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A new peer-reviewed study of nearly 2 million Florida adults found that people who received Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine were more likely to die within the following year than people who received Moderna’s mRNA COVID-19 shot.
The study, published in Global Epidemiology, found a statistically significant association between Pfizer’s original COVID-19 vaccine and higher death rates over the following year when compared with the Moderna shot. This included a higher rate of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality and COVID-19 mortality.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Retsef Levi, Ph.D., a professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and member of the now-suspended Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), were among the study’s co-authors.
In a post on X, Ladapo wrote that the study’s findings support his decision to stop recommending the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, as they “strongly” imply that “thousands of Floridians died as a result of receiving Pfizer instead of Moderna.”
According to Ladapo, the study’s findings indicate that the likely death toll related to the Pfizer vaccine, if extrapolated nationally and globally, “is staggering.”
“The culture of approving vaccines without adequate safety testing and assuming ‘innocent until proven guilty’ with these products absolutely, positively needs to end,” Ladapo wrote.
As I said in January 2024, no one should be taking mRNA COVID-19 vaccines because of their terrible safety profile. But for those who had to take one, Florida’s public health data strongly implies that thousands of Floridians died as a result of receiving Pfizer instead of Moderna. The number of lives lost in the U.S. and internationally is staggering, based on this analysis. The culture of approving vaccines without adequate safety testing and assuming “innocent until proven guilty” with these products absolutely, positively needs to end.
— Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD (@FLSurgeonGen) November 5, 2026
Pfizer vaccine linked to higher overall death rates across all age groups
The researchers analyzed vaccination and death records for 1,962,822 Florida adults who received their first Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 shot between December 2020 and August 2021.
The researchers matched nearly 1 million Pfizer recipients with an equal number of Moderna recipients based on criteria including age, sex, and vaccination date.
The study’s findings showed that, when compared to those who received the Moderna shot, people who received the Pfizer shot had a:
- 39% higher risk of death from any cause.
- 55% higher risk of cardiovascular death.
- 90% higher risk of death from COVID-19.
- 36% higher risk of death from causes other than COVID-19.
In total, 784 all-cause deaths were reported among the Pfizer cohort, compared to 562 all-cause deaths among Moderna recipients. This equates to 221 additional deaths per 100,000 people among the Pfizer group during the study period.
The study found that differences were greatest among adults ages 60 and over, although Pfizer recipients had higher overall death rates across all age groups.
“These findings suggest that COVID-19- and non-COVID-19-related health outcomes should be considered” when evaluating COVID-19 vaccine safety, the researchers wrote.
“The implied all-cause excess mortality in choosing Pfizer-BioNTech over Moderna is huge,” said Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense. He noted that for adults 60 and over, the hazard ratio is 1.44, which translates to nearly 500 more deaths per 100,000 people.
Findings consistent with prior research on Pfizer vaccine
According to the researchers, several factors could explain the higher mortality among Pfizer vaccine recipients.
One possibility is that Moderna’s vaccine provided comparatively stronger protection against COVID-19 infection and its complications. Another is that the two vaccines may affect health differently, beyond preventing COVID-19.
The researchers noted that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines differ in their ingredients, mRNA doses, manufacturing processes and delivery systems. However, they said the biological reasons for the differences in death rates remain unclear.
They also examined deaths from cancer, suicide and homicide, which they considered unlikely to be affected by which vaccine a person received. They found no statistically significant differences in those outcomes among the two groups.
According to the researchers, there was “general congruence” between their findings and those of a nationwide study published in 2022 of 433,672 veterans across the U.S.
That study found that Pfizer recipients had a higher risk of stroke, myocarditis, blood clots and kidney injury when compared to Moderna vaccine recipients.
The researchers’ findings were also consistent with those of another 2022 study comparing 902,235 Pfizer and Moderna recipients in the U.S. Veterans Affairs healthcare system. That study found a higher risk of COVID-19 infection and hospitalization among Pfizer recipients — a gap that grew with age.
Study’s limitations raise further questions
Jablonowski said the study included some potential methodological flaws. He noted one possible confounding factor: The Pfizer vaccine was available earlier than Moderna’s, when there was a push to vaccinate high-risk groups.
“Pfizer’s was available first, the vulnerable were vaccinated first, so there is room for a confounding effect,” Jablonowski said. “The problem arises if those who are more likely to die … are also more likely to be vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine due to a difference not detected in the study.”
Jablonowski noted that one of the study’s supplemental tables “actually shows the inverse relationship of vaccine and mortality, where Moderna’s vaccine is associated with a greater all-cause mortality hazard in individuals 18-59 years old.”
While the researchers didn’t address those potential factors and discrepancies, they did identify some other potential study limitations. As it was an observational study, the researchers lacked detailed medical records that could have shed light on underlying illnesses among the people studied.
The researchers also noted that some of the official causes of death “could be subject to misclassification due to errors on death certificates.”
The study also didn’t include an unvaccinated cohort to compare mortality and other health risks with the vaccinated group.
Despite these limitations, the researchers wrote that the “large number of adults included in this analysis, rigorousness of the matching process, and consistency of our findings with prior studies support the validity of these findings.”
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Tracy Beth Høeg, M.D., Ph.D., a vaccine safety expert, contributed to the study. Although she was not one of the study’s co-authors, she is credited with “assistance with study method development and writing during the early stage of this research.”
Høeg served as acting director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research before her firing in May.
During her time at the FDA, Høeg participated in an “intense investigation” linking the COVID-19 vaccines to “at least” 10 child deaths, and authored a report recommending that the number of diseases covered by the recommended childhood vaccination schedule be reduced from 17 to 11.
Levi led ACIP’s workgroup on the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines before a federal court ruling in March froze ACIP’s operations.
That ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and six other medical groups. They sued U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last year in a bid to overturn Kennedy’s vaccine policies.
ACIP, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy, has not held a meeting since December 2025.
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- Pfizer Vaccine ‘Probably’ Linked to Heart Inflammation, Israeli Panel of Experts Concludes
- Pfizer Vaccine May Cause Heart Inflammation in People Under 30, Leaked Study Suggests
- Pfizer COVID Vaccine Linked to Rare Blood Clot Disorder, Israeli Researchers Say
- ‘Expect Fireworks’: CDC Launches Group to Study COVID Vaccine Injuries, Efficacy
