Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) and investigative journalist and author Mary Beth Pfeiffer are sounding an alarm on a disturbing trend in the United States: an unusual rise in deaths among young adults post-pandemic. This revelation comes at a time when public health discussions have largely focused on the pandemic’s impact and measures to counteract it.
A recent opinion piece in The Hill by Kory and Pfeiffer, “This Is Bigger Than COVID: Why Are So Many Americans Dying Early?” opens with a statement from FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf:
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf recently took to X to mourn the “catastrophic” decline in U.S. life expectancy.
But his post, which hit on smoking, diet, chronic illness and health care, ignored the obvious: People are dying in abnormally high numbers even now and long since COVID-19 waned. Yet public health agencies and medical societies are silent.
The authors’ argument that the United States is experiencing a catastrophic decline in life expectancy is confirmed by various sources. One is life insurers, who are particularly alarmed, noting 158,000 excess deaths in the first nine months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2019. This figure surpasses American military fatalities since the Vietnam War, signaling a crisis that is yet to be fully understood and addressed by public health authorities. The trend is particularly stark among young, working-age individuals, as reflected in actuarial reports, a staple in the insurance industry for risk assessment. These findings are echoed by the Society of Actuaries, which reports significantly higher mortality rates among insured individuals aged 25 to 44.
The authors also highlight the concerning decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to archive its excess deaths webpage in September, with a note stating that the datasets will no longer be updated. This move is seen as nothing short of flummoxing, considering the ongoing and unresolved nature of the excess-death issue.
The op-ed further suggests that these deaths cannot be fully explained by Covid, pointing to the CDC-admitted increases in liver, kidney, and cardiovascular diseases; diabetes; and drug overdoses, all of which are uncommon among working-age Americans. Kory and Pfeiffer identify three potential contributing factors to the early deaths: the consequences of strict Covid lockdowns, hospital protocols and the suppression of early treatments during the pandemic, and the widespread vaccination of 270 million Americans, including babies, pregnant women, and employees under workplace mandates.
The op-ed advocates for an in-depth inquiry into the excess deaths, wondering why public health authorities, so active during the pandemic, haven’t made any efforts to tackle this emerging issue. In contrast, they note, the United Kingdom has launched a state-supported independent investigation into premature post-pandemic deaths, indicating a forward-thinking strategy that the United States could potentially adopt.
Kory and Pfeiffer conclude with a call to action, urging Congress to assess both the successes and failures of the pandemic response. This assessment, it is argued, is crucial to ensure the well-being of future generations.
In a statement to The New American, Dr. Kory corroborated:
We need to understand why so many younger, working-age people are dying. The unexplained mortality of the most productive in our society is a problem the government can’t ignore and should address immediately. We can’t answer this question until Congress and government agencies take an honest and transparent account of the data on the COVID-19 vaccines.
Asked for more details of this important assessment, Kory said that “The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic seems well-suited to take on such an assessment,” yet stressed that “politics cannot enter the process of getting to the truth.” He continued, “Letting one or more independent institutions thoroughly examine the vaccine data they will later present to Congress and our health agencies without bias seems the best way forward.”
