AstraZeneca Faces Landmark Lawsuit for COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Injury

A lawsuit, likely the first one of its kind, was brought against AstraZeneca for breach of contract for failing to pay the medical bills for the plaintiff injured in the COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial. Brianne Dressen was officially diagnosed with “Post Vaccine Neuropathy” by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She has had substantial, debilitating injuries from her participation in the clinical trial. 

The contract Dressen signed to participate in the trial included an obligation for AstraZeneca to “provide medical treatment” and to “cover the costs of research injuries.” The pharmaceutical manufacturer failed to follow up with Dressen to cover these costs and eventually offered a settlement payment of $1,243.30. 

Below is the settlement letter I was offered by AstraZeneca for my vaccine injury.

“Stand Together” unless your rare disease is a result of their product, in which case you are then “The Matter” that they can’t get rid of you fast enough.

(My med expenses are now $443k/yr) https://t.co/tseskyKlUs pic.twitter.com/idb7YJdMMV

— Brianne Dressen (@BrianneDressen) March 1, 2024

This does not begin to cover the overwhelming costs associated with her condition nor the lost wages she has and will incur. AstraZeneca presented this offer with the condition that they would be released from any future responsibility for Dressen’s medical care. She denied the offer, which opened the door for this lawsuit filing. 

This is the first lawsuit that allows an injured patient to sue the manufacturer directly because vaccine producers have an immunity shield. All vaccines have been covered under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, but the COVID-19 vaccine that was released under Emergency Use Authorization provided manufacturer immunity through the PREP Act. AstraZeneca opened the door to this lawsuit by not fulfilling their end of the contract. 

The attorneys who regularly represent ICAN (The Informed Consent Action Network) are Dressen’s counsel for this breach-of-contract lawsuit. Attorney Aaron Siri and Dressen appeared on NewsMax with Chris Cuomo to discuss the details of her injuries and AstraZeneca’s response. 

“The reality is I am in pain every second of every day,” Dressen said. “Unfortunately, I have a severe, progressive neuropathy that will continue to progress until my life is done. It’s something that is a very sharp, tingling, electrical sensation and it courses through my body 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” 

Dressen’s Post post-vaccine neuropathy has led to the electrical sensation side effect known as “chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP).” The symptom that Dressen feels constantly has no hope of ever going away, but the worst part of the disorder is how it affects her family;

“I’m completely dependent on other people,” Dressen said. “In my home, at the time, I had a 6 and an 8-year-old kid. Our lives revolved around them. Mom took care of everything for them. But now, unfortunately, everything revolves around mom. They have to figure out if mom can help them that day with their homework, if mom can make them breakfast, if mom is going to be able to get out of bed. Is mom gonna be able to take them to school? These are all very simple tasks that people take for granted. But when your health is robbed from you, those things are now things that you have to prioritize from one day to the next, depending upon how your body is doing.”

Dressen was a healthy 39-year-old woman when she enrolled in the AstraZeneca clinical trial. The outcome of the lawsuit will not bring back her health, her ability to raise her children, or her ability to work. She received the shot on November 4, 2020, and began experiencing multiple symptoms shortly after that. She had “tingling and prickling in her arms, blurred vision, headache, sound sensitivity, tinnitus, nausea, and vomiting.” 

As those symptoms worsened, doctors didn’t have any answers. AstraZeneca failed to provide the medical referrals or financial support they promised and are contractually obligated to provide. Cuomo asked Dressen how AstraZeneca responded when she first contacted them about the injury. She said they responded with silence. 

“It’s as if they couldn’t get away from me fast enough after I reported my injury,” Dressen said. “I’m nothing more than a number for them.” Siri made it clear that he and his team of attorneys are not going to let this go. 

After her injury, Dressen founded REACT19, a “science-based non-profit offering financial, physical, and emotional support for those suffering from longterm COVID-19 vaccine adverse events globally.” Dressen has appeared on ICAN’s The HighWire to share her vaccine injury story and impactful work with REACT19. 

Siri is also working with ICAN on an ongoing case to overturn certain unconstitutional provisions of the PREP Act. It is possible this case could result in the PREP Act being overturned completely, which would open the door for anybody with a COVID-19 vaccine injury to sue the manufacturers.