VSIG, especially in cases of death on the same day or within days of Covid vaccination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This suggests the likelihood that the TGA did not convene a VSIG for these deaths because of insufficient information. Asked what efforts the TGA went to to obtain the necessary information to properly investigate these deaths, a spokesperson responded:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If further information is required to complete the assessment, it is requested from the reporter and\/or the relevant state or territory health authority and\/or coroner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not all requests for information result in additional information being provided to the TGA.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In a follow-up email, the spokesperson confirmed that even in cases of deaths where vital information is missing from the report, where no causality assessment report exists or where a VSIG has not been convened, the TGA considers that every death has been \u201ccarefully reviewed\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it is unclear what the TGA means by \u201ccarefully reviewed\u201d when families of the deceased consistently say that the TGA has made no contact after their loved ones\u2019 post-vaccination deaths were reported to the DAEN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sydney-based exercise physiologist Leon Anderson alleges that not only did the TGA not follow up on his 30 year-old brother\u2019s sudden death in October 2021, six weeks after his AstraZeneca vaccine, but the TGA lost the report made by his brother\u2019s GP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDespite the doctor having a copy of the submission, the TGA claimed it had no record of it,\u201d Anderson wrote in an unpublished submission to the Senate\u2019s Excess Mortality Inquiry<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I raised this issue with the TGA, its response was shockingly nonchalant, suggesting that I simply resubmit the report, disregarding the potential implications of its reporting system losing crucial reports submitted by healthcare professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the fact that the TGA does not require that autopsies be conducted in cases of unexplained death after vaccination, Anderson\u2019s family ensured that Matt underwent an autopsy after dying suddenly in his sleep. However, the family gained no further insight, with the cause of death being attributed to \u201cunascertained natural causes\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe pathologist advised Matt\u2019s death was determined to be not caused by the vaccine based solely as they had not found any evidence of Vaccine Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT) which was the main primary concern with the Astra-Zeneca vaccine at that point in time,\u201d said Anderson, highlighting the frustratingly high bar for proving a vaccine link so early in the vaccine rollout, when comparatively little research had been published on potential vaccine side effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Underscoring Anderson\u2019s point, one of the causality assessments for an Australian who died on the same day as their Covid booster shot states that causality is \u201cunlikely\u201d because \u201cvaccination has not been linked to the medical conditions causing this person\u2019s illnesses and subsequent death\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAccording to information released by the TGA, there are four other reports of individuals who died after receiving the same vaccine batches as Matt,\u201d Anderson said. These included two other young men, 30 and 29 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe batches associated with Matt\u2019s vaccine garnered over 160 adverse event reports and over 50 reports of serious injuries,\u201d most of which were \u201ceither cardiac or thrombotic in nature\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, Anderson said that the TGA eventually advised that it would not conduct further investigations or complete the WHO causality assessment for Matt\u2019s reported death \u201cdue to the limited information available on the cause of his death\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matt\u2019s resubmitted death report is now one of the 1,034 that the TGA claims to have \u201ccarefully reviewed\u201d but not linked to vaccination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anderson, who is a collaborator with Dr Niblett on the time to death investigation, said that his experience with trying to get his brother\u2019s death properly investigated made him question how many of the 1,048 deaths reported to the TGA (as at April 25th 2025) had actually undergone proper causality assessment according to WHO guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr Rado Faleti\u010d, Director of COVERSE<\/a>, a nonprofit providing support to Covid vaccine-injured Australians, said that it was \u201cno surprise\u201d that the TGA had not investigated these reported deaths further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the Covid vaccine-injured and bereaved community, not a single person reports being followed-up or investigated by the TGA, despite many of those injured continuing to suffer long-term harms that their medical teams attribute to the Covid vaccines,\u201d Dr Faleti\u010d told Canberra Daily<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr Faleti\u010d said that fast onset of symptoms was a common factor in vaccine injuries, mirroring the time to death data collected by Dr Niblett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn our patient data, and similar data amongst overseas patient groups, around half of those harmed suffered the onset of serious symptoms within 24 hours of their vaccination, including conditions such as myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle),\u201d he told Canberra Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo it does not make sense that the TGA would not take such quick onset of symptoms leading to death more seriously and be more transparent with the public that these deaths may very well be caused by Covid vaccination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr Faleti\u010d called on the Government to commit resources to undertaking scientific investigations of serious AEFI cases and to provide meaningful compensation to those affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The federal Covid vaccine injury compensation scheme closed in September last year having approved only 418 (8.4%) of 4,941 claims received. 1,057 claims remained in progress at the closure of the scheme \u2013 the remainder had been rejected or withdrawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/dailysceptic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image-26-750x375.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccad0cd-9def-4915-b219-9009aa7b63db_2335x1556.jpeg\")
<\/a>