An Army doctor is working alongside the Trump administration to determine if there are any links between the COVID-19 vaccine and the deaths of service members.
Dr. Theresa Long told a Virginia court that she is working with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and War Secretary Pete Hegseth on the matter. According to a deposition obtained by Politico, Long said Hegseth asked her to be Kennedy’s senior military medical adviser. Her role includes assessing the 2,544 unverified deaths among service members found on the Health Department’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
Long hopes to conclude her research “within a year,” Politico reports.
Hegseth has previously declared that it is the DOW’s commitment to “right the wrongs and correct the injustices of the Biden administration.” He announced in March that the Department was extending its invitation to reinstate service members who were separated under the Biden administration for refusing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
“While I am proud of our efforts over the past year, our obligations to make things right are not yet complete,” Hegseth said in a video at the time. “I am therefore extending the application of the department’s reinstatement and return to service guidance established last April.” He added that the change “reflects our confidence that returning [service] members will make an immediate and positive impact and aligns our reinstatement policy with the needs of both the service members and the military services.”
Hegseth has also criticized the military’s flu vaccine mandate and moved to no longer require it. “We’re seizing this moment to discard any absurd, overreaching mandates that only weaken our warfighting capabilities. In this case, this includes the universal flu vaccine and the mandate behind it,” he said. “The notion that a flu vaccine must be mandatory for every service member, everywhere, in every circumstance at all times is just overly broad and not rational.
