The New York Times said on Friday that the US Food and Drug Administration said in an internal memo that at least 10 children had likely died “due to” Covid-19 vaccines, and pointed to myocarditis as a possible cause.
According to the newspaper, the memo written by the Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at the US Food and Drug Administration, Vinay Prasad, did not reveal the ages of the children, their health conditions, or the vaccine manufacturing companies involved.
Prasad was quoted as saying that these results were a “profound revelation” and announced plans to tighten oversight of vaccines, including the need to conduct randomized studies for all groups.
The American newspaper reported that the Vaccines Committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet within days.
Prasad is an oncologist and has been a vocal critic of mandatory Covid vaccines and masks in the United States.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the Food and Drug Administration, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
This comes at a time when Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. radically changed the government’s policy on Covid-19 vaccines, making access to them limited to people aged 65 and over, in addition to people with underlying health conditions.
Kennedy was a staunch anti-vaxxer long before taking the nation’s top health post under President Donald Trump. He also linked vaccines to autism and sought to reformulate the country’s vaccination policies.
During Trump’s first term, when the pandemic spread, and during the era of his successor, Joe Biden, American health officials strongly recommended vaccines as life-saving.