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<\/p>\nDocuments obtained by Children\u2019s Health Defense via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal officials at the National Institutes of Health corresponded with people injured by the COVID-19 vaccines throughout 2021, even launching a study only to pull the plug on it before finishing and reporting on it.<\/p>\n
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) corresponded with people injured by the COVID-19 vaccines throughout 2021 and initially acknowledged their injuries \u2014 before abruptly ceasing communication with them in early 2022, according to documents obtained by Children\u2019s Health Defense (CHD).<\/p>\n
The documents, released\u00a0Dec. 21, 2023<\/a>, and\u00a0Jan. 21, 2024<\/a>, relate to correspondence between NIH researchers and people who contacted the agency regarding\u00a0adverse events<\/a>\u00a0related to the COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n CHD requested the documents via a Freedom of Information Act\u00a0(FOIA) request<\/a>\u00a0filed in November 2022, and\u00a0sued the NIH<\/a>\u00a0on April 12, 2023, to obtain them after the NIH failed to respond to the FOIA request.<\/p>\n The\u00a0NIH filed a motion to dismiss<\/a>\u00a0the lawsuit, but in July 2023,\u00a0withdrew its motion<\/a>\u00a0and agreed to release the documents \u2014 but only after\u00a0NIH officials<\/a>\u00a0on two occasions claimed the agency had no knowledge of \u201cadverse vaccination reaction reports.\u201d<\/p>\n Those claims are contradicted by documents included in the initial releases, which show that NIH received vaccine injury reports and, in some instances, offered medical advice or even recommended specialists to those individuals.<\/p>\n In October 2023, the NIH agreed to\u00a0produce up to 7,500 pages<\/a>\u00a0of documents at a rate of 300 pages per month. The agency said it could not make the documents available at a faster rate.<\/p>\n The first two sets of documents are heavily redacted. However, they reveal that the NIH\u00a0Institutional Review Board<\/a>\u00a0had approval to formally launch a study on\u00a0COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0vaccine injuries, but the agency slow-walked the investigation throughout 2021.<\/p>\n By early 2022, the NIH ceased communicating with the vaccine-injured individuals it had been in contact with.<\/p>\n Reacting to the documents, Kim Mack Rosenberg, CHD\u2019s general counsel, told\u00a0The Defender<\/a>, \u201cWe are carefully analyzing the documents to learn more about NIH\u2019s study.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosenberg said CHD \u201chas been working hard to push for government transparency, which is the underpinning of our FOIA requests and litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n She added:<\/p>\n \u201cEven when receiving documents, slow response times and heavy redactions remain an issue. We understand that protected health information relating to individuals should not be shared and are subject to redaction, but other redactions may be subject to challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Brianne Dressen<\/a>, who was injured by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and later founded\u00a0React19<\/a>, a nonprofit that advocates for\u00a0vaccine-injured individuals<\/a>, contacted the NIH in 2021 about her injuries and the NIH study.<\/p>\n Dressen told The Defender, \u201cThe slow release of documents is what we are also seeing with other FOIA releases. They were far quicker at the start of the pandemic, but as things are now unraveling, these releases are taking longer and longer for the agencies to process,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Dressen, who\u00a0sued the Biden administration<\/a>\u00a0over her vaccine injuries, said the new documents disprove NIH claims that it was unaware of a connection between the COVID-19\u00a0vaccines<\/a>\u00a0and vaccine injuries.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NIH\u2019s comments about this study in mainstream media have all danced around the \u2018causal link.\u2019 They won\u2019t publicly say there is a connection, but these FOIA documents say something very different,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0CHD\u2019s lawsuit<\/a>, NIH researchers in early 2021, \u201cbegan to hear from individuals who were experiencing severe, lasting health problems after COVID-19 injection, including neurological, cardiovascular, muscular, and other disorders.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe NIH researchers sought to learn more, even bringing some affected people to NIH headquarters for testing, and sometimes treatment,\u201d the lawsuit stated.