COVERSE volunteer and disability advocate Kara Potter provides the Senate inquiry with a heartbreaking recount of her new disabilities and chronic illness that began directly after her booster shot. Kara’s inflamed regulatory systems remain disorganised, affecting her capacity to communicate, work, think and move. We thank Kara for her courage and presence as a spokesperson for the injured community at the Senate Inquiry into Excess Mortality.

Watch our full testimony at www.coverse.org.au/excessmortality

COVERSE volunteer and disability advocate Kara Potter credits her GP with saving her life after a severe vaccine reaction, despite ongoing gaslighting by other specialists. Limited medical education on vaccine harms and APHRA's disciplinary pressure contribute to inadequate treatment and inaccurate medical records, particularly for women with long-term vaccine conditions. "Doctors would be supportive in person but write in my records that I was having psychological issues. This is very typical," she said.

Yesterday COVERSE delivered critical expert testimony to the Senate concerning Excess Mortality. In our submission, we highlight the lack of medical, political, and scientific investigation into vaccine harm by the Australian government and research organisations. This lack raises serious questions about existing government data in modelling excess death figures. “There is zero follow-up on our initial adverse reaction reports…Where are patients in government data? How is their chronic decline being tracked? How many have died?”

Nick chats with Rado, and they provide some updates on CoVerse activities.

Links:

New York Times article, "Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?": https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/health/covid-vaccines-side-effects.html

CoVerse public submissions: https://coverse.org.au/submissions/

CoVerse appearance in the Australian Senate, 1 Feb 2024: https://coverse.org.au/royalcommission/

Rado Faletic, Co-Founder of COVERSE, urges government officials to stop referencing flawed public health and ABS data. He advocates for independent research into COVID-19 vaccine harms in consultation with affected individuals and calls for a Royal Commission to investigate the public health failures of the pandemic.

The Government promised a lightweight easy-to-access compensation scheme that all Australians who’ve suffered a COVID-19 vaccine injury could access. This week, Parliamentarians discovered how the Government has failed to deliver on its promise and the ramifications of this continuing betrayal will be severe.

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Rado Faletič talks about extraordinary political pressure in the USA to approve the COVID-19 vaccines and high-profile cases of US FDA officials resigning in this process. Domestically, COVERSE and other advocates for transparent public health are asking: As adverse events started to accumulate at “extraordinary numbers” that “eclipsed any other product that has hit the Australian market”, why weren’t these numbers cause for concern? Medical events that would normally trigger pharmacovigilance safety signals did not trigger any. Why? We don’t know the answer. This is why a Royal Commission into Australia’s pandemic response is necessary. A future of safe and effective vaccines and proper pharmacovigilance depends on understanding both the successes and failures of this one.

Watch our full Senate testimony at www.coverse.org.au/royalcommission

Rachel O’Reilly gives examples to Senators of the arbitrarily limited scope of the current compensation scheme for COVID-19 vaccine adverse reactions. She compares this to the range of serious illnesses and conditions known to result from adverse reactions in the peer-reviewed medical literature (ever-expanding) but not recognised by the Government’s scheme.

For more details go to www.coverse.org.au/royalcommission

Missed our Senate presentation? COVERSE is a national patient-led and science-led charity. We are the only body in Australia connected to international patient-led studies of COVID-19 vaccine reactions and communicating peer-reviewed medical research to the public, patients and GPs.

Rachel O’Reilly explained in our Senate presentation that our desperate search for information navigates not just medical censorship, but a broader context in which there is no corporate watch organisation dedicated to pharmaceutical industry power and transparency in Australia. Comparing Australia’s regulation of the pharmaceutical industry to her past research on fossil fuel companies, she explains ‘This is why there is a deficit of information’.

Australia had the highest uptakes of COVID-19 vaccines in the world but was one of the worst places for receiving information and medical care following an adverse reaction. There are currently over 3,580+ peer-reviewed medical journal articles regarding COVID-19 vaccine reactions. No Australian medical research organisation undertakes or communicates this peer-reviewed literature to our community, nor to Australian GPs. Watch our full presentation at https://coverse.org.au/royalcommission/

This #IWD we highlight the severe burden COVID vaccine-injured women continue to suffer as a result of medical sexism and government abandonment. After bearing the greater weight of the pandemic, women are significantly overrepresented in injured groups and are subject to concerning delays in diagnoses #InspireInclusion #auspol

