Before he received the Covid vaccine in August 2021, David Becerra, then 56, lived a full and rewarding life as a retiree who loved to spend time running around after his infant grandson.
But a little less than a week after the shot, he became unsteady on his feet.
And within a few months, he’d lost the ability to walk longer than a few blocks without needing a break. At one point, he began coughing up blood.
Subsequent tests revealed Mr Becerra, from California, was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that affects the nerves, causing paralysis, difficulty speaking, pain in the limbs, and difficulty breathing. He went on to have two strokes.
Mr Becerra’s doctors informed him that he was one of just around 100 of the 13million people who had the Johnson & Johnson shot to develop this condition as a result of the vaccine.
Mr Becerra has had two strokes in the hospital and has also gone into kidney failure. He is unable to walk on his own. He and his wife place the blame on Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine
It is a story that the Becerra family have been reluctant to tell until now, for fear that it may put others off having a life-saving shot.
They are pro-vaccine, but think attention should be drawn to the small minority who have suffered a laundry list of seemingly unrelated health conditions.
There’s no doubt that Covid vaccines introduced in late December 2020 saved hundreds of millions of lives across the globe, including the US.
In a matter of just two years, the shots have averted more than 3 million deaths in the US.
And while the overwhelming majority of scary stories about side effects have been discredited, recent findings have suggested the roster of possible side effects warrant a closer look.
In the UK this month, pharma firm AstraZeneca announced it would withdraw its Covid vaccine from the market amid 81 deaths thought to be linked to vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), a blood clotting disorder.
The company admitted that its shot can cause the side effect ‘in very rare cases’ for the first time last month in a class action lawsuit over claims that it led to dozens of deaths.
While the AstraZeneca vaccine was never used in the US, there have been other troubling reports of adverse reactions to Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, including heart inflammation, tinnitus, and vertigo.
Pfizer reported severe reactions in fewer than two percent of vaccine recipients in their trial, while in a Moderna trial that number was about eight percent.
Scientists have reported feeling censored by others in their field after raising legitimate safety concerns.
Experts have been exceedingly cautious about describing potential adverse reactions for fear of eroding public confidence in the vaccines, the benefits of which have been found to far outweigh the costs.
Now, DailyMail.com is airing the voices of Covid vaccine recipients who have suffered difficult-to-explain maladies that they are convinced resulted from the shots.
Kimberly Becerra (left) detailed her husband David’s (right) ordeal with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that affects the nerves, and one which Johnson & Johnson warns of on its label
Some of the most common effects reported to DailyMail.com include vertigo, tinnitus, chronic fatigue, behavior changes, and heartbeat irregularities.
But while patients’ suffering is real, they’ve run into walls when it comes to explaining their symptoms to family, friends, and doctors, many of whom have labeled these people as antivaxxers or conspiracy theorists.
Those who have suffered from what they maintain were side effects of Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson shots are frustrated about the lack of action on the federal government’s part.
Most independent studies have not been large enough to confirm links between various health events and the vaccines, but scientists have also not concluded yet that there are no links.
One of the effects that has been reported in many of those who claim to experience side effects is the heartbeat problem, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS.
The condition causes a sudden reduction in blood flow to the heart when a person stands up, leading to dizziness, fainting, and increased heart rate.
A 2022 study in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research found that, of 284,000 adults who received a Johnson & Johnson Covid shot, 763 experienced POTS post-vaccine, compared to 501 people before receiving the vaccine, suggesting that the shot raised their risk.
At the same time, Covid infection was found to raise the risk of POTS drastically. Among more than 12,000 adults who had Covid, 260 experienced POTS compared to 123 who had POTS before the shot.
Tracy Jones, a 54 year-old healthcare worker from Houston, is one of the vaccine recipients who experienced POTS.
She never had heart problems until she received a booster shot from Moderna.
But two weeks later, Ms Jones – who has never considered herself anti-vaccine – started experiencing heart palpitations.
Then, she had debilitating dizzy spells. Her heart rate would spike from her normal 60 beats per minute to as high as 200 beats per minute, even while lying down. She soon decided to go to the emergency department.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘My heart was racing, I was dizzy, feeling like I was going to pass out. It felt tied in my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath.
‘And I went into the ER, they gave me a drip and said, you’re fine. And I kept telling them… they were taking my heart and pulse while I was laying down. I said, but it’s fine while I’m lying down. It’s when I stand up that I have the issues and nobody really paid much attention to that.’
She said when she got home she felt very disturbed by the experience, ‘because I knew something was wrong. ‘But nobody was giving me any answers.’
Mr Becerra’s wife Kimberly felt similarly confused when she asked her husband’s doctors for answers. She watched David’s condition deteriorate for months while waiting to see a physician.
It took months to get a wheelchair approved from the insurance company and equally as long to see a neurologist in their insurance plan.
David Becerra had to wait months for his insurance plan, California’s public MediCal, were able to supply him with a usable wheelchair. He and his wife Kimberly believe they were brushed off by both doctors and the government.
And when David, now 58, moved from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility, the couple was promised he would receive the best possible care.
Yet, the couple claim that staff at the home were brushing off his symptoms.
‘We got no help. People who got Covid got help, got groceries delivered. We got nothing… I still can’t get him physical therapy,’ said Kimberly.
‘He still doesn’t have a walker, even though the physical therapy, I’ve requested it for over a year now.’
