Staff Report
Within 24 hours of receiving a flu vaccine, Andrew Rodd’s hands felt weak. He had wrist pain and thumb and finger pain.
Soon he couldn’t walk short distances. Standing, sitting and lying down were hard.
Rodd, of Reading, was diagnosed with overlap syndrome, a combination of arthritis and Sjogren’s syndrome (dry eyes and dry mouth), according to his lawyer.
Rodd is still disabled. The former horse trainer was recently compensated $2.05 million by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for his loss.
Attempts to reach Rodd weren’t successful. With the compensation money, his lawyer Larry Cohan said he’ll “live, pay his bills. If his condition should worsen in the future, he’ll have money to pay his bills, pay his rent, pay his medical bills.
Cohan is a lawyer at the firm, Anapol Weiss, with offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Arizona.
“I’d like to tell you this is the first catastrophic reaction to a flu vaccine case,” Cohan said.
Thousands are compensated for adverse reactions to flu vaccines every year. The most common reaction is Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare disorder of muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis caused by a person’s immune system damaging their nerve cells.
“I’ve seen people in wheelchairs, I’ve seen people disabled for the rest of their lives, unable to walk, unable to be employed,” Cohan said.
There’s a vaccine court in Washington, D.C. dedicated to such cases. People can be compensated up to $250,000 through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation for pain and suffering. The amount they can be compensated for wage loss and future medical needs is unlimited.
Cohan has fought for children’s cases, earning millions of dollars in compensation for them and others.
Vermont requires children in schools get common vaccinations since the governor signed the controversial bill last year. People can avoid vaccines for medical or religious reasons.
Despite the adverse reactions Cohan has seen, he and his firm “100 percent support the administrative of every vaccine” recommended by the American Medical Association and doctors.
“The risk is far outweighed by the benefits they offer,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control calls flu vaccines “among the safest medical products in use.” It says the chances of having a reaction like Rodd’s is one in a million.
This article first appeared in the May 26, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.