Vaccine Misinformation Debunked
Fact Check: Senator Johnson Revives Discredited COVID-19 Vaccine Miscarriage Claim With Manipulated Data
No, COVID-19 vaccines do not cause an 82% miscarriage rate. That claim, revived by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), is based on a manipulated reading of a real study — one that actually found no heightened risk of miscarriage from the vaccine, according to KOAT.
The claim resurfaced during a Senate investigation into former infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci. Johnson alleged Fauci knew about potential miscarriage risks that were never publicly disclosed. But the math behind the 82% figure does not hold up under scrutiny, WCVB reported.
How Johnson Manufactured the 82% Figure
The claim traces back to a real study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study looked at 827 pregnant women who received a COVID-19 vaccine. Of those, 700 received the shot during their third trimester — the final stage of pregnancy, when miscarriage risk is already very low, according to KETV.
Johnson excluded those 700 women from the count. That left only 127 women in his calculation. Of those 127, 104 experienced a pregnancy loss — which works out to roughly 82%. But experts say removing the third-trimester women distorts the data entirely. The study itself did not support that conclusion, KCCI reported.
What the Actual Study Found
The New England Journal of Medicine study reached the opposite conclusion from Johnson's claim. Researchers found the COVID-19 vaccine was not linked to a higher risk of miscarriage. The study was designed to track pregnancy outcomes — not to hide them, according to WBAL-TV.
Scientists and fact-checkers have consistently flagged Johnson's reading of the study as flawed. Changing the denominator — the bottom number in a fraction — is a known method for inflating statistics. In this case, removing 700 women made a normal miscarriage rate look alarming, WMTW reported.
The Fauci Connection and Senate Investigation
Johnson revived this claim as part of a broader Senate inquiry targeting Dr. Fauci. Johnson argued that health officials were aware of potential risks to pregnant women but did not warn the public. Fauci led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for decades before stepping down in 2022, according to KCRA.
The investigation has drawn attention to how vaccine safety data was communicated during the pandemic. But health officials and independent researchers say the existing data showed the vaccines were safe for pregnant women. No credible study has found an 82% miscarriage rate, WGAL reported.
Why Miscarriage Statistics Are Easy to Distort
Miscarriage is common even without vaccines. Roughly 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to most medical estimates. The risk is highest in the first trimester and drops sharply by the third trimester — which is exactly why excluding third-trimester women from a study skews the results, WMUR reported.
Experts warn that cherry-picking which patients to include — or exclude — is one of the easiest ways to make safe treatments look dangerous. In this case, 700 data points were removed to manufacture a figure that the original researchers never calculated or endorsed, according to WLKY.
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