Three people who claim to have suffered debilitating injuries after taking part in Covid vaccine trials are suing the vaccines’ manufacturers.

According to exclusive reports to the Daily Mail, the patients allege that the companies denied their complaints and didn’t cover medical expenses, despite having agreements stating otherwise, as noted in their legal claims.

In 2020, over 200,000 volunteers enrolled in clinical trials designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of Covid vaccines.

Most participants got through the trials with little more than the minor side effects of fatigue, headaches and a sore arm.

A few individuals, however, claim they suffered long-lasting, significant harm from these trials. They argue that the vaccine producers didn’t properly acknowledge or document their side effects, nor did they provide the promised medical care or compensation, as asserted in their legal actions against the firms.

Brianne Dressen, a 39-year-old mother of two and former preschool owner with a passion for skiing, swimming, and rock climbing, received one vaccine dose during AstraZeneca’s trials in Utah in November 2020.

Dressen explained to the Daily Mail: ‘Just an hour after the injection, my arm began tingling, and soon the sensation spread to my other arm, my legs, and head. I experienced an intense, continuous electrical sensation throughout my body.’

As her condition worsened, she became unable to walk and for four months could not endure light, sound, or touch. Even simple interactions with her children, like hugging or talking, became painful.

‘Their voices cut through my brain like a knife,’ she said.

In constant agony, she said she contemplated suicide, but with the support of family, the vaccine injured community, and her husband, Dr Brian Dressen, she pulled through.

Dressen said she still suffers from 20 different symptoms, including autoimmune nerve damage known as chronic demyelinating polyneuropathy, and alleged in her lawsuit that AstraZeneca refused to comply with its contractual obligations to care for her.

She said she experiences fatigue, an internal buzzing sensation, weakness in her arms and legs, which means she sometimes needs a wheelchair, tinnitus, nausea, a weak bladder, food allergies and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), an irregular heartbeat and dizziness.

Dr Dressen has a PhD in chemistry and wrote to neurologists trying to find answers for his wife’s symptoms.

He said he was surprised when neuroimmunology specialist Dr Avindra Nath, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the NIH, replied.

Dr Nath wanted to explore whether Dr Dressen’s wife was suffering from a vaccine injury. When he set up a trial to test for Covid vaccine injury, she was the first enrolled in June 2021.

During the study, the NIH diagnosed Dressen with post-vaccine neuropathy. 

In the 12 months following her trial vaccination, Dressen says she endured 60 doctors appointments, four emergency department visits, and one hospital admission. She said medical bills began to mount, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

She reached out to AstraZeneca for financial assistance based on the contract she signed, which stated that the trial’s ‘sponsor will pay the costs of medical treatment for research injuries, provided that the costs are reasonable, and you did not cause the injury yourself.’ 

However, Dressen said AstraZeneca offered only a tiny fraction of the cost to cover expenses. She said they offered to increase the amount if she agreed to absolve them of any future liability. She refused the offers as she said they were derisory.

She now has a growing medical bill and is suing AstraZeneca for alleged breach of contract.

AstraZeneca did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment but filed a motion to dismiss, which was denied, so they launched an appeal.

In the US, the Public Readiness and Preparedness (PREP) Act 2005, was set up to provide immunity to companies making vaccines when a public health emergency has been declared, as was the case during the pandemic.

It prevents the injured from suing unless a lawyer can prove there is evidence of willful misconduct.

For serious injury or death caused by emergency use vaccines, people must apply within 12 months for compensation to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) set up in 2010.

CICP is a no-fault government program run by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that covers emergency use products, like the Covid vaccines.

It pays for hospital costs not covered by insurance, lost wages up to $50,000, and just over $400,000 for a death, but most claims have been denied. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr criticized the scheme and said: ‘It is broken, and I intend to fix it.’

By June 1, 2025, the CICP had received 13,836 claims from trial volunteers and citizens for Covid vaccine injuries, with 9,423 still pending review. It has paid just 39, denying 4,338 – with 2,318 rejected because claimants missed the 12-month deadline.

While experts agree patients’ symptoms should never be dismissed, they stress that they believe Covid vaccine injuries are overall rare and estimate the shots have prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths worldwide.

Covid vaccine side effects impact around one in 200,000 people, according to official US data. Approximately 270million Americans have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. 

The mRNA vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer are estimated to have saved tens of millions of lives globally, including 3million in the US.

Earlier this year, however, Yale researchers discovered a syndrome linked to the Covid vaccines. The previously-unknown condition – dubbed ‘post-vaccination syndrome’ – appears to cause brain fog, dizziness, tinnitus and exercise intolerance.

Yale experts emphasized the results ‘are still a work in progress,’ but based on the results of the small study, more research on post-vaccination syndrome is needed, independent experts said.

In another AstraZeneca trial, two British volunteers collapsed, having developed transverse myelitis, a serious nervous system disorder that can cause paralysis. The trials were temporarily halted in September 2020.

They were restarted six days later in the UK, by mid-September in Brazil, and by October in the US after an investigation determined the vaccine was not to blame.

AstraZeneca also ran a trial at the Federal University of São Paolo, Brazil, with 5,000 volunteers. Student pharmacologist and gym enthusiast, Kleiton Luis de Oliveira Souza, 24, took part and developed epilepsy after his second Covid vaccine in November 2020.

