Collateral damaged

Warning: This post contains my thoughts on vaccine harm following the covid-19 vaccine. It is neither anti nor pro. I remain committed to the protection of public health through social distancing, mask-wearing and immunisation, and I would have a further dose of a vaccine myself if one was provided which does not lead to the significant adverse effects I have experienced.

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Someone posted a screenshot of VigiAccess on Twitter today. Like me, they had been harmed by the covid vaccine. (I am not including a link to the site but it can be found easily on an internet search.) It is a W.H.O. monitoring site for adverse effects of drugs including the Covid-19 vaccines.

I checked it out to make sure it was real. It is. The data is there for anyone to see and for anyone that has had an adverse reaction to the vaccine it makes an interesting read.

What it doesn’t say is that the vaccine is dangerous nor can or should any of the data be used to draw conclusions like that, but it can be used to ask questions. Eg why is there a higher level of musculo-skeletal, immune and nervous system symptoms reported? What is going on there? Is this from people with chronic illnesses? And the most important questions of all – is anyone asking these questions and investigating further? Something is clearly going on but what, to what extent and what can be done to help those affected?

But, as the media is at pains to remind us, this data by which we can raised our questions is self-reported. They say that as if that is code for fake and to be disregarded – yes, dear public, there are adverse reactions but don’t worry it’s self-reported. Yet, all symptoms start off as patient experience and that experience should be seen as valid and investigated. Just because a test comes back normal does not mean the person is making it up or has some modern form of hysteria known as health anxiety. People with M.E and now Long Covid know that story far too well.

I self-reported my adverse reaction to the UK Yellow Card scheme, the drug company themselves as well as my GP, and I can assure you it is very real for me as it is for countless others. How many of us though, granted, is disputable. This data only shows number of records which can could be multiple for one person reporting more than one symptom. Conversely the data could be unreported as it is a global site and not everyone has access to reporting tools.

But to me fighting over exact numbers is missing the point. The point is the very existence of serious adverse reactions, but because it is either jumped on by anti-vaccine influencers who want to cherry-pick the data they share to further their cause or those pushing the public health agenda to encourage people to get jabbed, it means people like me are not being heard or helped.

So we remain an uncomfortable reality and as a result are being swept under a very large carpet for fear of becoming cautionary tales in hastily-shared Facebook memes.

The reality is that we need these reactions investigated. We have the same right as anyone else does for our health to matter and I refuse to be anyone’s convenient collateral damage in this divisive pro/anti stance we are being expected to take.

Check the data out for yourself and see what questions you would ask or how you could dig deeper into the data. Be curious not judgemental, please. There is more than enough of that and as far as I can tell, it does little to change things for the better.

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If you would like to understand more about my experience, I shared my story here

If you have been harmed by the vaccine and have not shared this with anyone for fear of judgement and are not sure how to seek treatment, you are not alone. Please contact me @KirstieSivaP on Twitter if I can help further.