An Army doctor told a federal court in Virginia she’s working with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to probe whether troops died from COVID-19 vaccines after President Joe Biden mandated the shots for service members in 2021.
In an Aug. 14 deposition obtained by POLITICO, Theresa Long said Hegseth detailed her to be Kennedy’s senior medical military adviser. Her role at HHS has not been previously reported. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine safety skeptic, has hired others who share his skepticism to investigate vaccine injuries and to probe any links between vaccines and rising rates of autism. Studies done over decades have not found a link.
Kennedy’s taken particular aim at COVID vaccines — which he once described as the “most deadly vaccines in history” — by ending a government recommendation that most Americans get them annually. Vaccine safety experts say Kennedy’s statement is false and that it has contributed to some Americans’ decision to forgo vaccination that could reduce the severity of the disease.
Groups representing doctors Wednesday urged Americans to get the shots. COVID vaccine uptake rates among adults have continued to drop during Donald Trump’s presidency, from the low-20s when he took over to the high teens.
As part of her role, Long said she’s looking into whether 2,544 unverified deaths among service members reported to HHS’ Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System — or VAERS — were caused by COVID vaccines.
Long, who is board certified in aerospace medicine and has a master’s in public health, told the court she hoped to be able to finish her research on the potential vaccine complications “within a year.”
HHS and Long did not respond to requests for comment on her work at the department.
Asked by POLITICO about Long’s role, the Defense Department said it doesn’t “have anything to announce at this time” and referred to a May statement announcing its Covid-19 Reinstatement and Reconciliation Task Force, which helps troops who left the military due to their refusal to be vaccinated return if they want to. The Defense Department discharged nearly 9,000 service members for refusing Covid vaccines before Congress ordered the DOD to end the rule in a 2022 law.
“The Department continues to right the wrongs of the past and to restore confidence in, and honor to our fighting force,” the statement said.
Kennedy has argued that requiring service members to receive the COVID vaccine violated their rights.
Biden also sought in 2021 to require private sector workers to get vaccinated or to undergo weekly disease testing — part of a broader push to increase vaccine uptake and prevent Covid spread — but the Supreme Court struck down the rule a few months later, finding he did not have the authority.
Long’s testimony came in a lawsuit brought by former CIA doctor Terry Adirim against the agency and conservative influencer Ivan Raiklin over Adirim’s firing.
Adirim alleges she was let go after Raiklin criticized her online for helping carry out the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate for service members. During that period, Adirim was a top Defense Department health official.
U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff last year allowed the agency to fire Adirim, but the case Adirim brought against Raiklin continues. Long appeared at the deposition in support of Raiklin last month.
Long told the court she knew of 28 people who died due to the COVID vaccine, but she was not allowed to share more.
Many of Long’s claims of deadly Covid vaccine side effects center on the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna increasing the risk of myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle.
A 2024 study funded and co-authored by the Food and Drug Administration focused on approximately 300 people who developed myocarditis after receiving the original formula of either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA Covid vaccines. It said some, but not all, of those people improved over time.
The agency mandated warnings on the 2023-2024 formula of the mRNA vaccines from the two drugmakers to note that the frequency of myocarditis and pericarditis in the first week after vaccination was 27 cases per million among young men, higher than 8 per million in the general population.
A 2026 Pentagon report assessing health conditions among active duty service members following Covid vaccination said the number of myocarditis and pericarditis cases increased “in the short term after vaccination, but this was not sustained over a 1-year period.” The report doesn’t mention any deaths.
Long said she is looking at the data behind the report again because Hegseth and Kennedy appointed her to “investigate the health surveillance system during the pandemic” and two military medical databases.
One of those databases showed a sharp rise in medical conditions among service members in 2021.
The Defense Department later said that was the result of an error in tabulating earlier rates of illness, but the mistake fueled skeptical social media posts.
Long testified that she too was skeptical.
“And what they did is they elevated all these numbers to … a level that it made it look like the vaccine had, like, cured everything and -- and -- and was beneficial,” Long said, according to a transcript of her testimony.
Long didn’t say in her deposition how long she’s been working with Kennedy but noted that her assignment started 10 days before she was due to retire.
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