Scientists at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revised the autopsy results of children who died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, reducing the number of children the agency classified as having likely died as a result of their vaccination, according to documents released last week by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
The documents show that in November 2025, the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) identified 10 child deaths related to the COVID-19 shots. But in December 2025, it reduced the number to seven and downgraded the probability that those deaths were connected to the children’s vaccination.
The Daily Caller, which first reported, quoted two former FDA officials and a forensic pathologist who performed two of the children’s autopsies. One of the FDA officials told the outlet the emails reveal “a coverup” by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Johnson included the documents in a letter sent last week to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CDC Acting Director Jay Bhattacharya and FDA Acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas.
Even the reduced number of deaths was enough to trigger concern among some FDA scientists about the safety of the COVID-19 shots, Johnson’s letter stated.
“Although what drove the decision to change these three cases remains to be seen, what is clear is that these officials appear to have determined that the seven cases warranted warning about the risks,” Johnson wrote. These risks “should have raised serious concerns at HHS and CDC about the mRNA COVID-19 Injections.”
Even after the downgrade, the FDA’s Division of Pharmacovigilance recommended revising the label of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to include a warning about the risk of “myocarditis with fatal outcomes.”
The change was never made, for reasons that are not clear.
Myocarditis is widely associated with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and, with reports of deaths connected to the vaccines, particularly among teenage and young adult males.
Hellbound and Down 