In our Senate testimony COVERSE explained how Australians remain unaware that the Covid-19 V compensation scheme, erected hastily for emergency-approved products, is failing to provide an adequate safety net for the majority of severely injured people. Why? Because it bares no relation to the actual peer reviewed literature nor to the breadth and scope of damages recognised by doctors within our injured community. And for the rare few who are eligible, it is drawn out, exhausting and biased against those without legal expertise. #nosafetynet #compodds #770:11
Our full testimony can be accessed via https://coverse.org.au/royalcommission/

Last week (Feb 1 2024) COVERSE was invited in person to present our submission to the Senate Inquiry into Terms of Reference for a COVID-19 Royal Commission.
You can watch our entire 1-hour presentation addressing failed pharmacovigilance, medical and political abandonment and censorship, policy trumping science, and state capture. Such issues are complex and affect all Australians in different ways, now and in the future.
COVERSE would like to thank all Senators for their time and valued engagement. Such bipartisan support was and will be essential for us to recover, to address the institutional abandonment we deal with still today, 3 years in.
It is heartening to us that we and our valued members are being heard. To keep this positive momentum we ask that you share this video widely, talk to your MPs and register with us for updates.
Watch our full testimony at: https://coverse.org.au/royalcommission/

The consequences of dismissing vaccine injuries can be catastrophic, as was the case for Natalie Boyce. Families have been shattered and much needed trust in healthcare systems is lost. Natalie’s mother speaks. https://coverse.org.au/amps-deb #RealStoriesRealPeople

Michelle has faced ongoing medical and social bias in a system that does not want to recognise vaccine-injured Australians. These people are us – everyday Australians who chose to get vaccinated to help protect our community. https://coverse.org.au/amps-mish #RealPeopleRealStories

Many Australians with cardiac complications caused by Covid vaccinations were initially dismissed, as Nick was, with a diagnosis of anxiety. Experiencing this denial of harms is a double betrayal: first we were told it is safe, then the system fails to investigate or treat our disablements. https://coverse.org.au/amps-nick #RealStoriesRealPeople

Ingi’s lifechanging physical effects of her Covid vaccine reaction are compounded by the political abandonment of the vaccine injured. Hear her story. https://coverse.org.au/amps-ingi #RealStoriesRealPeople

In 2021 Ahpra warned doctors that they would be disciplined if they discussed any concerns regarding the Covid vaccines. This was a shift away from the fundaments of medical ethics and science-led discussion. Vaccine-injured Australians like tyDi have suffered the consequences. https://coverse.org.au/amps-tydi #LetDoctorsBeDoctors #RealPeopleRealStories

As co-founder of COVERSE, Rado addresses the failure of pharmacovigilance authorities to respond to harms Australians are experiencing from a novel product, and he calls on the Australian Parliament to help citizens who stepped up, were injured, and left behind. https://coverse.org.au/amps-rado #RealPeopleRealStories

Thousands of Australians like Kasia have been robbed of the most basic pleasures of everyday life by serious reactions to the Covid vaccines. People like Kasia are our neighbours, our friends, our loved ones. It’s long overdue for a bipartisan approach to support them. https://coverse.org.au/amps-kasia #RealPeopleRealStories

Disability advocate Kara had to battle her own debilitating injuries from Covid vaccinations. Her struggles to get help exemplify the administrative and structural indifference that those with vaccine injuries continue to endure. https://coverse.org.au/amps-kara #RealPeopleRealStories

CoVerse’s submission to the Government’s draft “misinformation bill” has been redacted. Read the unredacted version here: https://coverse.org.au/submissions/
#censorship #misinformation #coverup #covid

Trust in public vaccination programs can only exist when we look after those who are harmed by them. Hanna & Danny discuss their experiences and the things they’ve learnt as a result of being left injured without any help https://coverse.org.au/amps-hanna #RealStoriesRealPeople

Informed consent is a foundation of healthcare, and is a human right. When “no jab, no job” workplace policies transferred vaccination risks to Australian workers, people like Caitlin Gotze suffered the worst possible consequences. Caitlin’s mother speaks. https://coverse.org.au/amps-raelene #Justice4Caitlin #RealPeopleRealStories

The TGA is our national pharmacovigilance body, but reporting to it is voluntary, and it does not follow-up on the health of the injured. Ryan’s story shows us the consequences. It’s time for a reporting system that puts citizens’ health before pharmaceutical industry profits. https://coverse.org.au/amps-ryan #RealStoriesRealPeople

Danni’s vaccine injury has been met with silence from public health officials. She processes the human cost of the pandemic response and asks for help for those who have been most impacted. https://coverse.org.au/amps-danni #RealStoriesRealPeople