<\/p>\n Those efforts resulted in at least one publicly available paper, \u201cNeuropathic symptoms with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination<\/a>,\u201d a preprint published May 2022 in medRxiv.<\/p>\n The paper examined 23 patients who reported new neuropathic symptoms within a month of COVID-19 vaccination. The authors found a \u201cvariety of neuropathic symptoms may manifest after SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and in some patients might be an immune-mediated process.\u201d<\/p>\n The study helped lead CHD to file its FOIA request, on Nov. 10, 2022. But while the NIH acknowledged receipt of the request on Nov. 18, 2022, it denied expedited review citing \u201ca lack of compelling need.\u201d<\/p>\n The NIH denied awareness of any vaccine injury reports in its possession and told CHD that \u201cadverse vaccination reaction reports are filed with the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration], not the NIH,\u201d referring the request to the FDA FOIA office.<\/p>\n A Jan. 20, 2022,\u00a0article in Science<\/a>\u00a0contradicted those denials. The article referenced \u201cpeople who had experienced serious, long-lasting health problems after a COVID-19 vaccine, regardless of the manufacturer.\u201d<\/p>\n By January 2021, according to Science, NIH \u201cbegan to hear about such reports and sought to learn more.\u201d But by late 2021, \u201cNIH\u2019s communications with patients faded.\u201d<\/p>\n The documents obtained by CHD confirmed this timeline \u2014 and the NIH\u2019s knowledge of COVID-19 vaccine injury reports, despite extensive redactions marked with code \u201cb6,\u201d pertaining to \u201cpersonal privacy interests<\/a>,\u201d including medical information.<\/p>\n Sheryl Ruettgers, a professional counselor associate from Oregon, was injured after COVID-19 vaccination and contacted the NIH in 2021. She told The Defender the documents released so far \u201care so heavily redacted, they are incomprehensible,\u201d adding, \u201cI do not believe this is by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt speaks to their efforts to cover up their knowledge of the severity of COVID vaccine injuries and their early and firsthand knowledge that so many were suffering from neurological reactions,\u201d Ruettgers said.<\/p>\n Dr. Danice Hertz<\/a>, a retired gastroenterologist who contacted the NIH in 2021 about her injury, said, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of duplication\u201d in the documents released so far and \u201cmany blank pages.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the documents provide insights into the NIH\u2019s communications with vaccine-injured individuals in 2021. Examples of emails to the NIH include:<\/p>\n The documents also reveal the NIH acknowledged communications from vaccine-injured people who reached out:<\/p>\n The documents also show (page 190, January 2024 documents) that Nath scheduled a July 30, 2021, Zoom meeting with a vaccine-injured individual, \u201cto discuss COVID vaccine allergic reaction\u201d and that Safavi, in a March 29, 2021, email (page 239, January 2024 documents) told a patient a Microsoft Teams link for a televisit would be sent.<\/p>\n NIH staff also referred to an online survey being developed. A Sept. 23, 2021, email (page 41, December 2023 documents) from Angelique Gavin, NIH\/NINDS clinical operations manager, states, \u201cWe are currently developing an online survey system to collect stories about people\u2019s complications after receiving COVID vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n This online survey was \u201cnever developed,\u201d Ruettgers said.<\/p>\n On some occasions, NIH personnel also dispensed advice to people who reached out about vaccine injuries, including recommendations of specialists they could contact.<\/p>\n For example, in an Oct. 6, 2021, email to a patient (page 171, December 2023 documents), Nath wrote, \u201cThe best person to address this issue [studies of brain injuries] would be Dr. Gary Gibbons \u2026 Director of NHLBI [National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute],\u201d noting that \u201chis institute received most of the funds for COVID research.\u201d<\/p>\n And April 2021 emails (pages 194 and 195, January 2024 documents) from Nath provide therapy advice to patients, including suggesting to a patient that they be investigated for\u00a0POTS<\/a>\u00a0(postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome<\/a>).<\/p>\n At least two emails in the December 2023 documents reference a waiting list established by NIH for new patients to enroll in its study.<\/p>\n \u201cNowhere in any of these emails does the NIH say this is \u2018alleged\u2019 injury, or that this isn\u2019t from the vaccine, nor do they explore any other possible cause other than the specific cases where COVID itself is reported,\u201d Dressen said.