Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) said several major news organizations, including Fox Digital, declined to publish an opinion article he wrote about his investigation into COVID-19 vaccine safety and the federal government’s handling of adverse event reports.
The Wisconsin Republican made the claim while releasing an op-ed and an interim report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which he chairs.
Johnson posted the opinion piece on X and later published it on his Senate website under the headline, “The story the media — and the government — don’t want you to hear.”
In the article, Johnson argued that federal health agencies failed to adequately inform the public about safety concerns associated with COVID-19 vaccines.
He also accused major media organizations of refusing to provide a platform for his claims.
“The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, and Fox Digital have all declined or ignored requests to publish this op-ed,” Johnson wrote.
According to Johnson, several television news organizations also declined to cover findings contained in a report released by his committee.
He said NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN and MSNBC did not provide coverage of the report.
The senator’s allegations were accompanied by the release of a Majority Staff Interim Report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The report examines how federal health officials responded to reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.
According to Johnson, the report suggests Biden administration health officials were aware of potential safety concerns but failed to alert the public.
The report cites cases involving “death and sudden death” associated with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Johnson’s investigation focuses in part on Peter Marks, the former director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
The agency division oversees vaccine approvals and safety monitoring.
According to Johnson, Marks and other officials were informed that an algorithm used to analyze data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, could potentially obscure adverse-event signals.
Johnson alleges federal officials received data over several months indicating possible vaccine-related risks.
Rather than publicly disclosing those concerns, Johnson claims officials instructed a data analyst to stop pursuing the issue.
“Rather than warning the public, they ordered the data analyst to ‘cease and desist’ and then lied to the American public that ‘they weren’t seeing safety signals,’” Johnson wrote.
Johnson described the matter as one of the most significant controversies of his political career.
“I consider this to be the biggest government scandal in my lifetime, and one that is crying out for full media attention and coverage,” he wrote.
The senator also cited figures from VAERS, stating that the system currently contains more than 1.6 million worldwide adverse event reports and more than 39,000 reported deaths associated with COVID-19 vaccinations, per Trending Politics.
Health officials have repeatedly stated that reports submitted to VAERS do not establish that a vaccine caused a reported injury or death and require further investigation and verification.
Fox News covered Johnson’s committee report in May but had not published the senator’s opinion article as of the time he released it publicly.
The allegations contained in Johnson’s report have not been independently adjudicated, and federal health agencies have continued to maintain that COVID-19 vaccines provided substantial public health benefits during the pandemic.