Unable to walk on his own or go anywhere, because their car was not wheelchair appropriate, Mr Becerra was essentially homebound, unable to see his daughter and infant grandson.
While he’s now able to get around thanks to a non-electric wheelchair, Mr and Mrs Becerra have felt ignored by the doctors he’s seen and his insurance program, MediCal.
Mrs Becerra said: ‘It’s been just, very, very frustrating to see how they treat someone. I mean, the government asks us to do this to protect our neighbors, our cities, our states, our country.
‘He still tells everybody to take the vaccine, that they had better chances of being bitten by a shark than this to happen to them. But the longer they let you sit here in this chair, with hardly any physical therapy… We have just been left to rot.’
Another potentially severe side effect that more than 9,000 people have reported to the CDC is vertigo, or a spinning sensation related to problems in the inner ear.
While studies into vaccine side effects in the US are scarce, other countries have reported it among their vaccine recipients.
In a cross-sectional vaccination study of British and American healthcare workers, 8.3 percent reported vertigo symptoms. Meanwhile, an Italian study of 315,000 people found that dizziness was seen in 21 percent of them.
In Houston, Texas, a 54-year-old military veteran, who wished to remain anonymous, told DailyMail.com that just a few months after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, he noticed severe dizzy spells.
Primary care physicians said the symptoms were likely side effects of medication he takes to treat pain.
But he remains convinced his symptoms have resulted from the shot.
He told DailyMail.com: ‘They told me that it was probably related to the medication. So I felt like they blew it off.
‘I said this is what I’m facing; this is what’s happening to me, and they go, just keep monitoring and let us know the changes. Well, it hasn’t changed. I’m still experiencing all this stuff.’
Suddenly he couldn’t run his normal five miles, having to stop after about a mile to steady himself. He’s fallen on runs and often has to pull over while driving due to the vertigo.
He now believes he has myocarditis or inflammation in the heart. Israeli authorities were first to spot this unusual side effect in April 2021 primarily among young men after a second dose of a Pfizer or Moderna shot. But the CDC maintained there was no strong link between heart inflammation and Covid vaccines.
He added: ‘I joke around with my family, I tell him, you know, it’s sad that I went overseas deployed with the military – I served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Brazil, Colombia, all over – I survived, came back from all these missions that I did, and this vaccine will end up killing me.’
Jennifer Vacca, 34, was a PhD student in STEM and an accomplished athlete before she received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in April 2021. Three years later, she still has insomnia, brain fog, chronic fatigue syndrome, and heart problems
Ms Vacca receives oxygen therapy while she exercises to build up strength and resilience while adequately oxygenating the blood
Meanwhile in Austin, Texas, 34-year-old Jennifer Vacca is still in recovery three years after she received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
She describes a ‘domino effect’ of crippling health issues including POTS, muscle weakness, high blood pressure, vision problems, and chronic fatigue that traps her in bed for days on end.
Ms Vacca felt flu-like in the hours after her vaccination, so she went to sleep. At one point, she woke up so sick that she debated calling an ambulance, but decided against it.
But her illness continued. She described feeling as though she had ‘a 200 pound brick sitting on every cell in my body every single day.’ But help was hard to find.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘Every week, I was just bed bound. I was coughing up blood, my muscles were atrophying.
‘I was calling nurses and they were scoffing at me. I was like, this cannot be normal. And they were like, just sleep it off. It’s normal, quit making a big deal out of out of this.’
Today, Ms Vacca lives with chronic fatigue syndrome that makes getting out of bed a herculean task. She has dealt with insomnia since shortly after getting vaccinated, but said it has gotten slightly better in the past couple of years.
She said oxygen therapy while exercising has also helped build her strength and stamina up.
After visiting doctors, naturopaths, and every health expert in between, someone finally acknowledged that she could be experiencing vaccine injury
One of the many doctors she visited finally acknowledged that her constellation of symptoms were likely tied to the shot. He gave her a medical exemption from having to get the second dose and booster shots.
The experience has had a lasting effect on her current life as well as her future.
She said: ‘Before, I was going to school, I was planning on getting my PhD. I was making A’s and now I feel like I can’t do can’t do creative things that you would do as a normal like adult.
‘Now I just barely have the brain energy take care of myself each day and make sure that I somehow pay rent and make myself food and stuff.’
44-year-old ophthalmology surgical technician Cassie Blythe, from Oregon, got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in late August 2021.
She chose it because it would only require a single shot, unlike those from Pfizer and Moderna.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘The day after my single dose shot I began having short 30 second dizzy spells a few times per day. I attributed it to dehydration or stress. Then at week three came the vomiting and involuntary eye movements, accompanied by severe dizziness that lasted all day and all night.
‘The dizziness was so severe I was no longer able to walk or stand anymore without falling to the floor.’
Ms Blythe was bed ridden for four weeks, dealing with nausea, vomiting, and dizziness that kept the world spinning whether her eyes were open or shut.
She was diagnosed with inflammation of nerves in her inner ear that causes vertigo and hearing loss, and is convinced the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was the cause.
She said: ‘Two years later, I am dizzy everyday and can still barely walk. After seeing eight docs, four physical therapists, naturopaths, acupuncture, and many other specialists, I still cannot function. I’ve lost my career that I loved as I can no longer assist in surgery.
‘I wake up dizzy and most days cannot drive and can barely walk. A good day for me is being able to cook dinner for my husband and two children, and drive two miles to pick up the grocery store order.’
