VAERS reported new-onset seizures following use of Covid 19 vaccinations as compared to influenza vaccinations

The incidence of new-onset seizures, which we defined as de novo seizures occurring within four weeks of receiving any of the FDA-approved Covid 19 vaccinations as reported in patient-reported data compiled in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System Data (CDC VAERS) has not been explored. The VAERS database contains de-identified patient-reported adverse events following vaccinations and represents post-marketing surveillance and analysis of vaccine safety. After adjusting for time at risk, this resulted in estimated incidence rates of 3.19 seizures per 100,000 persons per year for either Pfizer, Moderna or Janssen vaccines and 0.090 seizures per 100,000 persons per year for the influenza vaccine. A data-driven, individualized dataset that is comprehensive and coupled with a longitudinal follow-up in larger numbers of vaccinated individuals is needed to expand on our preliminary findings of vaccine-related seizures. The VAERS database helps in the identification of a safety signal detection and is fundamentally a hypothesis-generating system; the data or results cannot be used to analyze cause and effect.