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Controversy over a BMJ paper examining excess mortality trends during the COVID-19 pandemic remains unresolved more than two years after publication, Steve Kirsch reported on Substack.
Dutch researcher Saskia Mostert, M.D., Ph.D., led the study, which was published in BMJ Public Health in May 2024.
Mostert’s team analyzed excess mortality data from 47 Western countries and reported that elevated death rates persisted through 2022 and 2023 despite the end of pandemic restrictions and the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines.
The authors argued that the findings warranted further investigation into potential contributing factors, including pandemic-era policies, healthcare disruptions and mass vaccination programs.
The paper was attacked on PubPeer and Retraction Watch, two platforms that have become the driving force behind many recent retractions of peer-reviewed scientific papers whose findings challenge the mainstream narrative on vaccines, COVID-19 treatments and aluminum, among others.
Critics did not dispute the paper’s core findings that excess mortality was high and remained elevated in many Western countries during the study period. Instead, they criticized the paper’s discussion of the COVID-19 vaccines, saying it implied there was a causal link between the shots and excess death and encouraged readers to infer causation.
Several critics called for the paper to be retracted.
In response to these and other mainstream criticism of the paper, BMJ Public Health issued a statement saying that media reports had misrepresented the findings. However, in mid-June 2024, the journal stamped the article with an “expression of concern.”
The journal said its “integrity team and editors” were investigating issues “regarding the quality and messaging of this work.” It also said the Princess Máxima Center, where three of the four study authors were based, was investigating the study.
BMJ Public Health added that the study does not support the claim that vaccines are a major contributor to excess deaths.
The BMJ typically waits for the home institution’s findings before taking action, according to Kirsch. He said the Princess Máxima Center hasn’t yet sufficiently explained what was wrong with the study.
BMJ updated the expression of concern in January 2025, stating that it was awaiting the findings and that the institution had no update regarding when the information would be sent. The Princess Máxima’s website says the investigation is “complete but not yet finalized.”
“After more than two years, the ‘issues’ with the paper have not been revealed,” Kirsch wrote. He said that the center’s investigation revealed that the data and methodology are real and the authors committed no fraud.
“The institution just didn’t like the political implications of being associated with a paper that called the safety of the COVID vaccine into question.”
Princess Maxima Center did not respond to The Defender’s request for comment.
Study used proper methods, reported valid findings
All-cause mortality expert Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., told The Defender that the authors conducted their analysis, “using a correct method and without error.”
“Those results are robust and are corroborated and expanded upon by others,” Rancourt said. All-cause mortality is an important metric that is valid regardless of different opinions about what drives that mortality, he added.
Rancourt said the researchers discussed their results in relation to a broad range of published studies.
The push for retraction was based on how the media and social media commenters interpreted the discussion — not based on what the authors actually did in the paper.
“This is a regressive reason to start unpublishing papers,” he said, adding:
“The large industry of unpublishing shows that our society has moved away from independent thought (intellectual literacy) and towards excessive reliance on the pronouncements from high-status sources. I include scientists themselves in the said society.”
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All-cause mortality identified in the paper ‘unprecedented and raises serious concerns’
The original paper showed that excess mortality in 2020 was documented in 41 of the 47 countries the authors analyzed. Over the next two years, that number increased to 42 and 43 countries in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Overall, there were 3,098,456 excess deaths from Jan. 1, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2022, with just over 1 million of those occurring in 2020.
“This is unprecedented and raises serious concerns,” said researchers, who analyzed all-cause mortality reported in the Our World in Data database.
“In 2021,” they wrote, “the year in which both containment [i.e., lockdown] measures and COVID-19 vaccines were used to address virus spread and infection, the highest number of excess deaths was reported: 1,256,942 excess deaths.”
They reported that in 2022 — “the year in which most containment measures were lifted and COVID-19 vaccines were continued” — there were 808,392 excess deaths.
The authors pointed out that during the pandemic, politicians and the media emphasized: “on a daily basis that every COVID-19 death mattered and every life deserved protection through containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines.”
“In the aftermath of the pandemic, the same morale should apply,” the authors said. “Every death needs to be acknowledged and accounted for, irrespective of its origin.”
The authors called for government transparency in cause-of-death data so researchers can do “direct and robust analyses to determine the underlying contributors.”
This also means that autopsies need to be done to determine the exact reason for death, they added.
The authors noted that the data they analyzed may not have recorded all actual deaths because “countries may lack the infrastructure and capacity to document and account for all deaths.”
Record-keeping mishaps or delays may also cause deaths to go unrecorded.
Related articles in The Defender
- ‘The Dam Has Broken’: Mainstream Media Reports on Study Showing COVID Vaccines Likely Fueled Rise in Excess Deaths
- ‘Vigilante Science’: How Anonymous Critics Are Trying to Silence Peer-Reviewed Vaccine Research
- Vaccines Caused 17 Million Deaths During Pandemic Plus 4 More Takeaways From Largest Excess Mortality Study to Date
