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A military doctor is investigating whether COVID-19 vaccines caused the deaths of over 2,500 U.S. military service members, Politico reported Thursday.
Dr. Theresa Long, a longtime Army doctor board-certified in aerospace medicine, has been named senior medical military adviser to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to an Aug. 14 deposition obtained by Politico.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) are supporting the investigation.
Long’s deposition revealed that she is working with Kennedy and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to investigate 2,544 deaths that were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The deaths remain unverified.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, military service members were subject to the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate. A year later, Congress passed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which required the military to rescind the mandate. The mandate was lifted in January 2023.
Long was deposed as part of a lawsuit brought by former CIA physician Dr. Terry Adirim against the CIA for firing her. The agency fired Adirim after she was targeted by far-right influencer Ivan Raiklin, who accused her of being the “architect” of the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Long, who testified in support of Raiklin, said she knows of 28 people who died as a result of the COVID-19 vaccine. She said she hopes to finish her investigation “within a year.”
Thomas Rempfer, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and adviser to the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Military Chapter, said he is “grateful” that HHS and the DOD “are reversing COVID-era inversions of accountability by appointing Dr. Long to this crucial task.”
Rempfer said the investigation can help lead to “a restoration of trust in the military institution and government” and “will serve as a barricade against future unlawful mandates for unapproved medical products.”
J.M. Phelps, a contributing writer to the Gateway Pundit and American Family News, has reported extensively on military vaccine mandates. He said the investigation marks a break with the previous administration, “which lied to us repeatedly about the safety and efficacy of the shot.”
Did military and Biden administration conceal COVID vaccine injuries?
In her deposition, Long referred to studies conducted by federal health agencies and the military, examining a possible link between the COVID-19 shots and cardiac conditions including myocarditis and pericarditis.
A 2024 U.S. Food and Drug Administration study examined approximately 300 people who developed myocarditis after getting the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The study found that some, but not all, of those affected improved over time.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon released a report assessing the health of active-duty service members following COVID-19 vaccination. The report found that cases of myocarditis and pericarditis increased “in the short term after vaccination” but were “not sustained over a 1-year period.”
The report did not address any vaccine-related deaths.
According to Long, the Pentagon report’s findings are questionable. In her deposition last month, she said the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), a military medical database, showed a large increase in medical conditions among service members in 2021 — the first year the COVID-19 shots were widely available.
The DOD attributed the increase to a tabulation error, but Long said in her deposition that she was skeptical about the DOD’s claim.
Pam Long, director of CHD’s Military Chapter, said that the military “has active health surveillance systems” in place that would confirm whether there was an increase in medical conditions among military service members after the rollout of the COVID-19 shots.
The systems would “likely show higher numbers of … vaccine deaths and injuries than VAERS,” she said. However, the military’s surveillance systems are “designed not to evaluate the safety and efficacy of vaccines,” and “will not identify vaccine injury and deaths,” Pam Long said.
Phelps said that the previous administration may have attempted to cover up the health conditions initially identified in DMED.
“In a letter from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) addressed to former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in May 2023, it was noted that ‘[a] whistleblower downloaded the DMED data over a year after the DOD admitted that DMED had been corrupted and was later apparently fixed,’” Phelps said.
The whistleblower found “notable rises in several serious medical diagnoses” in the database even after DOD reportedly corrected it, Phelps said.
The DOD referred The Defender to HHS for comment. HHS and Dr. Theresa Long did not respond to requests for comment by the deadline.
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Service members discharged for refusing COVID shots still face obstacles
The DOD told Politico in a statement that it does not “have anything to announce at this time.” The DOD referred to a May statement announcing the COVID-19 Reinstatement and Reconciliation Task Force, aimed at helping service members discharged for not complying with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate apply for reinstatement.
“The Department continues to right the wrongs of the past and to restore confidence in, and honor to, our fighting force,” the DOD said in its May statement.
According to a December 2022 DOD document, 8,123 service members were discharged as of Nov. 30, 2022, for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order for the reinstatement of service members who were discharged for not getting a COVID-19 shot.
But military experts say that most service members who were discharged for not complying with the vaccine mandate — or who sustained serious adverse events related to their vaccination and faced consequences after reporting their injuries — are still awaiting justice.
“To date, only 150 military members out of 100,000 who left (by forced discharge or involuntary separation) the military during the pandemic under an unlawful emergency use authorization COVID vaccine mandate have been reinstated,” Pam Long said.
Faye Link, wife of retired military chaplain James Link, told The Defender that her husband had been “healthy prior to the vaccine,” but now “suffers from bradycardia, tachycardia and severe atrial fibrillation, resulting in the need for a pacemaker and cardiac ablation.” He also suffers from hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Although a Duke University physician connected these conditions to James Link’s COVID-19 vaccination, the military disagreed.
“The Army blamed my husband, stating that he had pre-existing issues and that he lied on PHA [periodic health assessment] prior to deployment, which was utterly false. The Army did not want to take any accountability for the COVID-19 vaccine,” Faye Link said.
The Army proceeded with disciplinary actions against James Link. He was also stripped of his military medals and honors and lost back pay and benefits, which have not been reinstated.
“We still are fighting for James’s benefits,” Faye Link said. “The Army owes us over $100,000 with his Army retirement that they are holding back. We need help with this, but seem to get nowhere.”
Pam Long said she hopes the DOD and HHS “will correct the lack of risk-benefit analysis of each vaccine given to military members” and will improve the “surveillance of the health of the force.” She said the timing is critical, because military members “will be mandated to receive an mRNA flu vaccine” next month.
“Our military members need the public to get vocal and visible with pressure on Congress and the Trump administration that military members are still being denied accommodations (exemptions for medical contraindications and religious objections) to vaccines at the present date,” Long said.
“This is an injustice to the men and women who defend this nation.”
Related articles in The Defender
- ‘Unwinding the Mess’: DOD Launches Task Forces to Investigate Military COVID Vaccine Mandates
- Military Wants Service Members Ousted for Refusing COVID Vaccine to Reenlist — Here’s Why They Aren’t
- Trump Orders Military to Reinstate Members Booted for Refusing COVID Vaccines
- Military Reinstates Flu Vaccines Amid Texas Outbreak — but Won’t Say if Sick Recruits Were Vaccinated
- Pentagon Ends Flu Vaccine Mandate for Reservists, But Not Active Duty Troops
- Did COVID Vaccine Injuries Influence FAA’s Revision of EKG Test Limits for Pilots?
