See also: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)

Sure, but the alternative is implicitly trusting the conclusions and interpretations the govt agency, who are (almost assuredly) humans with biases and not impartial robots.

It's a lot harder to attack general best practice statistic collection than it is to throw shade at an editorial. (not that certain administrations have issues attacking best practice science)

Issue also arise "easily" when the people charged with producing editorials are political appointees who are easy targets for subsequent administrations looking to shift blame. (seems we're at this stage now)