The Lives Ruined by Covid Jabs

The Daily Telegraph has run a feature on the “lives ruined by Covid jabs”, including the more than 2,500 deaths reported to the MHRA. Does this mean it’s finally acceptable for the mainstream media to talk about this? Here’s an excerpt.

Having been a dental nurse for more than a decade, Nikola Brindley was familiar with vaccination requirements for healthcare workers. So when she was asked to have AstraZeneca’s Covid jab in July 2021, she agreed without hesitation.

But within hours, Brindley was in A&E fighting for her life as an allergic reaction began to shut down multiple organ systems. “I collapsed on the doorway, and pretty much lost the ability to walk,” she recalls. “My husband rushed me to hospital, my heart rate had soared and I couldn’t speak. We were told that if I’d been 10 minutes later, there would have been nothing they could have done.”

Nearly five years later, the 36 year-old, who lives on the Isle of Man, remains profoundly affected. She lives with ongoing brain fog, chronic pain, headaches and gastrointestinal problems, and requires monitoring from a variety of specialists. Her worsening fatigue has left her requiring a wheelchair, while some days, she struggles to keep down food. Previously active and sporty, she is so disabled that her two children, aged eight and 11, have been certified as young carers.

“I genuinely thought that it was just going to be another vaccine,” she says. “Take it, get on with things. Instead, my life has been reduced to trying to manage symptoms every single day.”

Horrendous side effects represent the darker legacy of the Covid vaccine rollout, which, years on, remains a deeply thorny topic in public health. …

Yet while the vast majority of the 50 million people in the UK (and in other nations) who received Covid vaccines experienced few or no ill effects, there are those like Brindley, who either suffered serious harm or, most tragically of all, lost their lives.

There are no official statistics on how many people were impacted in this way. However, data from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) indicates that the numbers are not insignificant. While these reports are not proof of the Covid vaccines causing serious harm and death, in the UK, as of February 24th, there had been:

• 194,403 serious reports linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine (and 1,532 with a fatal outcome).
• 126,535 serious reports linked to the Pfizer vaccine (and 920 with a fatal outcome).
• 31,339 serious reports associated with the Moderna vaccine (and 102 with a fatal outcome).

For all the data collected, the plight of people who suffered Covid vaccine injuries has been handled markedly differently around the world. Authorities in Japan and South Korea have officially recognised a wide range of cases of vaccine-induced harm, from heart inflammation to sudden hearing loss, and have compensated tens of thousands of people accordingly.

Meanwhile, in the US – where just 92 cases of vaccine harm have been deemed eligible for compensation, compared to more than 24,000 in South Korea – a federal work group is now calling for major changes to how Covid vaccine injuries are tracked and treated. A distinct diagnostic code has been proposed for harms linked to the jabs, which could be used for reimbursement from health insurers, along with plans for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to develop diagnostic guidelines to recognise and manage patients suffering from long-term harm.

However, it is a very different story in the UK, where patients like Brinkley describe a near-impossible fight to obtain any kind of financial support. “I’ve been trying to advocate to get help and support, not just for myself, but for others as well,” she says. “But despite engaging at every level [of the healthcare system] available to me, there’s still no clear support pathway for those injured.”

So why did some people experience such serious reactions?

The most high-profile form of harm has been the cases of vaccine-induced thrombosis with thrombocytopenia (VITT), or blood clots, a side effect most commonly linked to AstraZeneca’s shot.

While very rare, it has been officially linked to dozens of fatalities and other serious incidents in the UK. The law firm, Leigh Day, is now seeking compensation from AstraZeneca for bereaved families and victims of VITT-related neurological injuries in the UK, and says it expects the case to go to trial in 2027.

Last month, a major new study published by an international consortium of researchers provided new evidence about why some people experienced VITT. It revealed that in some people with rare genetic vulnerabilities, the vaccine’s delivery mechanism initiated a reaction that triggered the formation of deadly clots. “At the time the vaccine was developed, it would have been difficult to predict that this reaction would occur,” says [Sir Munir Pirmohamed, Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Liverpool].

But VITT was merely one type of harm.

Cardiac issues – particularly myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the lining around the heart) – have also been linked to the vaccines, and appear to have been more common than VITT. Thousands of such cases, spanning recipients of all three Covid jabs, have been reported to the MHRA – including several hundred fatalities.

But why did this happen? The mRNA Covid vaccines worked by using the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s spike protein to teach the immune system how to recognise and fight it. Some researchers have suggested that this viral fragment present in the vaccines may somehow have evaded the immune system and triggered heart inflammation, although this is still far from clear.

Others, like Brinkley, experienced various autoimmune reactions that damaged different systems in the body. Patrick Stacey, 59, from Derby, developed a form of Guillain-Barré syndrome – a rare autoimmune condition which attacks the nerves, causing muscle weakness and numbness – after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine in April 2021.

Three months earlier, Faith Burke, a 24 year-old from Wiltshire, had been working as a trainee pharmacist when she received the Pfizer vaccine. She subsequently developed joint swelling and breathing difficulties, and had to be hospitalised. Burke says she was diagnosed with “reactive arthritis”, an autoimmune disorder thought to have been triggered by the vaccine.

Her case was later published by her consultant rheumatologist as a medical case study, and five years later, she still suffers from chronic joint pain, headaches and digestive problems. She also requires ongoing medication for thyroid damage caused by her severe immune reaction.

While researchers now understand why the vaccines caused VITT, it remains a mystery why people like Burke, Brinkley and Stacey experienced autoimmune reactions which have left them chronically unwell. A small collection of researchers in the US is now attempting to understand more about such cases, describing lasting ailments of this kind as forms of post-Covid vaccination syndrome (PCVS). …

While researchers ponder the underlying cause of PCVS and possible treatments, those living with post-vaccine harm in the UK describe being left in limbo, often with neither acknowledgement nor compensation for their ordeals.

Many have lost jobs due to their disabilities. Brindley was dismissed from her dental role within months, while Burke was forced to abandon her dream of a career in pharmacy because she was no longer able to cope with the strain of the job. She now works part-time in her family’s gift shop.

Yet Brindley says that when she applied to the UK’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), she was informed that while decision-makers agreed she had suffered vaccine harm, she wasn’t considered sufficiently disabled to qualify for compensation. “Even though this has been completely life-changing, they’ve got this fixed scale where you have to be classed as at least 60% disabled, and I’m apparently not regarded as disabled enough, which is quite poor really,” she says.

According to UKCVFamily, a charity supporting 2,660 vaccine-injured individuals and families, this story is all too common. Indeed, VDPS data indicates that 98% of claims relating to Covid vaccine harm have been rejected. With few available avenues for seeking help, the charity said that 73% of their members have admitted to feeling suicidal, with two people subsequently dying by suicide.

Burke says she is concerned by the lack of research in the UK into why she and others experienced such severe allergic reactions – something which may have significant public health ramifications in the years to come. Surveys have indicated that despite the overall success of the Covid vaccine campaigns, vaccine confidence across the UK has waned significantly since 2019.

Worth reading in full.