Full Breakdown
GOP Congresswoman Misstates COVID-19 Vaccine Miscarriage Data
8/13/2026, 5:53:32 AM
Misinterpreted Claim
Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) asserted on Fox Business that 82 % of women who received a COVID-19 vaccine during their first or second trimester experienced a miscarriage. She cited a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) study to support the figure and condemned health officials for allegedly concealing risks.
Study Findings and Methodology
The NEJM analysis drew on the V-Safe pregnancy registry and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Of the 3,958 participants who reported vaccination while pregnant, complete outcome data were available for 827 at the time of publication. Among those, 712 resulted in live births (86.1 %), 104 ended in miscarriage (12.6 %), one was a stillbirth (0.1 %), and 10 were ectopic pregnancies or induced abortions (1.2 %). The authors noted that 1,040 participants were vaccinated in the first trimester and 1,700 in the second, but full follow-up for those pregnancies was still pending.
Miscalculation Explained
Dr. Jen Gunter, an OB-GYN, explained that the 82 % figure arises from an erroneous denominator. The study’s dataset includes 712 live births, of which 700 occurred after third-trimester vaccination. By excluding those 700 births while still counting the 104 miscarriages, the ratio is incorrectly calculated as 104 ÷ 127 rather than the proper 104 ÷ 827. Gunter emphasized that a valid miscarriage rate for first- or second-trimester vaccination would require using all pregnancies vaccinated in that window as the denominator, not only those with completed outcomes.
Official Health Guidance
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended COVID-19 vaccination for pregnant individuals, citing broader research that found no increased risk of miscarriage linked to the vaccine. Earlier internal communications from January 2021 show Dr. Anthony Fauci noting that more than 10,000 pregnant people had been vaccinated without observed issues.
