Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsinclaimed on 9 May 2026 that COVID-19 vaccines may have killed 3.9 million people, a figure built on a chain of flawed arithmetic, a misapplied study, and a fundamental misreading of what the federal vaccine surveillance system actually measures.

Johnson made the assertion during an appearance onReal America's Voice, the right-wing network where he was interviewed by James O'Keefe. The claim spread rapidly on social media, captured in a widely sharedvideo clip verified by journalist Aaron Rupar.

The remarks came days after Johnson published a38-page Senate report titled Unmasked,alleging that health officials in the Biden administration deliberately suppressed Covid-19 vaccine safety signals detected through the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, known as VAERS.

Johnson's arithmetic proceeded in two steps. He cited a worldwide VAERS total of 39,000 deaths reported following COVID-19 vaccination. He then multiplied that number by 100, citing what he described as a Harvard study establishing that fewer than 1% of adverse events are ever reported to VAERS. 'Take that 39,000, multiply it by as much as 100 times,' he told the programme. 'That could be 3.9 million deaths.'

The first problem is the starting figure itself. The 39,000 deaths Johnson cited represent a worldwide VAERS total, covering reports submitted from across the globe, not a US figure. Presenting a global dataset as the basis for a claim about American casualties is a categorical error. The US population represents roughly 4% of the world's population, and VAERS is a US-run system that primarily captures domestic reports, so the gap between what Johnson implied and what the numbers actually show is substantial.

Sen. Ron Johnson claims preposterously that as many as 3.9 MILLION (!!!) Americans died as a result of the covid vaccineComplete insanitypic.twitter.com/PDCx0oBALU

The second problem is what VAERS reports actually mean. TheCDC is explicit on its websitethat a VAERS report of death does not indicate the vaccine caused the death. Healthcare providers are required by law to report any death occurring after vaccination, regardless of cause.

A person who received a vaccine and died in a car accident three days later would appear in VAERS. TheCDCand FDA investigate each such report; as of the programme's most recent data, no causal link has been established between the COVID-19 vaccines and any of the reported deaths beyond extremely rare, documented side effects.

The study Johnson referenced was conducted by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc. and was submitted to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Theoriginal report, funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, stated that 'fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported' to VAERS. That line has since been widely quoted across anti-vaccine circles.

What Johnson did not mention is that the study's preliminary data were collected between June 2006 and October 2009, covering 45 different vaccines administered across a Massachusetts health network. Those vaccines had nothing to do with COVID-19. No COVID-19 vaccine existed until late 2020, more than a decade after the study's data collection ended. Applying a pre-COVID underreporting rate, drawn from a completely different vaccine context, to COVID-19 VAERS data is not a valid extrapolation.

Source: International Business Times UK