‘My brain wasn’t functioning and I told my partner to get some help ...I was terrified’
URGENT research is needed to investigate adverse vaccine reactions but institutions fear rocking the boat, say scientists.
They believe the issue has become so politicised they are increasingly reluctant to ask questions.
It comes as hundreds of people who became seriously ill after having the Covid-19 jab have found themselves locked out of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.
They are backed by the Daily Express Justice for Jab Victims campaign and politicians including Tory MP Danny Kruger.
Immunologists and virologists say more should be done to aid the forgotten victims.
One expert insisted: “We need to figure out how we make [future vaccinations] better.”
Restrictive
It comes as those adversely affected by side effects of the Covid jab rapped the VDPS as “unfit for purpose”.
If claims are successful it provides a one-off payment of £120,000 to families or individuals left bereaved or at least 60 per cent disabled by vaccines.
But campaigners say the disability threshold is too high and the 44-yearold scheme “outdated”.
The VDPS has also been hampered by a huge backlog – with just 878 cases out of 4,000 Covid claims settled by assessors on behalf of the Department of Health.
Dr William Murphy, an immunologist at the University of California, says more experiments and data are needed on vaccines to help those suffering from rare serious side-effects.
He said: “They will give us insights into how the immune system is working not only as a preventative [measure]. [But] there seems to be, within the scientific community, a reluctance to really question all the different pathways – either with the vaccine or with the infection itself.”
The hurdles researchers are having to negotiate were highlighted by Professor Michael Lunn, clinical lead in neuroimmunology at University College London. He and his team identified a “small but significant” rise in cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome after an AstraZeneca vaccine was given.
GBS is a rare debilitating neurological condition that can cause paralysis, severe pain and numbness.
Prof Lunn pinpointed an “unusual spike” in cases between March and April 2021 compared with historical rates for the same months.
He said: “There is no way to prove that any one case is ‘caused’ by a vaccine. Getting patients into trials is difficult in rare diseases which present as emergencies.
“In the UK medical science funding is increasingly limited, where patients have become suspicious of anything driven by social media and conspiracy theories, and where red tape around clinical investigational products and trials has become so restrictive as to prevent almost any advance.”
Meanwhile, the criteria used by the VDPS on payouts means many applicants are losing out.
As of February 23, some 849 Covid jab claims had been rejected by the VDPS and 800 of these were on the grounds of causation.
For Caroline Pover, this was despite her hospital notes referencing a “postCovid vaccine reaction”.
Nine hours after receiving the AstraZeneca jab on March 3, 2021, she experienced convulsions, shivering, breathing difficulties and low blood pressure. Caroline, 51, said: “It was when I became aware my brain wasn’t functioning that I told my
partner Matthew to get help. I was terrified.”
Caroline of Cirencester, Glos, was hospitalised, scoring “moderate” on the Glasgow Coma Scale, which measures brain injury.
After undergoing tests, she was discharged the next morning.
Days later, Caroline struggled with exhaustion, breathing difficulties, a racing heart and migraines.
She suffered what she believed to be stroke-like symptoms and was rushed to hospital but was not diagnosed with a stroke. Like many VDPS applicants, Caroline’s health
picture is complex. The entrepreneur, who runs a home pickling business, had a stroke when she was 19, followed by three more in her 30s. She has since had a hole in her heart closed, reducing her risk of further episodes.
Yet Caroline was active, keeping fit as a regular runner, and lived in Tokyo for 15 years, regularly returning to support a fishing
village destroyed by the 2011 tsunami and earthquake. She has not been able to do either since. Her VDPS rejection report pointed to her long-term issues. And other scheme application reports describe “inadequate evidence” linking the jabs to chronic fatigue, migraines, poor mental health including anxiety and depression, saying they are not grounds for causation “on the balance of probability”. Assessors use
The Green Book and The Brighton Collaboration, a global vaccine safety taskforce who develop case definitions for adverse events.
They also refer to the UK Yellow Card Scheme, operated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, in which Britons can self-report their symptoms, although it is not medically corroborated.
Dr Murphy says there are no models for chronic fatigue syndrome. He added: “When you have a disease like cancer, you see it and measure it. When you’re dealing with fatigue, pain, or more subjective [criteria], it becomes very difficult to say something is ‘definite due to this’ [as] we don’t even understand the mechanisms.”
In a 2021 study, he hypothesised the body’s immune response to the Covid spike protein, on the virus’s surface, might explain Long Covid and rare vaccine side effects.
Tens of millions of people in the UK have had a Covid-19 jab without serious side effects.
Collateral
More than 150 million shots have been delivered since the rollout began in December 2020.
Dr Tom Merritt, part of the Oxford University team who developed the AstraZeneca vaccine, admits some who had the jab were “collateral damage to the bigger scheme”. He added: “Some tragically died, a number had their lives changed forever. They believed in vaccines, now they don’t.
“That is just as bad. In terms of the greater good, they are unfortunate. Does that mean we should ignore them afterwards? No.”