Danielle Baker, 45, received her Covid vaccine in 2021 after being mandated to as a nurse in Ohio (pictured here in her nursing scrubs and mask)
Patients who were severely injured after taking mandated Covid vaccines say they feel 'abandoned’ by the government and their doctors.
DailyMail.com has heard from dozens of healthcare workers, federal employees and military staff who claim they were left with debilitating side effects after receiving the vaccine when they were legally required to take it for their jobs.
Three of those women said while they remain 'pro-vaccine,’ speaking out about their injuries has caused them to be accused of being 'anti-vaxxers.’
The Covid vaccines prevented millions of deaths worldwide and serious side effects are extremely rare – affecting around one in 200,000 people, according to official US data.
But experts say the push to quell damaging anti-vax misinformation has left those with genuine post-vaccination injuries treated like outcasts.
Michelle Utter of Florida was told she had to receive the Covid vaccine in 2021 in order to visit her military sons who were at port.
Within days, the former athlete, was crawling on the floor, feeling like she was 'on fire inside.’ Now, the mother-of-three can hardly stand long enough to cook dinner.
Danielle Baker of Ohio, meanwhile, was the 'healthiest’ she had been when she agreed to the vaccine in order to keep her nursing job.
Within hours of her second shot, she suffered shooting back pain that left her unable to move. Now, she is in heart and lung failure, unsure 'how much time’ she has left.
And Gina Henson of Texas got the vaccine to protect elderly residents at the care home she worked at.
Six months later, she developed inflammation in the brain, which led to a stroke and more than three months in the hospital recovering. She can no longer work.
Ms Baker (seen at left and at right with her husband) claims that she has suffered heart and lung failure due to the vaccine 'sending my immune system over the edge,’ triggering the condition transverse myelitis
As of September 2024, about 13,400 Covid claims have been filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), a government program that offers compensation for medical injuries or deaths.
But only one in four claims have been reviewed, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration, an agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Of those reviewed, 58 are 'eligible for compensation.’ In order to be eligible, a person must be able to prove their injury was directly caused by a vaccine.
Ms Baker did not plan to take the Covid vaccine. Having contracted the illness in 2020, the 42-year-old assumed she had acquired natural immunity.
However, in May 2021, the nurse of 20 years received a mass email from her employer: Take the vaccine by July or lose your job, it said.
Ms Baker, now 45, told DailyMail.com: 'I felt that that’s what I needed to do to retain my position.’
While the first dose of Pfizer’s vaccine came with only minor side effects, 'It was the second one that really did me in,’ she said.
Within hours, Ms Baker suffered severe pain shooting from her injected arm up to her face.
When the pain failed to go away the next day, she assumed it may have been injected incorrectly, possibly hitting a nerve.
’Unfortunately, there was a lot more going on,’ she said.
Over the next month she started having 'extremely bad back pain’ and lost her ability to walk and control her bladder and bowels.
’This doesn’t happen,’ she told her husband. 'People just don’t go from being the healthiest that they’ve been to this.’
Doctors diagnosed her with a condition called transverse myelitis, which occurs when part of the spinal cord becomes inflamed, damaging myelin, a protective sheath that wraps around nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
The damage interrupts messages the spinal cord tries to send to the rest of the body, leading to severe pain, muscle weakness, paralysis, and bladder or bowel dysfunction.
It’s usually caused by viruses, though Mayo Clinic notes vaccinations have 'occasionally been associated as a possible trigger.’
Her medical records, reviewed by DailyMail.com, state her symptoms were due to an 'adverse reaction to the Covid-19 vaccine.’
Ms Baker, pictured here with her husband and children, told DailyMail.com: 'I feel sorry for my family. For the longest time, my son would ask me, „When are you going to get better, mama?” And he finally, I think, accepted that I’m not going to’
Ms Baker’s neurologist explained when she was infected with Covid in 2020, she likely acquired Long Covid, which weakened her immune system.
’Because of taking the vaccination, it sent my immune system over the edge to the point of disabling me,’ Ms Baker said.
Once a soccer mom who was 'out in nature constantly’ hunting and fishing, Ms Baker can no longer breathe without oxygen support or drive. Some days, she can hardly get dressed.
She added: 'I don’t know how much time I have. We face the reality of planning my funeral because of this.
’The impact is devastating, emotionally, financially. It’s taken everything we have.
’I feel sorry for my family. For the longest time, my son would ask me, „When are you going to get better, mama?” And he finally, I think, accepted that I’m not going to.’
Ms Baker told this website despite the experience, she is 'not specifically anti vax.
