By Megan Redshaw
\nThe Defender<\/p>\n
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A healthy 33-year-old woman in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, who asked to remain anonymous, experienced paralysis 12 hours after getting her first dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine and is still hospitalized,\u00a0WPXI-TV reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Pennsylvania woman said she initially felt fine after being vaccinated, but woke up in the middle of the night with no feeling in her arms or legs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the scariest thing in the world to go to sleep completely fine (and walking), to wake up 1:30 in the morning and not be able to move at all,\u201d the woman said. \u201cI\u2019m literally counting on my daughter to hand me my phone to call to get help.\u201d<\/p>\n Paramedics rushed her to the hospital where she was later transferred to the\u00a0Cleveland Clinic<\/a>\u00a0where doctors ran tests to figure out how and why she suffered paralysis. An MRI and spinal tap were clear and blood work all came back negative, ruling out any rare diseases or disorders.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is just nothing they can find wrong with me,\u201d\u00a0the woman told Channel 11<\/a>. \u201cNo underlying conditions, I have nothing in my history and they are basically telling me, \u2018You\u2019re healthy and we can\u2019t figure out why this is going on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Although she has regained feeling and strength in her arms, she has no function from her lower chest down besides very slight movement in a few toes. The woman\u2019s family confirmed with Channel 11 that her case was reported to\u00a0Pfizer<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pfizer taking report \u2018very seriously,\u2019 but downplays connection between vaccines and injuries in general<\/strong><\/p>\n Dr. Dave Weber<\/a>, an infectious disease doctor with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said he has not heard of anything like this happening anywhere in the world with the Pfizer vaccine.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure there is more than one explanation, and it would be premature for me to judge if it\u2019s one of the side effects of the vaccine or not,\u201d Weber said. \u201cI think it definitely needs to be looked into and be reported.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement provided to Channel 11 News, Pfizer\u2019s director of global media relations said:<\/p>\n \u201cWe take adverse events that are potentially associated with our COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2, very seriously. We closely monitor all such events and collect relevant information to share with global regulatory authorities. At this time, our ongoing review has not identified any safety signals with paralysis and the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. To date, more than 2001 million people around the world have been vaccinated with our vaccine. It is important to note that serious adverse events that are unrelated to the vaccine are unfortunately likely to occur at a similar rate as they would in the general population.\u201d<\/p>\n However, a search on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s\u00a0Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System<\/a>\u00a0(VAERS) for paralysis, including transverse myelitis, myelitis, paralysis and\u00a0Guillain-Barr\u00e9 Syndrome<\/a>\u00a0(GBS), yielded\u00a0151 total reports<\/a>. Eighty-eight cases of paralysis-related disorders were reported with Pfizer, 62 with Moderna and 11 with Johnson & Johnson\u2019s (J&J) vaccine.<\/p>\n The Defender reported<\/a>\u00a0April 15, that a healthy 43-year-old Mississippi man suffered a stroke and subsequent paralysis hours after being vaccinated with\u00a0J&J\u2019s COVID vaccine<\/a>. He is unable to walk or talk, and is paralyzed on one side of his body. The family believes \u201cwithout a doubt\u201d the vaccine was the cause.<\/p>\n As\u00a0The Defender reported<\/a>\u00a0Sep. 25, 2020,\u00a0AstraZeneca<\/a>\u00a0briefly paused its clinical trial after a UK woman reported a serious adverse event after her second dose \u2014 a demyelinating condition called\u00a0transverse myelitis<\/a>\u00a0(TM) associated with pain, muscle weakness,\u00a0paralysis<\/a>, and bowel and bladder problems.<\/p>\n AstraZeneca\u00a0disclosed<\/a>\u00a0that the September pause was actually the second pause in two months. The first incident, which initially went unpublicized, occurred in July when a UK participant experienced TM after one dose and ended up with a new diagnosis of\u00a0multiple sclerosis<\/a>.<\/p>\n TM is well recognized as sometimes being \u201cthe first symptom of an\u00a0autoimmune or immune-mediated disease<\/a>\u00a0such as multiple sclerosis.\u201d\u00a0Two-thirds<\/a>\u00a0of those who experience TM remain permanently disabled.<\/p>\n The Defender<\/a>\u00a0reported Oct. 8, 2020 on Colton Berrett, a once healthy, active 13-year-old boy, who was diagnosed with TM shortly after receiving the\u00a0Gardasil vaccine<\/a>. After Colton passed away Jan. 5, 2018, rather than put Gardasil on trial, Secretary of Health and Human Services stipulated to a settlement and awarded damages for Colton\u2019s permanent transverse myelitis in the\u00a0National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program<\/a>\u00a0(NVICP).<\/p>\n A systematic review in\u00a0SAGE journals<\/a>\u00a0of TM revealed 37 cases of transverse myelitis reported with different vaccines, including MMR, hepatitis B and DPT. Researchers found that in rare cases, vaccines may be associated with autoimmune phenomena like transverse myelitis and speculated that a common denominator like an adjuvant, might trigger this syndrome.<\/p>\n Myelitis, which refers to an\u00a0inflammatory disease process<\/a>\u00a0affecting the spinal cord, is a component not just of TM but also of\u00a0encephalomyelitis<\/a>\u00a0and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) \u2014 involving both brain and spinal cord inflammation \u2014 as well as acute\u00a0flaccid myelitis<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0poliomyelitis<\/a>. Experts refer to these conditions as forms of \u201cspinal cord damage\u00a0not due to trauma<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Based on analysis of information posted at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims\u00a0website<\/a>, conditions involving\u00a0demyelination<\/a>\u00a0and paralysis \u2014 TM, ADEM, GBS and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy \u2014 are among the\u00a0top vaccine injuries<\/a>\u00a0for which Americans (primarily adults) have filed claims with the NVICP.<\/p>\n GBS is currently the NVICP\u2019s\u00a0second-most compensated vaccine injury<\/a>. As of Sep. 25, 2020, there had been 330 TM-related petitions adjudicated and $150 million in damages awarded to 266 claimants (including estimated annuities).<\/p>\n![\"From](\"https:\/\/childrenshealthdefense.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/covid_vaccine_pfizer_paralysis_vaers-300x190.png\")
\nReports of paralysis associated with other vaccines<\/strong><\/p>\n