'Dosage was obviously too high': Elon Musk reignites debate on COVID-19 vaccine safety, claims he ‘felt like dying’
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "'Dosage was obviously too high': Elon Musk reignites debate on COVID-19 vaccine safety, claims he ‘felt like dying’")
Elon Musk arrives at federal court on March 4, 2026 in San Francisco, California. Photograph: (AFP)
Elon Musk amplified claims by former Pfizer toxicologist Helmut Sterz, who alleged mRNA vaccines bypassed safety tests and caused thousands of deaths. Health officials rejected these assertions as scientifically unfounded.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has reignited debate around COVID-19 vaccine safety after backing a viral claim by a former pharmaceutical insider, even as health authorities and experts have strongly disputed the assertions. Musk said his second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine “felt like I was dying”, while sharing and amplifying a widely circulated video clip featuring Dr Helmut Sterz, a former toxicologist who previously worked with major pharmaceutical firms.
The clip, which has amassed tens of millions of views online, shows Sterz addressing a parliamentary hearing in Germany, where he claimed that mRNA vaccines should not have been approved and suggested that thousands of deaths may be linked to their use.
Who is the ‘insider’?
Sterz, born in 1946, spent decades working in pharmaceutical toxicology, including leading roles at Roche and Pfizer. He headed Pfizer’s European toxicology centres in Amboise, France, and Sandwich, UK, before retiring in 2007, more than a decade before COVID-19 vaccines were developed.
He was invited to testify at the German parliamentary session by the far-right party Alternative for Germany, which organised an expert hearing under the Bundestag’s Corona Enquete Commission reviewing the country’s pandemic response. Sterz has previously voiced criticism of COVID-19 vaccines and authored a book titled Die Impf-Mafia in which he argues the vaccines were unlawfully approved.
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What was claimed?
During a five-minute testimony on March 19, 2026, Sterz alleged that key preclinical safety studies were skipped before the approval of Comirnaty, the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine used globally. He claimed that no carcinogenicity studies were conducted before approval and raised concerns about the adequacy of reproductive toxicity testing.
Sterz also cited data from Germany’s vaccine safety authority, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, which recorded around 2,133 deaths reported after vaccination. He argued that the true number could be far higher, multiplying the figure by 30 based on estimates that adverse events are often underreported.
Official response and fact check
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who was present at the hearing, rejected Sterz’s claims, describing them as false. Health authorities have consistently maintained that reported deaths following vaccination do not equate to deaths caused by vaccines. Such reports are logged for investigation but require thorough analysis to establish any causal link.
Regulatory agencies worldwide, including in Europe and the United States, have stated that COVID-19 vaccines underwent extensive clinical trials involving tens of thousands of participants before receiving emergency or full approval.
