COVID-19 Vaccines One Likely Factor Behind 20,000 ‘Excess Deaths’: Parliamentary Inquiry

Researcher Martin Steward says there are legitimate questions around why wealthier countries experienced higher excess death rates than poorer countries.

Healthcare workers prepare Pfizer vaccines in Sydney, Australia, on Oct. 03, 2021. Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

The COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic lockdowns are likely a “strong contributing factor” to the nearly 20,000 excess deaths in Australia during the 2020-2023 period, according to one scientist.

Martin Stewart has 14 years of experience as a biomedical researcher at academic institutions in Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and Australia.

He also worked at the Robert Langer laboratory, named after the founder of Moderna, who produced an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic.

On March 26, the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs opened its inquiry into “excess mortality”—a term that refers to the number of deaths in a country that exceed the yearly average.

According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), excess deaths in Australia during the pandemic era reached 30,332. Of this, the total number of excess deaths deemed unrelated to COVID-19 was 19,401.

In his submission (pdf) to the Senate Committee, Mr. Stewart noted that many countries were experiencing “a high degree of excess mortality event after the worst and most deadly phases of the pandemic are over” and that these excess deaths “cannot be attributed to COVID-19 related illness.”

The “deadliest phase” was from late 2021 to early 2022 onwards, according to Mr. Stewart.

Most Australian states reached a 90 percent or more vaccination rate by December 2021, which was followed by a relaxing of restrictions in the Christmas period of 2021, and then a large-scale removal of restrictions and lockdowns in 2022.

However, 2022 and 2023 are the years when the country saw the most COVID deaths (10,301 for 2022, and 4,525 for 2023) and excess deaths not related to COVID-19 (9,644 and 8,361).

Mr. Stewart noted that the excess deaths “may be associated with long-term effects after COVID-19 (e.g. long COVID), longer term problems due to the healthcare system being inhibited from properly caring for people throughout 2020-2022, or due to government-sanctioned interventions such as lockdowns and COVID-19 vaccinations.”

“It is a complex and multi-factorial problem, however the data presented in this report strongly indicates that unproven and novel COVID-19 vaccinations are likely to be a contributing factor in excess deaths.”

The scientist added that as products such as mRNA- and viral vector-based vaccines are “newly developed and haven’t had the extensive background of human testing,” these vaccines have a high chance of “causing unforeseen problems.”

“This issue deserves a thorough and full-scale investigation,” he noted.

How Might the Vaccines Contribute To Excess Deaths?

Mr. Stewart argued that the cardiac damage caused by the mRNA vaccines could potentially be one area where COVID-19 vaccines are causing excess deaths.

He cited a 2023 study in Switzerland, led by Christian Mueller, professor of cardiology at the University of Basel, which indicated mRNA recipients experienced cardiac damage at a higher rate than untreated people.

“Among 777 participants, 40 participants exhibited elevated high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T blood concentration on day 3 and mRNA-1273 vaccine-associated myocardial injury was adjudicated in 22 participants,” Mr. Stewart noted.

“Although none developed major adverse cardiac events within 30 days, the patients who exhibited signs of cardiac damage were warned to rest and not to over-exert themselves.”

Mr. Stewart said that from now on, every COVID-19 vaccination “must be monitored with rates of illness and death compared to unvaccinated control groups for up to a year.”

“To do anything less than this is gross negligence and a lack of care for human life.”

Excess Deaths Higher in Wealthier Countries

He also urged the Australian and other developed governments to investigate why their excess death rates have been much higher than less developed countries from 2022-2024.

“What is it about our approach and interventions that have caused excess death rates of 10-30 percent in many of the highest GDP per person countries in the world?” Mr. Stewart added.

“The evidence indicates that a high rate of COVID-19 and mRNA vaccination are strong contributing factors to this trend, and thus, the issue deserves urgent investigation and intervention in order to bring excess mortality rates back down to normal, or even below normal, once again.”

Thousands Of Adverse Events, Myocarditis

The opinion was echoed by Monique O'Connor, a medical practitioner and consultant psychiatrist with over 30 years of medical experience.

In her submission (pdf) to the committee, she noted that in 2021, there were 8,422 adverse events reported to the Western Australian Vaccine Safety Surveillance (WAVSS) following COVID-19 vaccination, with 81 percent of all reports in the working age group of 18-64.

“Of particular concern ... is the high rate of adverse events in the young age groups, especially with Moderna vaccination, such as the 30-39 year age group of 383 per 100,000 doses,” she said.

“In 2021, 138 confirmed cases of myocarditis/myopericarditis following COVID-19 vaccinations were reported to WAVSS.

“A total of 365 confirmed cases of pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccinations received in 2021.”

In addition, she noted that prior to COVID-19 (2017-2021), the numbers of patients admitted to hospital was 40 to 63. Meanwhile, in 2021, 961 patients were admitted to hospital following COVID-19 vaccination.

Ms. O'Connor listed 10 factors that might have contributed to excess mortality.

This includes: management of SARS-CoV-2 illness; suicide; COVID-19 vaccine injury and death; long COVID and role of COVID-19 vaccination; elderly individuals at risk from “misclassification of post vaccine death” and poor care due to denial of family visitors; myocarditis, sudden death, and heart-related harms; pregnancy and births—especially post-vaccine; vaccine associated enhanced disease; plasmid DNA contamination of vaccines; and “frameshifting and junk mRNA.”

“The mRNA covid-19 vaccines used novel biologic therapy, a gene-based therapy, never previously licenced for human use,” she argued.

“It is recognised that there were high levels of contamination with plasmid DNA and that aberrant, unintended ‘junk proteins’ were produced through ‘frameshifting’ or misreading of the mRNA sequences or fragments,” she added.

“When introduced, it was impossible to predict whether/to what extend vaccine associated enhanced disease might occur.”

Ms. O'Connor also criticised the “politicisation of medicine,” arguing that SARS-CoV-2 infection, a highly contagious respiratory virus, “was always destined to become endemic especially since vaccination did not prevent infection or transmission the risk of infection.”

“However, pro-vaccine lobbyists used emotional blackmail to promote vaccination by impinging on our instinct to care and protect the vulnerable. Guilt and shame were used to smear those who did not agree with ‘experts’ assessment of safety.”