Children’s Health Defense Puts a Face to Transverse Myelitis
Last month the world watched the media duck and dodge the seriousness of transverse myelitis, after it was learned that a volunteer in the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials developed the disorder.
Transverse myelitis, which is caused when the spinal cord becomes inflamed, is characterized by neurological dysfunction that causes loss of feeling and mobility.
If a demyelinating disease-causing vaccine ends up being approved for COVID-19, it won’t be America’s first dance with this type of vaccine injury.
Watch the below video to the end to see the story of Colton Berrett, a once healthy, active 13-year-old boy, whose life was changed forever after being diagnosed with transverse myelitis shortly after receiving the Gardasil vaccine.
Transcript:
Transverse Myelitis and Vaccination
Children’s Health Defense
September 9, 2020 drugmaker AstraZeneca revealed that it paused its COVID-19 vaccine phase III trial because a volunteer suffered a “suspected adverse event.”
AstraZeneca refused to disclose details about the adverse event, but the New York Times reported, “A volunteer in the U.K. trial had been found to have transverse myelitis.”
Transverse myelitis: a disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord; characterized by neurological dysfunction in motor and sensory tracts on both sides of the spinal cord—which means a person has lost the ability to move and feel.
Transverse myelitis after vaccination is thought to be so rare that a 2016 Kaiser analysis of the Vaccine Safety Database claimed to find only 7 cases in 64 million doses of vaccines.
The next day, on a call with investors, AstraZeneca’s CEO mentioned there had been a July case of undiagnosed multiple sclerosis–which is another autoimmune illness of the central nervous system–in the vaccine volunteer group.
However, a July 12th AstraZeneca information sheet given to trial participants also described that volunteer’s condition as “symptoms of transverse myelitis.”
Transverse myelitis is often the first symptom of multiple sclerosis.
A diagnosis of one does not rule out the other.
On September 15th, Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine said, “A second case of transverse myelitis would shut down the AstraZeneca trial.”
Vaccine expert Mark Slifka, from Oregon Health and Science University, told the New York times, “This looks like a dangerous pattern.”
Is transverse myelitis after vaccination really so rare?
In the last two decades, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has awarded compensation on 266 post-vaccination cases of transverse myelitis.
These cases were mostly in adults filing against the hepatitis B vaccine, with total awards of $155 million, including estimated annuities.
55 more transverse myelitis cases are still pending.
Another 25 more are about to be filed alleging transverse myelitis caused by the flu and Tdap vaccines.
There are numerous autoimmune diseases of the central nervous system including transverse myelitis, multiple sclerosis, and Guillain-Barre– a syndrome in which the body’s immune system attacks part of its nervous system.
The CDC’s Dr. David Sencer devised the 1976 swine flu vaccination program with X53A, an untested swine flu vaccine, that was administered to 46 million Americans.
“One of those who did roll up her sleeve was Judy Roberts. She was perfectly healthy, an active woman. When in November of 1976, she took her shot. Two weeks later she says she began to feel a numbness starting up her legs.”
“I joked about it at that time. I said, ‘I’ll be numb to the knees by Friday if this keeps up.’ By the following week, I was totally paralyzed.”
“So completely paralyzed, in fact, that they had to operate on her to enable her to breathe. And for six months, Judy Roberts was a quadriplegic. The diagnosis? A neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre´ Syndrome, GBS for short.”
“Well, 46 million us obediently took the shot. And now 4,000 Americans are claiming damages from Uncle Sam amounting to $3.5 billion because of what happened when they took that shot. By far, the greatest number of the claims—two thirds of them—are for neurological damage, or even death, allegedly triggered by the flu shot.
Since 1992, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid approximately $500 million dollars to 1,450 victims of post-vaccination Guillain-Barre.
Post-vaccination neurological illness is hardly a thing of the past.
One such victim is Colton Barrett, a 13-year old Utah boy whose doctor advised him to receive the Gardasil vaccine because he believed it would prevent cancer.
Colton was a vibrant child of boundless energy who loved to test the physical limits of his body with extreme sports, his favorite of which was motocross racing.
What began with a sore neck two weeks after a Gardasil vaccine progressed to paralysis of his right hand, inflammation of his spine, paralyzation from the neck down, permanent intubation, and a diagnosis of transverse myelitis.
Over the years Colton had to learn to walk again.
He needed a 15-pound ventilator and someone to carry it for him at all times.
Behind his constant smile, Colton was suffering as a prisoner of his own body.
On January 8, 2018, Colton’s mother sent a statement to her friend at Ktalk Media in Utah.
“We are all just heartbroken. Colton was so strong and wouldn’t show us his pain he had been suffering deep inside. He was restricted in the prison of his once-normal body that had taken its toll on him—not being able to move freely and breathe on his own. So, in a moment of weakness—which is rare for him to not have a friend or a nurse or a family member with him—we had let him be home alone like a normal teenager. He then decided to be done with his Earthly life. Though we did our best, he felt like he was a burden to all of us who had to care for him. He hated the stares, yet he smiled through it.”
“And those of you who know Colton know that he smiled. That was his trademark. He was patient. He didn’t complain.”
On January 5, 2018, Colton removed himself from the need of his life-supporting ventilator at the age of 17.
Five months later, the Secretary of Health and Human Services stipulated to a settlement and awarded damages for Colton’s permanent transverse myelitis in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program rather than put Gardasil on trial.
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