Vaccine Injured and Ignored
This guest post tells the story of a vaccine injured person. Perhaps most surprising is how little support she received from the public health establishment.
We publish this well-written account of a vaccine injury from a regular Sensible Medicine reader. As an editor, I had a conversation with her and reviewed basic documents to confirm the factual content. I will limit comments to paid subscribers. JMM
Like many in February 2021, I had listened for months to public health authorities and followed the recommendations to “flatten the curve” of Covid-19.
As a life-long vaccine supporter, I was thrilled when the covid vaccines came out. On 2/7/21, I enthusiastically received the Pfizer vaccine from my local health department. The next day I noticed red dots first on my hands, then spreading to the rest of my body. That evening I read an article in the NY Times profiling people who developed immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) after receiving the vaccine, including a Florida physician who died after receiving it.
A dim memory emerged; I had experienced ITP 18 years before, in 2003. Could the vaccine have ended my long remission?
The next morning, after a sleepless night thinking about the article and the spots all over my body, I developed a nose bleed that continued for hours. Sobbing and terrified, I went to a walk-in clinic and had labs drawn.
As I had feared, my platelet level was 4 (normal is 150,000-400,000). The red dots were petechiae.
I was diagnosed with ITP, admitted to the hospital, and started on IVIg. The ITP proved refractory. For the next five months, my platelet levels hovered around 10, so I underwent almost daily infusions of IVIg and platelets. For each infusion, I sat in the clinic for five to eight hours. Many weekends I stayed overnight in the hospital for my infusions. My husband stayed home, working and caring for our children, then four and five years old.
In July my platelets improved and I seemed to be in remission. But the following May, the ITP returned. I resumed frequent infusions. During that summer, I also developed hemolytic anemia.
On October 12, 2022, I woke up severely weak and exhausted, and with a terrible headache and back pain. I was instructed to go to the ED, where labs revealed my hemoglobin level was 4 (normal is 11.6 -15).
I was medivaced to the University of Washington where I stayed for two weeks. I have almost no memory of my first three days there. At its lowest, my hemoglobin reached 3. I received multiple treatments, including Cytoxan and plasmapheresis, and was started on a high dose of prednisone.
By the time I was discharged, I had lost about 15 lbs of muscle. I could barely step down from the curb to the street. When I got home, I would walk and up down the stairs twice and fold laundry for exercise.
My health had been decimated. We had also spent roughly $15,000 out-of-pocket since February 2021, mostly in medical costs, but also in additional child care and my family’s expenses in Seattle. Luckily, we had health insurance. If we had not, our finances would have been decimated too. To the tune of millions.
My health improved over the next several months and I’m now in better shape. My trust in public health, however, may never recover. As a life-long believer in vaccines, this experience was surreal.
I had taken the vaccine willingly, and for two main reasons. First, I am immunocompromised since receiving a liver transplant 34 years ago, at age nine. I have always been healthy, but as someone who has been immunocompromised most of my life, I understand the benefits of most vaccines, and the importance of herd immunity. Before this, I had received many vaccines, and none had caused a problem. The second reason I got the vaccine was a sense of duty to my community. I trusted what I had been told, i.e., that the vaccine was safe and effective, and would stop transmission.
I believe one of the most pernicious results of the discourse surrounding the vaccine and vaccine injuries, (i.e., lack of humility and inability to admit mistakes in the covid response; idea that vaccine injuries are a coincidence; injuries are rare and unimportant; discussion about injuries only amplifies anti-vaccine rhetoric), is that people like me – rational and historically trusting of public health and vaccines – have lost trust in these institutions.
Some examples: I reported my reaction to VAERS and “V-Safe” in February 2021, but the CDC took a year to reach out to me. A local physician urged me to vaccinate my kids against covid, despite my dangerous adverse reaction. A physician at the hospital in Seattle, while trying to convince me to take other vaccines, asked doubtfully “Are we sure this was caused by the covid vaccine?”