<\/p>\n Dressen added:<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t some random disease they can\u2019t possibly find the cause [of] or any answers. They were bringing people in, helping them in-house and remotely, talking through their care with their providers, using that information to build their understanding of the illness, and were providing treatment recommendations.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet according to Dressen, while the NIH was aware of this, the general public was told, \u201cthe vaccines couldn\u2019t possibly cause these injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe general public still has no idea that any of this happened,\u201d Dressen said. \u201cHad the NIH done the right thing and talked with the medical community about what they were researching in depth, where would all of these injured Americans be today?\u201d<\/p>\n A 2020 patient consent form listing Nath as the principal investigator for the NIH\u2019s study (page 129 of the December 2023 documents) references a \u201cNatural History Study of Inflammatory and Infectious Diseases of the Nervous System\u201d and shows that the NIH\u2019s Institutional Review Board approved the study on April 9, 2020.<\/p>\n Yet, a Nov. 4, 2021, email (page 95, December 2023 documents) from Gavin states, \u201cThe study has not yet been approved by our review board.\u201d<\/p>\n In an August 13, 2021, email (page 192, December 2023 documents) a vaccine-injured individual asked Gavin, \u201cIs it ok for me to share this publicly? \u2018Dr Nath\u2019s team is planning on studying people who have had extended neurological or other symptoms after getting a COVID vaccine\u2019\u201d after Gavin stated on Aug. 10 that \u201cthe study has not yet been approved.\u201d<\/p>\n People who were injured by the vaccines and in contact with the NIH expressed frustration with the protracted study approval and launch process.<\/p>\n For instance, in a Jan. 11, 2022, email (page 50, December 2023 documents), a vaccine-injured individual asked, \u201cWhy nothing is being done to help all of us who were injured by the Pfizer\u201d and Moderna COVID-19 shots? Another, from the same date (page 52), asks for \u201cthe contact email of whoever is responsible for not providing care for us and not researching what is happening to us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen these emails are put into a timeline, you can see the research team being honest and straightforward for the first half of 2021, then everything changes,\u201d Dressen said. \u201cThey start getting more vague in their responses but still work with people, just not as straightforward and openly as they did before.\u201d<\/p>\n By sometime in January 2022, the study appears to have stopped. \u201cWho pulled the plug?\u201d Dressen asked. \u201cWas it\u00a0[Dr. Anthony] Fauci<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that Nath and Safavi may have had good intentions to help find answers, but that seems to quickly have been squashed and, I believe, they were silenced by Fauci and [former NIH director]\u00a0Francis Collins<\/a>\u00a0and perhaps the FDA,\u201d Ruettgers said. \u201cContact with the NIH came to a screeching halt.\u201d<\/p>\n Ruettgers said she received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 14, 2021, and soon experienced adverse reactions. By June 2021, she said her symptoms were so severe that she \u201cwas barely able to function.\u201d Ruettgers was diagnosed with\u00a0immune-mediated small fiber neuropathy<\/a>,\u00a0dysautonomia<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0reactivated Epstein-Barr virus<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to take anti-seizure medication to sleep, and I was terrified I was going to die. I was healthy prior to my vaccine,\u201d she said, adding that she still experiences symptoms such as\u00a0neuropathy<\/a>,\u00a0hypoesthesia<\/a>,\u00a0paresthesia<\/a>, slow gut motility, blurred vision, inner ear burning, extreme fatigue, fleeting dizziness and foot cramps.<\/p>\n Ruettgers said she unsuccessfully tried to contact FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials and submitted several reports to the\u00a0Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System<\/a>\u00a0(VAERS<\/a>) and\u00a0the CDC\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0V-safe<\/a>\u00a0app, but except for one telephone call, the CDC did not follow up with her.<\/p>\n Ruettgers said she later reached out to the NIH in March 2021, speaking with Safavi, with whom she \u201cagreed to participate\u201d in the agency\u2019s study.