Years after the pandemic peak, fresh documents and open letters from health freedom groups raise old questions about mRNA shots and excess deaths. Mainstream outlets stay quiet while alternative voices point to numbers that refuse to fade. What do the latest reports actually show, and why does accountability still feel out of reach for so many?
What Ed Dowd and Others Call the Missing Reckoning
Ed Dowd, a former Wall Street analyst who has written about sudden deaths, published a piece this month through the Brownstone Institute. He argues that new revelations should have forced a public accounting. Senator Ron Johnson released a report in late April 2026 titled “Unmasked: How Biden Health Officials Purposely Turned a Blind Eye Toward COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Signals.” Internal records, according to the report, show FDA staff chose not to use stronger data tools that flagged cardiac deaths, strokes, and other issues. A later hearing looked at possible cancer links. Around the same time, former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents on gain-of-function work and the lab-leak discussion.
Dowd notes the contrast with 1976. That year officials pulled a swine flu vaccine after roughly 25 reported deaths and several hundred Guillain-Barré cases. VAERS has recorded far higher numbers after the COVID shots—around 39,000 deaths in some tallies—yet the products stayed on the market. He writes that the media and the current administration have largely stayed silent. “They lied. They knew they were lying,” is one line he uses when describing the gap between early claims and later data. Mainstream sources counter that VAERS is a passive system open to anyone and cannot prove causation. Large studies from France and other countries have reported lower overall mortality among vaccinated groups, which officials cite as evidence the shots reduced severe outcomes.
Related coverage on excess death patterns appears in earlier Planet Today reporting, including Japan Excess Deaths Study: All in Vaccinated, Zero in Unvaccinated? and notes on UK data withholding.
Nicolas Hulscher and the “Deadliest Product” Claim
On 21 October 2026 Natural News carried an interview summary with epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher of the McCullough Foundation. Hulscher points to roughly 30 population-level studies that he says show higher all-cause mortality after the shots. One widely cited estimate from Denis Rancourt and colleagues put global deaths linked to the mRNA products at about 17 million by September 2023. U.S. CDC Wonder records, in the discussion, suggest at least 900,000 excess deaths. Hulscher and interviewer Mike Adams compare that figure to combined U.S. combat deaths from several major wars.
Hulscher’s group also re-examined FDA briefing documents for Moderna’s newer mRNA flu shot. They reported 2.5 times more unexplained deaths and six times more severe adverse reactions than the standard flu shot, with no pure placebo arm. Officials and the manufacturer have said the trial met its primary endpoint of better protection against confirmed flu and that serious events were within expected ranges. The FDA approved the product. Hulscher calls the risk-benefit math poor for a disease that most people recover from without hospital care.
Critics of these analyses note that excess deaths have many possible drivers: delayed care, aging populations, heat waves, and lingering effects of the virus itself. Some large observational studies continue to show net benefit against severe COVID. Hulscher replies that the timing of mortality spikes—often weeks to months after dosing—matches patterns seen in insurance data and certain national registries.
HHS Statements on mRNA Funding and the MAHA Letter
In August 2025 HHS under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced it would wind down 22 mRNA vaccine development projects under BARDA worth nearly $500 million. The stated reason was that the data showed limited effectiveness against upper respiratory viruses once they mutate. Some final-stage contracts were allowed to finish; new starts were halted. Other mRNA uses inside the department were left untouched. An earlier Children’s Health Defense report from March 2025 quoted an HHS spokesperson saying, “No mRNA vaccine funding has been canceled,” after reports that NIH staff had been told to flag mRNA-related grants. The two statements sit side by side: one set of contracts ended, broader research funding was not described as fully cut.
By September 2026 leaders in the Make America Healthy Again movement sent an open letter to President Trump and Kennedy. Signatories included Rep. Thomas Massie, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Dr. Robert Malone, and others. The letter said the centerpiece of their agenda had been removal of mRNA shots. They wrote that policies so far were “neutered and self-defeating,” that pregnant women and children remained at risk, and that injured people had received little help. They warned that continued inaction could cost political support ahead of midterms. Dr. Malone and his wife noted the contrast between Kennedy’s earlier warnings and the later approval of another mRNA product. HHS has said Kennedy supports closer scrutiny and that some research continues for non-respiratory uses such as cancer. CDC Director Erica Schwartz and others maintain the existing COVID shots remain safe and effective for recommended groups.
A South Korea analysis of more than 51 million people, covered earlier on Planet Today, found mixed respiratory signals after repeated doses—higher rates of some common infections in certain models, lower rates of others. Authors and critics disagree on how much of the pattern is residual confounding versus a real signal. See South Korea 51M Study: COVID Vaccines & Higher Respiratory Risks?.
What Official Records and Alternative Analyses Both Leave Open
Official agencies continue to publish summaries stating that hundreds of millions of doses were given under intensive monitoring and that benefits outweighed risks for most people at the time of rollout. Excess death rates in many countries rose in 2021–2022 and have not fully returned to pre-pandemic baselines in some places. Researchers on both sides list overlapping possible causes. The difference lies in how much weight each side gives to the vaccination campaign itself.
Dowd and others argue that the absence of sustained congressional hearings, prosecutions, or product withdrawals after the new 2026 documents is itself evidence of institutional protection. Supporters of the original program say the same documents show ordinary bureaucratic caution, not malice, and that pulling products without clear causal proof would have cost more lives. Fertility declines, reported in several countries after 2021, are cited by some as another signal; demographers point to lockdown effects, economic stress, and pre-existing trends. No single large study has settled the question to everyone’s satisfaction.
Planet Today has tracked related claims, including UK Government Has Withheld Data That May Link Covid Jab To Excess Deaths, where officials refused to release matched vaccination-and-death records on privacy grounds. The Information Commissioner sided with the agency. Campaigners called it a cover-up; the agency called it protection of families.
Where the Numbers and the Silence Meet
The practical result in late 2026 is that mRNA COVID products remain available, newer mRNA flu shots have been approved, and federal funding for some development work has been reduced but not eliminated across the board. MAHA-aligned voices say the reduction is too narrow and too late. Public-health leaders say further cuts would leave the country less ready for the next respiratory threat. Both groups cite peer-reviewed papers; they simply read the same papers differently.
Readers can examine the primary materials: the Brownstone piece by Dowd, the Natural News summary of the Hulscher interview, the HHS BARDA wind-down notice, the Children’s Health Defense report on funding language, and the ZeroHedge coverage of the September open letter. National statistical agencies and large cohort studies remain the other half of the record. The gap between those two piles of material is what keeps the reckoning conversation alive for some and closed for others.
Original sources (selected):
Ed Dowd, “The Covid Reckoning That Never Came,” Brownstone Institute, 11 October 2026: brownstone.org
Nicolas Hulscher interview summary, Natural News, 21 October 2026: naturalnews.com
“‘No mRNA Vaccine Funding Has Been Canceled,’ HHS Says,” Children’s Health Defense, March 2025: childrenshealthdefense.org
MAHA open letter coverage, ZeroHedge / Epoch Times, 22 September 2026: zerohedge.com
HHS BARDA wind-down announcement, 5 August 2025: hhs.gov
Disclaimer for fact-checkers: This article draws on primary statements, published analyses, and contemporaneous news reports from both mainstream and alternative outlets. It presents claims as they appear in those sources and notes counter-arguments where they exist. It does not assert that any single study has proven causation for all excess deaths, nor does it claim that official bodies have ignored every safety signal. Readers are encouraged to consult the linked original documents and the broader scientific literature. Planet Today reports on contested public-health topics; individual studies and statements should be evaluated on their methods and data.