German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach, who once claimed that COVID-19 vaccination was free of side effects, admitted last week that he was wrong, saying adverse reactions occur at a rate of one in 10,000 doses and can cause “severe disabilities.”

On Aug. 14, 2021, Lauterbach said on Twitter that the vaccines had “no side effects,” further questioning why some Germans refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

During an interview with German channel ZDF’s “Heute Journal” on March 12, Lauterbach was asked by anchor Christian Sievers about the claim he made in the summer of 2021, confronting the health minister with his previous tweet that stated the shots are virtually free of side effects.

Lauterbach responded that the tweet was “misguided” and an “exaggeration” he made at the time, noting that it “did not represent my true position.”

“I’ve always been aware of the numbers and they’ve remained relatively stable … one in 10,000 [are injured],” Lauterbach said. “Some say that it’s a lot, and some say it’s not so many.”

Lauterbach’s remark on vaccine adverse events came after the German network played a segment of several Germans who’ve been seriously injured after getting the shot, including a 17-year-old gymnast who previously competed in the German Artistic Gymnastics Championships before she was hospitalized for more than one year shortly after receiving the second dose of the BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

“What do you say to those who have been affected [by vaccine injuries]?” Sievers asked Lauterbach.

“What’s happened to these people is absolutely dismaying, and every single case is one too many,” Lauterbach responded. “I honestly feel very sorry for these people. There are severe disabilities, and some of them will be permanent.”

Steve Kirsch, executive director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, did not agree with Lauterbach, but he commended the health minister for making “progress” when comparing his latest remark to his previous comments regarding the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

“The true rate of serious adverse events is approximately 100 times greater than the figures Lauterbach cited—’closer to 1 in 100 doses’ and ‘For death, it is ~1 in 1,000 doses,'” Kirsch said on Twitter.

By Oct. 31, 2022, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut received a total of 333,492 individual case reports on suspected COVID-19 vaccine adverse reactions or vaccine side effects in Germany, according to official data (pdf) released in December 2022 by the medical regulatory body that researches vaccines and biomedicines.

“The number of individual case reports per month peaked in December 2021 and declined continuously during the summer months of 2022,” the federal health agency, which is subordinate to the German health ministry, stated in the report.

Despite these findings, the country’s health ministry website states, as of March 16, that “modern vaccines are safe and adverse effects only occur in sporadic cases.”

Lawsuits Pending

As the subject of post-vaccine injuries has started to be more widely covered by some German media outlets, lawsuits have begun to roll out against BioNTech, and also against other COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.

BioNTech has denied all responsibilities, ZDF reported.

Vaccine manufacturers such as Pfizer and Moderna have immunity from liability if something unintentionally goes wrong with their vaccines, putting them in a very strong legal position.

“It’s true that within the framework of these EU contracts, the companies were largely exempted from liability and that the liability, therefore, lies with the German state, so to speak … with the federal states,” Lauterbach said.

Yet, in spite of this, the health minister noted that it would “definitely” be a good idea if biopharmaceutical companies would “show a willingness to help” those affected by vaccine adverse events, especially due to their profits being “exorbitant.”

“So, that wouldn’t just be a good gesture, we should expect it,” he said.

Lauterbach said the priority now is to facilitate the care of those suffering from post-vaccination syndrome. He added that he’s been “negotiating with the budget committee” to launch a program to help those injured.

“It’s a program I’d like to launch as soon as possible, and I’m in budget negotiations for this money. So it’s something that we also have to bring to fruition, it’s an obligation, and it would network the experts in this field in such a way that the probability of good therapy in Germany would grow,” Lauterbach said.

“Our understanding of adverse events is now getting clearer and clearer,” he added. “It should be possible in the future to identify those who are affected more quickly, so we can get them quicker help.”

Treating Vaccine Injuries

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet said in a recent interview for EpochTV’s “Crossroads” that it was already known that the toxicity of the spike protein and another component of the COVID-19 vaccine could cause complications and adverse reactions shortly after the shots were being rolled out.

“Over the first six months after the rollout of COVID-19 shots, I had a whole gamut of patients with all kinds of problems they had not had before,” she said, adding that the only common denominator of these cases was that they all had the COVID-19 vaccines.

To help people suffering from vaccine injuries, the Truth for Health Foundation prepared an educational booklet explaining vaccine adverse reactions and treatment options, said Vliet, who also works pro bono as the president and CEO of the foundation.

The treatments include a combination of prescription medications, nutraceuticals, supplements, foods, neuroprotection, immune boosters, and also lifestyle changes, Vliet said, adding that she uses this combination approach to treat her patients, and has had positive results.

“One of the foundational medicines that has had enormous benefits for the patients I’m treating, for example, is hydroxychloroquine,” Vliet said, “because it’s anti-inflammatory, it’s an immune modulator, it’s anti-viral.”

“We’ve never in the history of the vaccination program worldwide, had an experimental shot that crosses the blood-brain barrier, gets into the brain itself, and the nervous system,” Vliet said.

“These COVID gene therapy shots do that,” she said. “They also cross the placental barrier … so it’s understandable why these experimental gene therapy shots are causing so much damage to developing babies in the womb, to the brain, and central nervous system in children and adults.”

Since doctors understand the mechanism of how the vaccines work, they can use existing medicines to treat adverse effects, Vliet explained.