AERS & VAERS Reporting Frequency has Approximately Tripled since their Inceptions

A little bit of navel gazing today, but I decided to plot the # of reports submitted to the AERS and VAERS systems vs. Time today. There are small bits of information in the graphs shown below that might warrant further examination.

e.g., The # of reports submitted to AERS has almost tripled from 1998 to 2008 (11 years).

Is this a big increase?

I can't really say with any certainty, but it feels like an inadequate increase given the concomitant increases in the use of information technology over that period (e.g., the interwebs).

[Aside: Wolfram Alpha is being of no use in trying to find the change in internet usage over the years to serve as a comparison---okay wikipedia is telling me that internet usage from 1997 to 2007 has gone up almost 6 fold in the developed world...so I think my feeling is probably correct.]

Also...what's going on with those dips in the # of reports in the early 2000s?

Note that 1997 only includes data for Q4 of that year so it's artificially low.

VAERS
As far as VAERS is concerned, it looks mostly like a flat-line from 1991 to 2006 (okay it doubled, but that's over 16 years) and then there's a HUUUUGE spike over the past 2 years.

Is VAERS being "marketed" better all of a sudden, or is it The Jenny McCarthy/ Autism effect? Or both?