’My issue is that lack of follow-up with people that have these adverse reactions.
’And if you have a problem, no one will save you.’
Before receiving her Covid vaccine in January 2021, 52-year-old Michelle Utter was in the 'best shape’ of her life.
The mother-of-three ran three to six miles a day and regularly participated in workouts like CrossFit and martial arts.
’I was in the prime of my life,’ she said.
When she tried to go visit two of her sons, who are in the military, as they came into port in 2021, she was told all visitors had to be fully vaccinated against Covid.
’I went ahead and took it so I could see my kids,’ she said.
It’s unclear how long visitors may have been required to be vaccinated or if this was true nationwide.
However, a 2021 memo to service members obtained by DailyMail.com states port visitors 'are required to be vaccinated in accordance with reference… and, if eligible, have received a vaccine booster.’
In August 2021, the Navy began mandating Covid vaccinations for all members in accordance with a military-wide policy.
The mandate was dropped in January 2023.
Michelle Utter, 55, of Florida, was in the 'prime’ of her life when she was mandated to take the vaccines to see her military sons at port
About 40 minutes after receiving her second shot, Ms Utter, who normally kept up with her vaccines, started to feel like needles were coming out of her skin.
’I ended up feeling like I was on fire inside,’ she said. ’I’ve never felt so tired in my life. I’ve never felt so bad in my life.’
She was in so much pain she fell on to the floor and crawled to the bathroom, unable to move her left side.
She said: 'It was the scariest thing that I ever had to go through in my life. I just looked at myself in the mirror, and that was the first time I’ve ever been scared.’
Ms Utter was diagnosed with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP).
It happens when the immune system attacks the myelin sheath, a protective layer around the peripheral nerves, those that are outside of the brain and spinal cord.
Its cause is not well known, but a handful of cases have been linked to Covid vaccines.
To treat the condition, Ms Utter, now 55, has to receive expensive antibody therapies that cost thousands.
The treatments have completely drained her savings, and she now worries she could lose her house and car.
She said: 'Nobody’s studying us. The government has abandoned us, and we’re left with the financial burdens.
’I’m not the person I used to be anymore, and I miss her. This has been the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through in my whole life.’
Ms Utter claims that the vaccine left her with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), a rare autoimmune condition that requires medication called IVIG (pictured here) that is so expensive it has drained her savings
Gina Henson didn’t develop any symptoms immediately after receiving either dose of the Pfizer vaccine in February 2021.
Then six months later the 52-year-old suffered a stroke.
Doctors told her the stroke was likely caused by vasculitis, which occurs when blood vessels become inflamed.
This thickens blood vessel walls, which restricts blood flow to vital organs.
For Ms Henson, it was her brain.
It’s unclear what exactly causes vasculitis, but infections, certain blood cancers, and autoimmune conditions have been shown to cause it.
The research is mixed, though some case studies have linked vasculitis to the Covid vaccine.
In one case report from 2023, a healthy 47-year-old woman sought help from her primary care doctor for weakness, severe back pain, and swelling in both legs.
She had just received the first dose of her Pfizer Covid vaccine three days before.
Ms Henson’s stroke caused her to lose all movement on the right side of the body. She spent three months in the hospital and a rehab center recovering, but when she tried to go back to work, she could hardly get around without a walker.
She has since retired from her job.
Ms Henson, now 55, told DailyMail.com: 'I was running circles around those nurses. Now I’m barely walking.’
Researchers have estimated that Covid vaccines averted more than 19.8 million deaths. The red line shows the deaths that would have occurred had there not been any vaccines available, and blue shading represents all of the deaths directly averted by vaccines
Dr Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, expressed sympathy for everyone affected by rare side effects of the Covid vaccines.
But he stressed avoiding vaccines in fear of complications is much riskier than getting vaccinated.
He said: 'During 2021, you were 12 times more likely to be hospitalized and die if you didn’t get a vaccine than if you did get one.
’In 2022, the following year, you were six times more likely to be hospitalized and die.
’A choice not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice. It’s a choice to take a different risk now more seriously.’
CDC data shows only two serious adverse effects have been well established after Covid vaccination – anaphylaxis and myocarditis or pericarditis, two types of heart damage.
There have been roughly five cases per million doses administered, or one in 200,000.
Dr Offit said: 'These are probably one of the world’s most studied vaccines.
’Once this vaccine started to roll out and was given to hundreds of millions of people, there were systems like the vaccine safety data link to look at people who got the vaccine and didn’t get the vaccine.
’There were no other side effects that we’re seeing associated with the vaccine as compared to people who didn’t get the vaccines.’
