B.C. man approved for financial compensation for vaccine injury, others still waiting for help

A B.C. man who suffered a rare COVID-19 vaccine injury that left him paralyzed will be getting financial support from the federal government.

But others, who have also applied for compensation through the Vaccine Injury Support Program, are frustrated they still haven’t received help.

Julian Scholefield, 45, said he was active and healthy until about two weeks after receiving his second Pfizer vaccine in July 2021.

“I started to get a tingling heat sensation in my left foot and then within two hours, I was paralyzed from the waist down,” the Summerland resident said.

He spent 89 days in hospital. Doctors told the married father of two daughters that he’d developed acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM).

“I had an autoimmune reaction to the vaccine and that created swelling on my spinal cord which eventually cut off the sensory and motor skills to the spinal cord,” Scholefield said. “That swelling has since subsided, but I have had some significant damage to the spinal cord itself that has maybe slowly been healing.”

Since leaving hospital, he spends most of his days in a wheelchair.

But 16 months after applying for help through the federal Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP), he only recently received a letter stating his claim had been approved. Scholefield declined to say what he was being offered, but did indicate it was less than the maximum allowable amount.

“It was such a relief to get that note and to say, 'Yes, we deem your injury as being caused by the vaccine,'” he said. Scholefield provided a copy of the letter to CTV News.

According to the most recent data available, VISP has paid out close to $2.8 million to people who suffered serious or permanent injury. Though almost 1,300 claims have been received, only 50 have been approved so far.

And that’s left other Canadians, who say they were also injured by the vaccines, frustrated by the delays.

“Even when I applied in July of 2021, I had no idea a year and a half later, there still would be zero support," said Langley resident Shaun Mulldoon.

Mulldoon developed serious blood clots in April 2021 after getting the AstraZeneca vaccine. He needed emergency, life-saving surgery to remove about two metres of his intestine.

“I ended up losing about 50 pounds. I became very malnourished and very dehydrated. I had compromised liver function and compromised kidney function,” said Mulldoon, who needed another surgery last year.

He’s doing much better now and is back at work, but still has health challenges, including fatigue. He’s also still waiting for compensation.

“My injury was confirmed to be vaccine-induced within days of my surgery,” said Mulldoon.

No one from the VISP would do an interview with CTV News, but in an email, a spokesperson wrote that VISP has set expectations that claims take 12 to 18 months to process.

“The reason for this is that each claim varies in nature and complexity,” wrote Edward Maier, a senior case manager.

He said the longest part of the claim cycle is collecting medical records.

The email from VISP also said the program's mandate limits it to providing compensation for “serious and permanent” injuries only.

“In some cases, injuries evolve over time and have a specific window to which recovery is possible. Under the guidance of physicians, we could be asked to delay evaluating a claim,” Maier wrote.

But Muldoon thinks case reviews should be moving much more quickly.

“I’m never getting my intestine back, so I don’t understand how I don’t fall in those parameters of a severe, life-long injury,” he said. “If (federal politicians) truly cared and wanted to help those people, they’d be upset with the treatment those people are getting and the lack of support from this program.”

Scholefield also believes vaccine-injured Canadians are waiting too long for help.

“I’ve been off work for almost a year and we’ve had a number of medical expenses," he said. "We’ve had to modify our home and our vehicle just so I can get around, all of which are out of pocket.”

Vaccine injuries like Scholefield's are extremely rare. In B.C., as of the end of 2022, more than 14 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered, and 6,101 "adverse events following immunization" had been reported to the provincial monitoring system, for a rate of 43.5 reports per 100,000 doses. 

A total of 478 reports had been deemed "serious," for a rate of 3.4 per 100,000 doses.

Still, given his experience, Scholefield believes provincial and federal governments should be looking closer at the vaccines.

“Are they the safest we can make them?” he asked.

Meanwhile, Scholefield said living with a severe injury has been a struggle.

“I can still wake up in the morning and go, ‘Oh yeah, I can’t move my legs.’”

He said he is currently dealing with neuropathy issues.

“Yesterday was actually a good day, today not a good day,” he explained. “It feels like I am literally sitting in a boiling pot of water with pins and needles from my waist down, and it can go on like that for days."

But he said he is making progress. He recently began using special leg braces.

“It allows me to kind of walk peg-legged on these braces. They’re awesome,” he said. “It’s such a nice feeling to be able to stand up and be upright in my environment, but that being said, it’s also frustrating because it’s not walking. It’s walking with a walker and it’s very clumsy.”

He’s limited to using the braces for about an hour a day.

“I’m going to continue pushing. I’m going to continue fighting. I’m going to continue to have my body try and heal itself and get as much as I can out of it,’ he said.