Reasoning

• The claim appears to originate from the website The Expose, which cites a November 2025 study by Cosgrove et al. published in the International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences¹.
• That article explicitly states it compared raw adverse-event reports from the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after COVID-19 vaccination with reports after influenza vaccination to generate the “34×” figure¹.
• Health authorities and independent fact-checkers have repeatedly documented that VAERS is a passive, unverified reporting system and cannot be used to calculate incidence rates or compare risks between vaccines; differential reporting intensity, expanded COVID-19 reporting requirements, and lack of denominator data make such comparisons statistically invalid²³⁴⁵.
• A 2025 systematic review of global case reports identified only 35 total cases of meningitis following COVID-19 vaccination (from 33 articles), describing it as a rare complication without any epidemiological evidence of a 34-fold increased risk relative to flu vaccines⁶.
• No major health authority (CDC, FDA, WHO) has flagged meningitis as a safety signal for COVID-19 vaccines.

Overall validity: 5%

1. Covid-vaccinated people are 34x more likely to contract meningitis - The Expose
2. Fact Check: Viral posts misuse VAERS data to make false claims ...
3. Posts continue to misrepresent VAERS COVID-19 vaccine data | AP News
4. VAERS Archives - FactCheck.org
5. A claim comparing adverse events for COVID-19, flu vaccines exaggerates raw data
6. Meningitis after COVID-19 vaccination, a systematic review of ...