RFK Jr. and Hegseth Probe if COVID Vaccines Killed Troops
Left 33%
Center 0%
Right 67%
1 left · 0 center · 2 right
What happened
In an August 14 deposition in a federal lawsuit involving former Defense Department health official Terry Adirim, Army physician Dr. Theresa Long testified that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appointed her as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s senior medical military adviser. Long said she was tasked with examining 2,544 unverified deaths among U.S. service members reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to determine whether COVID-19 vaccination caused them, and with reviewing the military's pandemic health-surveillance system and two medical databases, work she hoped to finish within a year. She also testified that she personally knows of 28 people who died because of the COVID vaccine but was not permitted to provide further details, and compared immunizing service members against COVID to Nazi doctors experimenting on concentration camp prisoners. On August 24, 2021, the Biden administration mandated COVID-19 vaccination for service members and discharged more than 8,000 who refused before Congress required the Defense Department to rescind the mandate in 2022; President Donald Trump in January 2025 ordered those service members reinstated, and Hegseth in May created a task force to help them return.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 3 articles
3 of 3 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 3 of 3
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Theresa Long, Dr. Theresa Long, Politico, Pentagon and Department of War
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 3 of 3
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: legal deposition, court testimony, Pentagon report, court filing
- Credits another outlet 1 of 3
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Politico
- Unnamed sources 0 of 3
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 4, 13:26 UTC by Daily Wire, naming its source. First document in the first report, from Daily Wire (court testimony).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage omits that the deaths under review are unverified reports, not proven vaccine fatalities. The New York Times frames the project as investigating whether Covid shots killed troops. Right-leaning coverage is more complete here: the Daily Wire says Long is examining 2,544 filings in VAERS, a system that logs health problems after vaccination even when causation is uncertain. Leave that out and the story sounds like a confirmed body count rather than a review of unconfirmed alerts.
Left-leaning coverage leads with Long comparing immunizing service members against Covid to "Nazi doctors experimenting on concentration camp prisoners." Right-leaning coverage omits that testimony and opens on the Kennedy-Hegseth investigation instead.
How many of those death reports has the military already verified as caused by the vaccine?
Bottom line
If you only saw the New York Times, you would think Long was hired to check whether Covid shots killed 2,500 troops, with no hint those deaths are unverified VAERS filings.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Long is examining 2,544 reported but unverified deaths among service members submitted to VAERS
- A March 2026 Pentagon report found myocarditis and pericarditis increased in the short term after vaccination but the increase was not sustained over a year and was small compared with rates after COVID infection
- The Pentagon discharged more than 8,000 troops who refused the COVID vaccine
- The Department of War said it does not have anything to announce at this time regarding Long's role as Kennedy's senior medical military adviser
- Long testified she personally knows of 28 people who died because of the COVID vaccine but was not permitted to provide additional details
The Left View
The New York Times presents the episode as Kennedy hiring a doctor who opposed COVID shots to investigate whether the vaccines killed about 2,500 troops, treating Long's Nazi-experiment comparison as the central fact about her fitness and implying the inquiry is led by an opponent of immunization rather than a neutral medical reviewer.
The Right View
The Daily Wire and Daily Caller present the assignment as Kennedy and Hegseth opening a warranted investigation into whether the shots contributed to service-member deaths after a mandate the Trump executive order called an "unfair, overbroad and completely unnecessary burden." They stress that VAERS is an early-warning system that accepts reports even when the submitter is uncertain the vaccine caused the event, that Long is re-checking military databases she says she questions, and that a March Pentagon report found myocarditis and pericarditis rose in the short term after vaccination but that the increase was not sustained over a year and was small compared with rates after COVID infection. They also note nearly 170 discharged troops had been reinstated by April, more than 800 others had expressed interest in returning, and Kennedy has argued the mandate violated service members' rights.
Our Take (balanced)
The left's strongest argument is that Long's comparison of military COVID immunization to Nazi experiments, together with her opposition to the shots, means the person chosen to judge the 2,544 reports has already analogized vaccination to a crime, so the review cannot be independent. The right's strongest argument is that thousands of death reports in an early-warning system, Long's sworn claim that she knows of 28 vaccine-caused deaths, a documented short-term myocarditis signal in Pentagon data, and a mandate that removed more than 8,000 troops are enough to justify re-examining military surveillance records rather than closing the book. The central unresolved tension is whether causation can be established from unverified VAERS reports and an investigator who has already compared the shots to Nazi crimes, or whether treating prior official findings as settled leaves possible vaccine-related deaths among service members uncounted.
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