A woman in her 20s diagnosed with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria… claims she suffered serious side effects after being asked to receive three vaccines at once at the hospital she went to for a blood transfusion
The story of a woman in her 20s with a rare immune disease who went to a hospital for treatment and ended up getting three vaccines at once, only to suffer terrible side effects, has been revealed.
According to a recent report by the British daily Daily Mail, 23-year-old Alexis Lorenze, who lives in Florida, was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH) in January. PNH is a disease in which the body’s immune system attacks its own red blood cells, and it is reported to occur in one in a million people.
Lorenze went to UCI Medical Center in California for a blood transfusion to replace his damaged red blood cells. At the hospital, the doctors told Lorenze they would not give him the transfusion unless he got tetanus, pneumonia, and meningitis vaccines all at once, and Lorenze complied.
The tragedy began immediately. Within 10 minutes of receiving the vaccine, her vision began to blur and she began vomiting. Even worse, she began bleeding under her skin, causing her face to swell. Lorenze, who had not been vaccinated since childhood, is now one of more than 14,000 Americans who have reported vaccine injuries to the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Counterinjury Compensation Program (CICP).
In response to Lorenze’s adverse reaction to the vaccine, some medical professionals told the Daily Mail that administering multiple vaccines at once to patients with autoimmune diseases such as PNH could be problematic and potentially life-threatening. However, they explained that it was unlikely that any component of the vaccine itself directly caused Lorenze’s condition.
Lorenze’s rare disease was not yet properly treated and was likely aggravated by an immune response to the vaccine. Vaccines can trigger an immune response in PNH patients. What Lorenze experienced was thought to have been caused by an extreme immune response called a cytokine storm. This is when the body attacks healthy organs and cuts off the blood supply to those organs. This can lead to permanent organ damage and, in severe cases, death.
“It may be safe to give these vaccines together in healthy people, but in Laurenze’s case, the immune response may have been excessive, which may have led to complications,” said Dr. Raj Dasgupta, chief medical advisor at Fortune Recommends Health, a review platform run by Fortune, a U.S. business magazine. “It makes sense to space out the vaccines to avoid overloading the patient’s immune system and to monitor closely for worsening symptoms,” he said.
Dr. Gloria Gerber, a hematologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the United States, also said the vaccine may have worsened Lorenze’s PNH, accelerating the destruction of red blood cells. PNH is caused by an acquired mutation in the PIGA gene, which damages red blood cells. Normally, red blood cells use hemoglobin, a protein that helps carry oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. But because PNH patients don’t break down hemoglobin properly, the protein can overload organs like the kidneys. This can cause blood clots to form, leading to stroke or heart attack.
According to the Aplastic Anemia and MDS International Foundation, people with PNH should receive regular vaccinations. Patients who receive regular blood transfusions may have their immune systems weakened simply by receiving blood from another person. Routine vaccinations recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for PNH patients include MMR, flu, HPV, tetanus, and hepatitis.
Even so, there is no need to get all three vaccines at once. Regarding the medical staff’s statement that one must get all three vaccines before receiving a transfusion, Dr. Gerber said, “It is difficult to find a reason why one should have to get all three vaccines in order to receive a transfusion.”
Why did you get three vaccines at once?
It is unclear why the hospital staff at Lorenze’s visit wanted to administer three vaccines at once. However, the meningitis and pneumonia vaccines are essential for the standard treatment for PNH, which is the administration of complement inhibitors. These are drugs that suppress the complement system of the immune system, which is an immunotherapy that suppresses the immune system so that it does not destroy red blood cells. By blocking the immune response, it acts to protect the body’s tissues.
Accordingly, it is possible that the hospital planned to administer complement inhibitors to Lorenze. It is explained that if the patient has symptoms such as anemia and is severe enough to require a blood transfusion, it can be judged that complement inhibitors are necessary and therefore the hospital requested that the vaccine be administered.
Regarding the fact that Laurenze temporarily lost his vision right after receiving the vaccine, there are opinions that the vaccine itself does not contain any ingredients that cause blindness, but rather that it could be caused by PNH itself. One of the most fatal complications of PNH is thrombosis (blood clots forming in blood vessels). Blood clots can form unexpectedly in unusual places, and can occur in abdominal organs such as the liver or skin, and even in the eyes. Accordingly, it is pointed out that Laurenze temporarily lost his vision due to thrombosis in the retinal blood vessels or brain blood vessels caused by PNH rather than the vaccine itself.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported that it had contacted UCI Medical Center regarding this matter, but had not yet received a response.
Source: kormedi.com