<\/p>\n \u201cI sent Safavi all my tests, brain and thoracic images and lab results (skin biopsy results) indicating positive for small fiber neuropathy. Initially, Safavi asked if I was willing to fly out to the NIH and I said yes. When I revisited the topic, she told me they were no longer bringing people to the NIH,\u201d Ruettgers said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a consolation, she offered to discuss treatment with my neurologist, which she did in July 2021,\u201d Ruettgers added. \u201cOnce she had all my records, she never communicated with me again. We all know now that the study was bogus and they lied about the results \u2026 The NIH essentially reported people healed when, in fact, we were not.\u201d<\/p>\n Hertz described<\/a>\u00a0a similar experience. She suffered serious adverse events after she received her first (and only) dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 23, 2020. She was diagnosed with\u00a0mast cell activation syndrome<\/a>\u00a0(or mast cell disorder), a condition in which a patient experiences repeated episodes of\u00a0anaphylaxis symptoms<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still suffering from all the same symptoms, but they\u2019re just milder,\u201d Hertz said.<\/p>\n Hertz said she filed several VAERS reports and reached out to the FDA, CDC and Pfizer \u201cmultiple times.\u201d Yet, \u201cthere was no response, no interest in our fight, no help.\u201d<\/p>\n When Hertz learned about the NIH study, she contacted Nath, who initially was \u201cvery sympathetic\u201d and said NIH was \u201chearing from many other people with similar injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n But Hertz said that by July 2021, Nath\u2019s \u201ctone changed,\u201d becoming \u201calmost antagonistic,\u201d before she was \u201ccut off\u201d entirely. Hertz said she learned \u201cfrom other similarly injured people that the same thing had happened to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Dressen said she hopes \u201csome internal communications come through\u201d in future document releases \u201cthat [will] help us understand what went on behind the scenes when their strategy changed, why they didn\u2019t report these injuries, why they didn\u2019t expand the study to include the sheer number of people reaching out to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Ruettgers said she wouldn\u2019t \u201cbe surprised to discover that the knowledge and cover-up of neurological reactions went much higher up the government food chain.\u201d<\/p>\n She added:<\/p>\n \u201cThe slow pace at which the documents are being released leads to suspicion that they are processing the documents with an extremely keen method of redaction to protect themselves from, at the least, accusations of medical malpractice, and at the worst, medical fraud and corruption, leading to a Congressional investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n Dressen said that \u201cwhen the NIH says something different privately than they do publicly or officially, they are not being honest or transparent.\u201d She added:<\/p>\n \u201cThe NIH gathered the information, then hung us all out to dry \u2026 This goes beyond a \u2018simple misunderstanding.\u2019 Something went very wrong at the NIH, and it was at the expense of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n Hertz said she would like federal agencies to acknowledge people\u2019s injuries. \u201cIt\u2019s just really time for them to stop ignoring what has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally published by The Defender \u2014 Children\u2019s Health Defense\u2019s News and Views Website<\/a> under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender<\/a> or donating to Children\u2019s Health Defense<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Documents obtained by Children\u2019s Health Defense via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal officials at the National Institutes of Health corresponded with people injured by the COVID-19 vaccines throughout 2021, even launching a study only to pull the plug on it before finishing and reporting on it. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) corresponded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1259,"featured_media":162770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[439,196],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1243],"class_list":["post-258048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-national-institute-of-health-nih","category-vaccines","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\tCommunications with vaccine-injured \u2018faded\u2019<\/h2>\n
NIH promised to survey injuries but never followed through<\/h2>\n
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\u2018Who pulled the plug?\u2019<\/h2>\n
NIH \u2018reported people healed when, in fact, we were not\u2019<\/h2>\n
NIH \u2018hung us all out to dry\u2019<\/h2>\n
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