Guilt

The Guilt Involved When Your Child Is Injured By A Vaccine

When Susan Lawson of Colorado hears parents declaring, unequivocally, that everyone should vaccinate their children because it’s perfectly safe, she says it feels “like a punch in the gut.” That’s because she’s seen another side of the story: Her daughter Julia, now 9, was left with permanent brain damage — an injury acknowledged by a federal court payout — after receiving her MMRV (measles-mumps-rubella-varicella) shot when she was a year old.

Lawson tells Yahoo Parenting that one morning, about a week after Julia received the shot, her now-ex-husband found their daughter in a terrifying state. “She was blue and cold and her body was arched, her eyes were looking in opposite directions, and she was covered in feces and vomit,” she recalls. “We thought she was dead.” She was rushed to the hospital, where doctors said she was having seizures, and she was put into a medically induced coma. Julia spent many days in intensive care and the neurology ward before being sent home with the diagnosis of encephalitis, or swelling of the brain.

Lawson, a veterinarian who had the utmost faith in medicine, had never before questioned vaccinations, and had always inoculated Julia right on schedule. But now she began to wonder. Hospital doctors dismissed any thought of a connection. But when Lawson asked a pediatrician about it, she was told it could be a possibility. Every family featured in this story received a payment by the United States Court of Federal Claims, which concluded that their rare injuries were caused by the vaccines.

“I felt shocked, bewildered, and guilty,” Lawson recalls. “We were trying to protect her, and instead I destroyed her. The guilt is huge.”

The pediatrician helped Lawson file a notice through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a national vaccine safety surveillance program cosponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Lawson then hired a vaccine-injury attorney and began what became a trying, four-year journey through the country’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program of the US Court of Federal Claims — a specific, no-fault forum for vaccine injuries or deaths, set up by Congress in 1986 to ensure justice for children (and, as clarified by the Supreme Court recently, to protect vaccine manufacturers from being sued). At the end of it, in 2011, Lawson was awarded nearly $1.5 million for lost future wages, future life care, and pain and suffering on behalf of her daughter, whom she describes as “an eternal toddler,” with little language skills, constant medications, and daily seizures.

“Was it justice? I mean, they could have done nothing,” Lawson says. “But I just want my kid back.”

THE RISKS

Serious vaccine injuries and deaths are few and far between, according to the CDC. “Like any medication, vaccines can cause side effects,” a spokesperson tells Yahoo Parenting through an email. “The side effects associated with getting vaccines are almost always mild (such as redness and swelling where the shot was given) and go away within a few days. Severe reactions, such as a severe allergic reaction, are rare.”

You can continue reading the story here https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/parents-of-vaccine-injured-children-speak-out-110904439577.html

We would love to hear your comments on this article, I know its the most difficult decision we have made to date with our children.