“Our Lives Are Not Misinformation”
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ON NOVEMBER 4, 2020, BRIANNE DRESSEN walked into a clinic in West Jordan, Utah to take part in a clinical trial for AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. A few minutes after getting the shot, her arm began to tingle and her eyes felt “weird,” she says. Her symptoms soon got worse. She developed a fever and chills and her arm went numb. At one point she grew so sensitive to light and sound that she sought relief in a dark room wearing earmuffs.
By the time she got to the emergency room at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, the numbness had spread from her feet upward to her legs. She had lost the ability to walk and could no longer control her bladder and bowels. “It was really scary,” she says.
What followed was a long nightmare of seeking care for debilitating symptoms from doctors who she says were dismissive of her symptoms and dubious that a vaccine could be the cause. Although adverse effects from COVID-19 vaccines are rare, some of those who fall into that group say they have gotten