A type 1 diabetic, he was deemed fit to take part in the trial, but Souza said he developed Covid-like symptoms after his first dose on October 16, 2020.

Covid tests came back negative.

After his second injection, he developed encephalitis, inflammation of the brain, and suffered a seizure.

Souza told DailyMail.com: ‘My family took me to hospital. I was released after an overnight stay. I went home, had breakfast and went to bed. I collapsed in my bedroom, and my family took me back to hospital. I woke up three weeks later, having been sedated all that time, and spent two months in hospital.

‘While I was in the coma, neurologists investigated whether other viruses or bacteria caused my seizures but found no infection. 

‘Since there was no other identified cause before the vaccination, they requested the unblinding of the vaccine trial and discovered I had not received the placebo, which was the meningitis vaccine.

‘Doctors concluded the vaccine must have caused my injuries.’

Souza will need medication for life to control his epilepsy.

AstraZeneca refused to recognize his injury and provided no medical assistance according to Souza, so in 2021, Souza filed a civil suit in Bahia state court seeking financial compensation for alleged pain, suffering, emotional distress, financial losses and costs.

Souza is bitter, he said. He told DailyMail.com: ‘I was treated like a disposable number.’

He said he met with AstraZeneca’s lawyers twice, but they failed to offer a reasonable settlement. AstraZeneca has denied any wrongdoing. The case is ongoing.

In another part of the world for another Covid vaccine, criminal lawyer Augusto Roux, 40, took part in Pfizer’s trial in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and said he suffered a serious adverse reaction.

Pfizer conducted its largest Covid vaccine study there, with 5,700 volunteers representing 10 percent of Pfizer’s worldwide trial participants.

It was run by the Argentine military at Hospital Militar Central – Central Military Hospital.

Roux, who was 36 at the time, received his first Pfizer dose in August 2020 with no complications. However, after his second dose the following month, he said he was near death.

Roux, sharing the experience he lays out in his complaint, told the Daily Mail: ‘I developed a 104-degree Fahrenheit [40C] fever which lasted several weeks; loss of consciousness, and tachycardia that could have killed me.

‘I now have pericarditis [inflammation of the sac around the heart] and liver damage, but trial doctors ignored these symptoms and questioned my mental health. Pfizer did not want to investigate my reaction and suggested I was infected with coronavirus, but all coronavirus tests were negative.’

He said he immediately reported his symptoms to Pfizer and to Pfizer’s principal trial investigator in Argentina, Dr Fernando Pedro Polack, who diagnosed Roux’s illness as mental health issues. However, Dr Polack is not a mental health provider and is a pediatric infectious disease specialist. 

Dr Pedro Polack did not respond to Daily Mail’s request for comment. 

Roux thinks treating his injuries have cost around $150,000 so far, paid for by health insurance, despite a contract with Pfizer that said he would be covered.

Professor David Healy, a pharmacologist trained to assess adverse drug reactions, was one of four doctors who assessed Roux’s physical and mental health, at Roux’s request. He acted pro bono.

He told the Daily Mail: ‘Roux had a significant injury linked to the vaccine and the failure to recognize this in his trial record amounts to a breach of good clinical trial practice.

‘It does not appear that Roux’s injuries have been registered. If the trial is misleading in Roux’s case, in how many other cases of people vaccinated in Buenos Aires has this also been the case?’

Roux said: ‘I realized that they had deleted records of my adverse events a year later when I accessed my medical records and they weren’t there.’

A criminal case has now been launched by Roux alleging Pfizer, and the officials in charge of the trial, are guilty of abuse of power, failing to protect him, failing in public duty, bribery and corruption. 

He alleges the regulatory and judicial authorities suppressed adverse event reporting.

In April 2021, Argentina’s Federal Chamber, similar to the Federal Court of Appeals, requested a formal investigation into trial irregularities.

Roux’s investigations led to the Independent Ethics Committee of the Military Hospital (CIREC) being suspended for 90 days on May 20, 2021, by Dr Laura Antonietti, Director of Medical Education and Research, a senior Argentine Ministry of Health Official.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also offered to investigate but did not follow through, although they did conduct preliminary enquiries and said they were happy the trial was following good clinical practice.

Pfizer told the Daily Mail in a statement: ‘Patient safety is paramount and we take any reports of adverse events very seriously. Adverse event reports do not imply causality, and in the context of vaccination such events may be unrelated to administration of the vaccine.

‘Hundreds of millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have been administered globally and the benefit-risk profile of the vaccine remains positive for all authorized indications and age groups.

‘As with every medicine and vaccine, including the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has robust processes to meet its regulatory responsibilities to closely monitor, report and analyze all adverse events, and collect relevant information to assess any new potential safety risks that may be associated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

‘In addition to our pharmacovigilance efforts and compliance with regulatory requirements related to quality and safety, we also work with regulatory authorities around the world as they independently monitor the safety profile of our vaccine.

‘Patients who receive the COVID-19 vaccine should talk to their doctor, pharmacist or nurse if they have any concerns or experience any side effects. This includes any possible side effects not listed in the package leaflet. Side effects can be reported directly via the Yellow Card Scheme or via VAERS.’