BMJ Public Health has retracted a paper some – including a witness at a recent U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing — have used to link COVID-19 vaccines to deaths. Published May 6, 2024, the paper used the “Our World in Data” database and the World Mortality Dataset to look at COVID-19 related deaths during the height of the pandemic.

An expression of concern, placed on the paper about a month after it was published, attempted to quell these claims, noting the study “does not establish any such link.” The notice also announced an institutional investigation by the Princess Máxima Center in the Netherlands, where three of the four authors worked, including corresponding author Saskia Mostert. Critics of the paper said it contained misquotes and omissions on vaccines and was “full of inappropriate insinuation.”

According to the August 11, 2026 retraction notice, BMJ Public Health retracted the paper for “misinformation in the discussion regarding the possible causes of excess mortality, and because the limited nature of the original work by the authors was not sufficiently described.”
 

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/08/11/bmj-public-health-retraction-covid-19-vaccines-death-senate-hearing/

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