Dr Akiko Iwasaki is one of the lead Yale University experts researching ‘post-vaccination syndrome’ following Covid vaccines. She told patients ‘we see you’
For years, thousands of Americans who suffered debilitating side effects after getting the Covid vaccine were told there was no evidence the shot was linked.
Some were branded antivaxxers, others told their symptoms were imagined or related to other conditions, like long Covid.
But that changed this week.
On Wednesday, a team from Yale University known for their rigorous work revealed the mRNA shots can cause a previously unknown condition known as ‘post-vaccination syndrome.’
The syndrome appears to cause brain fog, dizziness, tinnitus, extreme fatigue and biological changes to patients’ immune systems.
Dr Akiko Iwasaki, the lead researcher behind the paper, told DailyMail.com she understands her findings could be seen as controversial. But she wants patients to know her team will keep studying to bring them ‘better transparency and safer vaccines.’
Dr Iwasaki told this website: ‘For patients who are suffering from post-vaccination syndrome, we want them to know that we see you, we listen, and we will keep on doing more research in this area so that this condition can be recognized, and better medical care can be provided.’
She believes her work will ‘absolutely’ be a paradigm shifting moment.
Dr Trevor Keyler, a biology professor in Minnesota, was an avid mountain biker when he developed cataracts and tremors after his Moderna vaccine. He is pictured with his two children
Kari Ponce de Leon, a 43-year-old mother-of-two from Montana, told DailyMail.com that she ‘can’t really trust the public health institutions anymore’ after her Covid vaccine
‘People with PVS have felt dismissed and ignored because PVS is not a medically recognized condition,’ Dr Iwasaki said.
‘I believe that rigorous scientific research will lead to better diagnosis, treatment and prevention of PVS. Such research will also lead to better transparency and safer vaccines.’
Dr Iwasaki and her team emphasized the results ‘are still a work in progress,’ and that it is unclear exactly how common PVS is.
But Dr Iwasaki, who is the director of the Center for Infection & Immunity at the Yale School of Medicine, said the team planned to address this question by launching larger studies.
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‘We would like to expand our research to a larger cohort and validate our current findings,’ she said. ‘We need funding to carry out such future work.’
The CDC still recommends Covid vaccines, especially for those who are elderly or immunocompromised and vulnerable to the disease.
Covid is also still killing about 300 Americans every week, CDC data shows.
Following the new research, DailyMail.com spoke with dozens of Americans who report being injured from the vaccines and have expressed hope that their symptoms are being validated.
One of them was Kari Ponce de Leon, a 43-year-old mother from Montana who decided to get the Pfizer Covid vaccine in February 2021 out of a sense of duty.
However, what she thought was a good deed turned into a years-long ordeal with dangerous blood conditions that could have caused deadly bleeding.
The mother-of-two told DailyMail.com: ‘I thought that I was doing the right thing.’
She stressed that while she’s not anti-vaccine and has ‘had all the vaccines that I can,’ she does feel the government abandoned her after mandating the shot.
She said: ‘I’ve never had a problem before. I’ve had all the vaccines that I can. My kids are vaccinated. I believe in vaccines.’
Just two days after her vaccine, she noticed red spots all over her hands and an uncontrollable nose bleed.
Doctors diagnosed Mrs Ponce de Leon with a series of blood conditions that caused her immune system to block platelets.
Platelets are essential for blood to clot and for wounds to heal, so having too few could lead to uncontrolled, deadly bleeding.
After months of infusions to get her platelets back to normal, Mrs Ponce de Leon was rushed to the University of Washington in 2022.
Doctors replaced all of her plasma with donor plasma where doctors performed plasmapheresis, a procedure that removes all of the plasma from blood and replaces it with donor plasma.
Dr Keyler is pictured before his injury with his wife and their two children. He said while he plans to get his children most vaccines, he is cautious about giving them Covid shots
Lindy Ayers, 31, was a military veteran, triathlete, and skateboarding competitor before she was left wheelchair bound after her Covid shot. She is pictured at left before the injury and at right after
Mrs Ponce de Leon has fully recovered, but doctors were unable to offer an explanation for her conditions.
One doctor wrote in a letter that her condition was likely caused by the vaccine ‘because he couldn’t find any other reason.’
In the Yale study, participants with PVS had reactivated Epstein-Barr, a contagious virus that can cause flu-like symptoms, swollen lymph nodes and nerve issues.
It has also been shown to attack the blood and marrow, which may have explained Mrs Ponce de Leon’s sudden blood disorders.
She told DailyMail.com that while she supports vaccines, she is cautious about supporting treatments heavily touted by government authorities.
She said: ‘It’s just very frustrating with this one because I did what I thought I was supposed to do. I thought I was doing the right thing, and then the government just hangs you out to dry. It’s like gaslighting.
‘It’s demoralizing. It makes me sad that I can’t really trust the public health institutions anymore.’
Dr Iwasaki’s research is part of Yale’s LISTEN Study, an ongoing trial on post-vaccine injuries and long Covid, a mysterious condition blighting an estimated 17million Americans.
The condition manifests differently in each person, but it includes an array of symptoms from fatigue to brain fog to shortness of breath.
The cause of long Covid is poorly understood, but one of the team’s theories is that the Covid virus could be ‘hiding’ in internal organs like the gut. This would make the virus undetectable in standard nasal swabs.
Dr Iwasaki’s lab is also preparing for the possibility of future pandemics by studying bat coronaviruses that resemble Covid-19 to study how they replicate, as well as immunotherapy for cancer.
