Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., is calling on the Trump administration to formally recognize COVID-19 vaccine injuries through a medical billing and diagnostic code, arguing that patients have been ignored for years by federal health agencies and the medical establishment.
Johnson said Monday that he wants the Department of Health and Human Services to create an International Classification of Diseases code, known as an ICD code, for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
“Trump’s [Department of Health and Human Services] has to acknowledge that these injection injuries are real. They’ve got to create an ICD code so the doctors can get reimbursed,” Johnson said during an exclusive interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast.
ICD codes are used by doctors, insurers and health systems to classify illnesses, injuries and causes of death. Insurance companies rely on them to determine whether treatment is medically necessary and whether reimbursement should be approved.
Johnson said he has met with patients who believe they were injured by COVID-19 vaccines and who reached a breaking point after years of struggling to find doctors willing to treat them seriously.
His request follows a review of 11 million pages of subpoenaed COVID-19 vaccine surveillance data. That investigation has led to Senate hearings through the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Johnson chairs.
One hearing, held June 3, was titled “Plausible Mechanisms of COVID-19 Injections Causing Cancer and Attacks on Scientific Publications.” Another hearing in April, titled “Unmasked: How Biden Health Officials Purposely Turned a Blind Eye Toward COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Signals,” focused on allegations that federal health officials mishandled vaccine safety data.
Johnson has argued that the Food and Drug Administration used flawed algorithms during the Biden administration that hid safety signals tied to adverse events and deaths.
In the podcast interview, Johnson traced the issue back to late 2020, when the FDA issued its first emergency use authorizations for the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 shots.
The Democrats’ medical expert witnesses claim that the COVID injection is safe and effective — yet they don’t understand how it works.
– It was modified NOT to degrade.
– It has been shown to circulate in the body for 700 days after injection.How can they assure the American… pic.twitter.com/EMuT1xcv7T
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) June 4, 2026
“These are not vaccines,” Johnson said. “These things, mRNA, used to be classified as gene therapy because they are gene therapy.”
He claimed the classification changed to reduce vaccine hesitancy.
After the shots were authorized, Johnson said the FDA was quickly flooded with reports of sudden deaths and serious adverse events. He said the volume of reports forced a contractor entering data into the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to hire 290 people to work through the backlog.
Johnson also pointed to concerns raised by Dr. Ana Szarfman, an FDA biostatistician who helped develop an Oracle data-mining tool used to monitor adverse event databases such as VAERS. According to Johnson, Szarfman warned Dr. Peter Marks, then head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, on March 1 that a flawed algorithm was masking safety signals.
Twenty-six days later, Johnson said, senior FDA officials used a different algorithm that revealed 25 serious adverse events, including cardiac death, pulmonary infarction, Bell’s palsy and several types of strokes. Johnson said officials continued using the older algorithm despite seeing those results.
“To this day, we believe they’re still using that exact same algorithm, because it’s hiding all these serious safety signals,” Johnson said.
He called the matter “the biggest government scandal in my lifetime,” saying the public, doctors, media outlets and members of Congress were not given the full picture before the shots were widely promoted.
Johnson said VAERS has recorded 39,000 deaths and 1.7 million adverse events worldwide. He said 24% of those reports occurred on the day of vaccination or within two days, which he argued should have triggered deeper review by the FDA.
He also accused the Biden administration of rushing full vaccine approval during the pandemic so it could advance federal mandates.
“Boy, you got to get your child vaccinated, otherwise they’re going to transmit it to their grandparents,” Johnson said, describing the administration’s message at the time. “Then we found out later that the vaccine didn’t stop transmission.”
Johnson also criticized testimony from Dr. Julie Gralow, chief medical officer at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, who appeared as a Democratic witness during a hearing on possible links between COVID-19 vaccines and cancer. Johnson said Gralow “didn’t have a clue about the makeup and mechanism of the mRNA vaccines,” even as she argued there was no proof the shots cause cancer.
Gralow said during the hearing that RNA breaks down quickly in the body and does not enter a person’s DNA.
The American Medical Association continues to state that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. It also advises physicians to tell patients about possible side effects, including fatigue, mild fever and body aches, while noting that such symptoms can indicate the body is building immunity.
Johnson, however, argued that pharmaceutical companies’ funding of medical associations and journals creates conflicts of interest. He also accused legacy media outlets of avoiding the issue because drug companies spend “billions of dollars” on advertising.
Johnson said more documents need to be released so the public can review the evidence for itself. He also said anyone involved in what he describes as a cover-up should be held accountable.
