Informal guidance for persons who may have sustained Covid-19 vaccine injury
Applicable to all.
The following is informal guidance for any person or aircrew who feels that they may have sustained Covid-19 vaccine injury.
Fatality is a possible outcome of Covid-19 vaccination. The final section briefly offers some pointers about things to consider in this regard.
Please leave any feedback on what follows in comments or direct email and this document can be improved.
It is not company or territory specific.
It is not definitive.
It is intended to:
equip aircrew with a process or task list to follow with airlines/operators/employers, unions, regulators, aeromedical examiners, doctors and insurers;
create a protective written record of your medical experience and interactions with the aforementioned parties.
Personal notes, activities and responsibilities
Record your Covid-19 vaccine dates and details, including manufacturer, dose, batch number(s) and dates of administration.
Check your batch number against www.howbadismybatch.com (scroll down to the “Check out your batch code” section).
Keep an ongoing diary of your medical symptoms including photographs and video of any symptoms. Store them securely and make copies. If possible, get a third party to record what they observe as well e.g. family member or housemate(s).
Aircrew Specific: It is likely a crime for you to knowingly operate/fly if medically impaired. If there is doubt, there is no doubt. Do not operate. Report unfit to fly.
ESSENTIAL: When communicating with any party consider recording the interactions for your records. If this is not possible, make detailed notes of every interaction. Always send your written account/record of each interaction to the other party and ask them to verify the accuracy of your notes by reply within a reasonable time frame. Specify that no reply received in that timeframe will be considered acceptance of the accuracy of your notes/account.
Baselining
You may wish to subject yourself to a wider array of diagnostic tests than your AME or GP recommends. You can find a current list of tests here that are based on multiple medical sources and on known deleterious effects of Covid-19 vaccination.
Lawyer
Consider contacting a medical lawyer to become familiar with how they recommend you conduct yourself and what evidence you should gather that may feed any claim or case you might bring. Easier to know this as soon as possible so you do not make mistakes or omissions that may detriment you later.
GP & AME, Healthcare Provider, Insurer
Inform your aeromedical examiner of your symptoms.
Inform your GP of your symptoms.
Ask both your AME and GP:
What their assessment is of your condition.
What they believe possible causes could be.
Whether they consider Covid-19 vaccination could be a root cause.
If they deny it as a possibility, ask them to specify why not.
What their advice is for treatment, therapy, recovery including reference to any specific aeromedical or other treatment pathway.
What they anticipate as the impact on your medical certification and their prognosis for your recovery.
For written copies of all diagnostic information and their diagnosis and recommendations.
To complete a pharmacovigilance report for your country e.g. US VAERS, UK Yellow Card, Canadian
Adverse Event Reporting System *. If they do deny it, ask them for their clinical justification for refusal in writing. You can file your own report regardless and must do so. Failure to file robs you of a record and analysis by your national pharmacovigilance service and also contributes to under reporting of data in national pharmacovigilance systems.
Get copies of all your medical records before your vaccination(s) and for every interaction from this point on.
*CAERS is a private option. This group is backed by Canadian Covid Care Alliance and offers a specific selection to identify as flight crew as well as one-on-one follow up. Ensure completion of that record if you suspect you have sustained a vaccine injury.
Airline/Operator/Employer, Union
Record all interactions, or make detailed notes. Attend any meetings with a third party of your choosing in accordance with Company policies.
Inform them in writing of your condition and lack of fitness to fly.
Ask them for their written guidance on what they think you should do and why.
Arrange a meeting with them if appropriate. This is essential if you have been mandated and took a Covid-19 vaccine because of their mandate.
Ask them to explain:
their assessment of your situation and causal reasoning;
process to follow;
forms of company support;
healthcare and insurance provision.
Government Compensation Schemes
Familiarise yourself with your nation’s vaccine injury compensation schemes and claim timeframes. Open a claim and add information to it on an ongoing basis in consultation with your sources of support. Some schemes are time-limited e.g. one year from sustaining injury.
Fatality
Death is now a recognised possible consequence of Covid-19 vaccination. As aircrew, this unexpected event could occur downroute in a foreign jurisdiction. Your next of kin will be dealing with shock, surprise, grief and trauma.
In anticipation of such a situation, it may be worth considering the preparation of a checklist for them to follow that takes into account the following:
Your death will involve local law enforcement and possible investigation, which will leave a documentary trail and involve witness reports.
Your body may be subjected to local post mortem or autopsy to a standard different to your home nation.
Your body will undergo preparation for repatriation.
Your next of kin will want to acquire all documents relating to the event. Translation may be required to a certified standard.
Appointing a less emotional third party for all interactions may make interactions easier.
You may wish to have a private post mortem or autopsy conducted to a sufficiently high standard to support court proceedings in your home nation. This will have a cost and require the identification of a suitable coroner or pathologist. Your agents may need to take direction from the same in your home nation and coordinate between the two. Translation may be required.
In that post mortem or autopsy, you may wish to specify that vaccine induced causes of death are specifically investigated. We have no specific advice in this regard, beyond the testing in the given Baseline.
You should be wary of devolving or deferring the above to your employer, whose care, dedication, interests and/or agenda may be substantially different to yours. In essence, your agents should be prepared to take full control of any process in order to prevent or avoid undue interference and ensure that information and communication processes are not sub-optimised or subverted. It is unlikely that the airline can be said to have rights that exceed your next of kin, but this is worth investigating as a possibility.
You might be able to get a second post mortem or autopsy at home to overcome any difficulties or shortcomings in the other nation. In this event, you should be aware of stating that to ensure that nothing is done to your remains that would detriment this, including embalming and any other process carried out elsewhere including for repatriation.
UK Specific
If you feel that you may have not been able to exercise fully informed consent when deciding to take a Covid-19 vaccination, please contact UKCitizen2021.org.
Send an email to:
investigations@ukcitizen2021.org
Please start the subject line of your email with “VaxInjury:”
Please include:
A contact number;
Image(s) of your vaccination record card(s).