This arrogant, dismissive, and disbelieving attitude is problematic for public health and society overall. It further undermines trust and leads to more vaccine hesitancy even for established childhood vaccines. Rates have already fallen in the United States. Texas is in the midst of a measles outbreak.
In addition to the gaslighting, there is no path for those of us injured by the covid vaccine to recoup our financial losses. The PREP Act of 2005 bestowed legal immunity upon vaccine manufacturers and created the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), ostensibly to compensate people injured by a “countermeasure” such as the covid vaccine.
The CICP has been harshly criticized in several places, including here, here, and here . There is at least one active lawsuit alleging that it is unconstitutional.
Is it sensible to grant pharmaceutical companies immunity for injuries caused by vaccines, but not to provide a functional alternative to pursue compensation?
In my case, I developed ITP within 24 hours of the vaccine; I tested negative for covid on hospital admission; additional testing (including a bone marrow biopsy) revealed no other explanation for the ITP; some studies link the covid vaccine to ITP; my hematologist wrote to the CICP stating that he believed the vaccine incited my ITP.
Yet the CICP denied my claim. I did not meet its near-impossible standard of proof. Those of us injured by the covid vaccine have no right to judicial review of our claim denials. We have no access to the evidence used to deny our claims. We are not told who reviews our claims, or whether they are qualified or have a conflict of interest. We do not get to question the reviewer who denies our claims. The program does, however, entitle me to two letters from the CICP telling me that the covid vaccine did not cause my adverse reaction. I guess it was a coincidence.
As of February 1, 2025, the CICP has received 13,659 claims for covid vaccine injury. It has reviewed 3,730, but has found just 66 eligible for compensation. The CICP seems to exist merely to deny claims. It is in the interest of public health to overhaul this program.
When it comes to the covid vaccines, the government and public health broke the social contract and destroyed their own credibility.
I – and many others – did what our government asked. We did what we thought was right. We were all in this together. Then we were abandoned. Is it sensible to roll out a vaccine, injure people with it, insist it did not injure them, remove any real pathway to recoup out-of-pocket expenses, and expect people to take the next vaccine that comes along?
Fool me once.
Editor’s Note: Biography of the Author
I am a stay at home mom to my two lovely children. Previously, I studied law and worked at a non-profit in the field of organ and tissue donation. I live in Montana with my family.
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When you consider how dismissive medical authorities are to the plausibility of vaccine injuries, it seems stories like this are only the tip of the iceberg.
What a horror story, and well analyzed and presented!
In my 36 years of primary care internal medicine + rheumatology twice I encountered systemic necrotizing vasculitis from vaccinations. Both patients had pyoderma gangrenosum (PG).
The first was a previously healthy 30 y.o. lady employed as the dispatcher at an ambulance service. Though she had no patient contact her employer required all employees to have hepatitis B vaccination. After the first dose she had transient cutaneous lesions. Following the 1 month booster these recurred and she was treated with prednisone. After the 6 month booster she developed full blown PG. She had just started a multi state vacation. This was when I saw her. We were in the mid 1990s, before TNF inhibitors. She was showing response to prednisone + leflunomide when I transferred her care to a rheumatologist in her home state.
The second was a healthy man in his early 60s. In September 2008 he was referred to me with deep necrotic and infected ulcers of both legs. He responded to high dose glucocorticoids and rituximab and then had a series of skin grafts. The only suspicious event immediately preceding PG onset was an annual flu shot. I directed that his chart be labeled "Allergic to Influenza Vaccine". After a year he was in remission on low dose alternate day prednisone. At two years PG recurred. Despite my instructions to him never to have another influenza vaccination and the big red label on his chart, his primary care physician had given him a seasonal flu shot. PG recurred days later. Again I had him on rituximab + high dose prednisone. He was still on this regimen when I retired. A year later I read his obituary.
In both cases neither the patients nor their primary care physicians recognized the relationship of vasculitis to vaccinations, because they did not think and take histories carefully. I suspect vaccination as a triggering event before a new onset autoimmune disease is often overlooked.