A study on excess deaths during the Covid pandemic, which sparked controversy by being misused to support vaccine skepticism, has been retracted by the publisher of the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The BMJ Group announced the retraction on August 12, citing misinformation on causes of death and inadequate original research by the authors.
The study, published in BMJ Public Health in 2024, suggested that excess deaths remained high in the Western world for three consecutive years after the peak of the Covid crisis, despite containment measures and vaccines. However, it did not explicitly link these deaths to Covid vaccinations, leading to widespread misinterpretation and criticism.
