Army Doctor Long Cites 29 Troop Deaths After COVID Shots

TL;DR: Retired Fort Rucker Army flight surgeon Lt. Col. Theresa Long says in a new sworn federal court declaration that she has firsthand knowledge of more than 29 service-member deaths following COVID vaccination. Long says she has also been tasked with investigating roughly 55,000 military VAERS reports, including 2,544 reported deaths. VAERS reports alone do not prove a vaccine caused an injury or death, but Long says the new inquiry includes access to medical and autopsy records that could help determine whether vaccination played a role in individual deaths.

A retired Army flight surgeon with deep ties to Alabama says she has firsthand knowledge of more than 29 service members who died after receiving COVID-19 vaccines.

Lt. Col. Theresa Long, M.D., M.P.H., made the claim in a newly filed sworn declaration in federal court. Long, who spent years at Fort Rucker in southeast Alabama, has been one of the military's most outspoken critics of the COVID vaccine mandate since 2021.

The declaration was filed in Adirim v. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency et al. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Long wrote:

“I have first hand knowledge of over 29 deaths of service members after vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccines. I am currently tasked with investigating the 55,000 vaccine adverse event reports filed on individuals identified as members of the U.S. Armed Forces, this includes 2544 deaths.”

The figures are significant, but they come with an important distinction. A report filed in the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) does not by itself show that a vaccine caused an injury or death. VAERS is an early-warning system run by the CDC and FDA. Anyone can submit a report, and the system is designed to detect possible safety signals that can then be investigated.

Long's claim about the more than 29 deaths goes beyond the raw VAERS numbers. She says those cases are based on her firsthand knowledge. Her declaration, however, is her sworn testimony and does not by itself establish that vaccination caused each death.

Long described two cases from her time as an aviation brigade surgeon.

“I had one service member die of rapid onset and progression of esophageal cancer after COVID vaccination and one in which a student pilot who had never been COVID positive, who experienced sudden cardiac death at the controls of a helicopter during a training flight,” Long wrote.

Her new declaration comes as the federal government takes another look at reports of possible vaccine injuries among military personnel.

Long said in an August deposition that she had been assigned to serve as senior medical military adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while also reporting through the Defense Department. She said her work includes examining about 55,000 adverse-event reports and 2,544 reported deaths involving service members.

The inquiry is expected to dig deeper than simply counting VAERS reports. Long said she has gained access to unredacted reports and has obtained some medical records and autopsy reports as part of the review.

That is a critical distinction. The CDC itself warns that VAERS reports can contain incomplete, inaccurate or coincidental information. A report means an event happened sometime after vaccination, not necessarily because of vaccination. Serious reports can lead investigators to seek medical records, death certificates and other evidence needed to assess causation.

Additionally, underreporting of adverse events to VAERS is widespread and well known. In 2011, the Harvard Pilgrim healthcare study estimated that "fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported" to VAERS.

Notably, the study’s researchers offered to “collaborate with federal health agencies to improve vaccine safety surveillance.”

The CDC declined.

For Alabamians who followed the fight over the military mandate, Long is hardly a new name.

Long served as an Army aerospace medicine specialist and flight surgeon at Fort Rucker, the home of Army Aviation. She earned her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, completed an Aerospace and Occupational Medicine residency at the Army School of Aviation Medicine and holds a Master's degree in Public Health.

She began publicly raising concerns about COVID vaccination in the military in 2021.

Long said she treated pilots with health problems after vaccination and became especially concerned about myocarditis and pericarditis. At a roundtable hosted by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), she said she had been forced to ground three pilots in a single morning because of what she believed were vaccine injuries.

“In one morning, I had to ground 3 out of 3 pilots due to vaccine injuries,” Long later recounted. “The next day my patients were canceled, my charts were pulled for review, and I was told I would not be seeing acute patients anymore.”

Long also said she repeatedly tried to alert senior military medical officials.

“I made numerous efforts to get senior medical leaders to, at the very least, inform soldiers of this risk; my concerns were ignored,” she said in 2021.

Myocarditis is now a recognized adverse effect of some COVID vaccines. The CDC says evidence supports a causal association between mRNA COVID vaccines and myocarditis and pericarditis, with cases seen most often in adolescent and young adult males, especially shortly after a second dose.

Long's stand against the military vaccine policy made her a national figure in the medical-freedom movement and a familiar name in Alabama's Wiregrass.

She enlisted in the Army at 17 and ultimately served more than three decades, later becoming a physician and commissioned officer. During her years at Fort Rucker, she worked in aviation medicine and was responsible for assessing whether pilots were medically fit to fly.

Her warnings came with a professional cost, according to Long. She has said her clinical duties were curtailed after she raised concerns and that senior leaders failed to address her objections. She nevertheless continued speaking publicly, filing affidavits and appearing before congressional panels and in interviews.

In February 2025, Long received a “Defender of Freedom Award” at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. Wiregrass Daily News reported that the President was present for the event.

Now the questions Long began asking from an Army aviation post in Alabama have made their way into a federal investigation and a federal courtroom.

Her newest declaration does not settle whether COVID vaccines caused the deaths she describes. Nor do 2,544 VAERS death reports amount to 2,544 proven vaccine deaths.

But Long says she now has access to records that could allow investigators to move beyond the raw reports and examine individual cases.

That review could provide something the debate over military COVID vaccination has lacked for years: a closer look at the medical records, autopsies and circumstances behind the reported deaths.

Dr. Long’s testimony to Sen. Johnson’s roundtable may be seen on YouTube and below:

Dr. Long on the Dr. Drew show may be seen on YouTube and below: