We have misplaced family members, been left disabled and even identified with most cancers after taking the Covid vaccine – however nobody will take our heartbreaking experiences significantly

Patients whose health has been ravaged after taking Covid-19 vaccines are calling for more support as the Government faces paying out tens of millions of pounds in damages.

Almost 17,000 claims for disability damages have now been submitted after new information emerged about the potential risks including blood clots.

Experts have said that the benefits of taking Covid vaccines significantly outweigh the side effects, as they prevent the spread of the disease and reduce serious complications.

But more people are coming forward to report that have suffered a severe impact, with some linking their vaccines to major problems such as blood cancer, myasthenia gravis and heart disorders.

Jennifer Furno, 38, from Morpeth in Northumberland, suffered a blood clot on her lung before ultimately being diagnosed with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.

Vaccine injury charity founder Charlet Crichton has been forced to give up her work as a sports therapist due to debilitating effects she has reported since receiving her jabs.

Their ordeals have been shared after a father described being ‘left to rot’ after having a nightmare reaction to a Covid jab that left him in constant pain. 

And a grieving widow has told MailOnline how she had to battle for a year to get her husband’s death certificate updated to record how he was killed by a reaction to receiving a Covid-19 vaccine.

Kam Miller, 58, from Leicester, described how her ‘fit and healthy’ husband Neil Miller, 50, collapsed and died not long after receiving his first jab in March 2021.

His causes of death were initially officially recorded as ischaemic heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis – but, after an inquest, this was corrected to Vaccine-induced Immune Thrombocytopenia and Thrombosis (VITT). 

She said: ‘For other people, Covid is something in the past – they don’t want to talk about it, but we’re still living with it.’

She is among many campaigners who are hoping to not only raise awareness of potential risks but secure improvement to the follow-up care and support casualties are given.

Vaccines are monitored by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which states that having the jab is the most effective way to reduce deaths and severe illness from Covid.

The worst side effects for most people are said to include tenderness in the arm where the injection took place, feeling tired, having a headache and general flu-like symptoms. 

But a support group for people who say they have suffered much worse includes many who tell of life-changing, career-ending consequences.

Ms Crichton, 45, can no longer run the sports therapy clinic she operated before falling ill not long after receiving her Covid injections.

But she has devoted herself to a charity she founded, UKCVFamily, which provides a support group as well as a campaigning drive for people suffering adverse reactions to Covid vaccines and those bereaved.

She said: ‘I set up the charity in November 2021 as a kind of safe place for people to be able to talk and advocate for each other and find support from politicians, doctors and health professionals and take part in research.

‘We’re campaigning for change not just the vaccine but also to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme which is failing most people miserably.

‘We’re campaigning for change not just the vaccine but also to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme which is failing most people miserably.

‘There should also be better care pathways, a change in culture to reduce stigma and improve the way medics react.’

Mother-of-two Mrs Miller is among those to successfully apply for the maximum payment available under VDPS, £120,000 – although she believes many people are unfairly missing out and the awards should be worth more to help families left in dire need.

Her husband Neil had been classified as a key worker at the start of lockdown in March 2020, working in IT and looking after phonelines for water utility Severn Trent.

When the first Covid vaccines were rolled out, he had his first one – an AstraZeneca jab on March 23 2021, with his wife recalling: ‘He was telling me to get mine booked in. 

‘At that time everyone believe the vaccines were the way for everything to get back to normal.

‘When he went for his injection, there had been some talk of blood clots and a few countries banning the AstraZeneca one. He told me, “They say it’s a really minimal chance”, so he went ahead with it.

‘Afterwards he said he felt like he was getting a bit of a cold, his body was aching and eventually he went to hospital before coming home and saying, “I’ve got the worst headache ever”.

‘He was one of these men who didn’t take time off work but after he’d had a shower, he said, “I feel like I’m having a heart attack” and then, “Go and drop me off at A&E”.’

Mr Miller spent three days in hospital before being discharged but remained in a poor condition and collapsed again three days later.

This time a haemotologist diagnosed blood clots on his kidneys, lungs and legs and he underwent five days of plasma exchange therapy. 

Mrs Miller has kept his medical notes from the time, in which one doctor suggested the low levels of his blood platelets might have been neglected when first admitted to hospital.

He was returned home pending further treatment, only to collapse and die after going to take a shower on the morning of May 1 2021.

His wife remembered: ‘That morning he was feeling a bit better and said he’d have a shower.

‘I was talking to my daughter, looking forward to the start of May and how his birthday was coming up and we’d celebrated. The year before, in lockdown, it had been his 50th but we’d have a party for his 51st.

‘I was planning a party for him – he’d be around his family, surrounded by people.

‘Then I heard a thud and knew it was him. I couldn’t open the bathroom door, he was lying in front of it – I don’t know how I managed to get in, while my daughter rang 999 then came up too.

‘We were both trying to give him CPR – my daughter’s arms were bruised in the end. She would later say, “Maybe I did something wrong”. That mark has been left on my daughter, always thinking she couldn’t save her dad.

‘My son was playing football at the time. He said later his dad had rung him beforehand, saying: “Have a good match, son.” When he came home and saw the ambulances, he started shouting: “They killed him, mum.” Everything is so vivid in my mind.’

When Mrs Miller received the first death certificate, she thought ‘That’s so wrong’ when a Covid vaccine link was not mentioned as the cause of death – and was backed by her GP and other medics who had treated Mr Miller.

She said: ‘I had to get Neil’s medical records and it took about a year to get a second death certificate, this one mentioning the Covid vaccine.’

Mrs Miller says too many families are having to endure similar lengthy battles for sufficient help, whether from health officials or the payments programme.

She said: ‘We understand, with any new medication there’s always a risk, but as long as there’s support for those people adversely affected – it’s like they don’t want to know. It feels like we’re forgotten people now.

Data acquired under the Freedom of Information Act at the end of November showed 188 people in Britain had received payouts for severe side effects from the vaccine, potentially adding up to £22.56million if all receiving the full £120,000 payouts.

The awards were granted after applications to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) which is operated by the NHS Business Services Authority. 

Almost all of these payments were related to the AstraZeneca vaccine Vaxrevia which triggered a blood clotting complication so rare it was missed in original clinical trials.

That vaccine was once heralded as a ‘triumph for British science’ but came under increasing scrutiny for a very rare complication that causes blood clots and low blood platelet counts.

The jab, developed with Oxford University, can no longer be used in the European Union after AstraZeneca voluntarily withdrew its ‘marketing authorisation’ in May this year.

AstraZeneca’s withdrawal comes months after admitting in legal documents its jab can cause thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), also known as VITT. 

This is a medical condition where a person suffers blood clots along with a low platelet count, as Neil Miller did.

The latest figures show that of the 16,824 VDPS claims officially made so far, 8,018 were still awaiting an outcome – though the vast majority of the rest have been turned down.

While some were rejected due to victims being unable to be prove their injuries were caused by a vaccine, at least 406 applicants were told it was because their injury did not meet a 60 per cent severe disability threshold.

The 60 per cent threshold, which covers injuries such as losing a limb, a sense like your sight, or complete paralysis, is one of many criticisms of the scheme.

Mrs Miller added: ‘The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme has never changed since the 1970s – it’s a one-off payment of up to £120,000. That much for life, for a man who could have worked another 15 years at least. It’s not sufficient.’

‘It’s just a one-off payment, it doesn’t take anything else into account. And this judgment of disability – if you’re deemed 60 per cent disabled you get something, if only 59 per cent then you don’t.

‘Some people have given up. They haven’t got the energy or strength to keep pushing, because they’re already in and out of hospitals.

‘You really just want people to listen and see. You can’t change what’s happened, but we want a bit of humanity and thought for all these people.’

Ms Crichton is currently working on her group’s submissions to the next phase of the Covid public inquiry due to open in mid-January.

She said: ‘People should be able to get help sooner if something like this happens again. We all know that things had to be done quickly but what we don’t accept is that people who were injured or suffered haven’t received adequate help or care.’  

She had actually volunteered to work in a vaccination centre in Folkestone, Kent, during the initial rollout of Covid jabs and was training to be able to provide them herself.

While helping steward people around the centre, she was told one day that if any supplies were still there that evening she could receive her first injection.

Ms Crichton recalled: ‘I had a few symptoms in response – they weren’t acute and life-changing at this point but I did feel extreme fatigue.’

But it was after her second jab, again AstraZeneca, that she says her health deteriorated much more seriously.

She said: ‘The week after that vaccine, I had a numbness that progressed up the body, I became incontinent, I had tremors. I would sleep all day.

‘There are all kinds of adverse reactions to AstraZeneca which have since been suggested to me – scarring on the heart, arrythmia, I’ve had neuropathy diagnosed and sudden onset ME.

‘It’s been severe enough to have ended my career. I have to take about 20 different tablets a day. It’s been life-changing but many people have had conditions which are more severe.’

Her NHS medical notes record how she suffered ‘Adverse reaction to SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2) vaccine’ and she was granted exemption from receiving any further Covid vaccines.

Her UKCVFamily organisation is among those being backed by law firm Hudgells at the Covid inquiry, with Terry Wilcox from the firm saying: ‘These are groups of people who had a Covid-19 vaccine to protect themselves during the pandemic and who unfortunately have suffered serious ill health since.

‘Some people have sadly died due to complications, deaths which have been recognised by medical professionals and the courts, to have been caused by the complications linked to the vaccines.

‘The development and roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines was of course crucial in helping the world emerge from the pandemic and to return to the normality we again enjoy today, but it is only right and proper that this inquiry fully explores the cases where vaccine damage has led to life-changing situations.’

Another of the patients to receive support from the group is Jennifer Furno, who received a bone marrow transplant earlier this year after being diagnosed with a form of blood cancer.

She believes her suffering began after receiving Covid vaccines back in 2021 – and that for too long her concerns about her declining health were not taken seriously enough.

Ms Furno, 38 and from Morpeth in Northumberland, had been working as a fraud investigator for a bank when she received her first AstraZeneca vaccine jab in March 2021 and a second four months later.

She said she began experiencing a tingling and numbness in her legs immediately after the the second, as well as gastric problems and mild rashes – before doctors then diagnosed a blood clot on her lung.

She said: ‘At the time, they were very much that it was a coincidence. I thought, something’s changed. I had trouble walking. I’d been fit and healthy before and I was only 34 at the time.’

She went ahead with a booster injection in November that year, however – this time a Moderna vaccine – and then that same month developed a pulmonary embolism on her left lung as well as severe rashes across her body.

Ms Furno said: ‘I went to the GP and they said it was an over-active immune response.’ 

She was referred to a rheumatologist, as she continued to suffering swelling to her knees, joints, arms and neck.

A series of blood tests and a skin biopsis showed features of vasculitis, a group of disorders which inflame and can destroy blood vessels. 

Among the treatments she was given were immune suppressants but she says ‘the skin rash got worse and worse’, adding: ‘I was convinced it was some sort of cancer. I felt so unwell.’

After she had been diagnosed with vasculitis, a disorder involving the inflammation of blood vessels, one of the rheumatologists treating her wrote in December 2022: ‘There does appear to be a temporal link between the onset of her symptoms and her first COVID-19 vaccine dose.’ 

‘I will complete a Yellow Card report regarding the possible link between the onset of her vasculitis and the COVID-19 vaccine.’

The Yellow Card system is run by the MHRA and allows people to report not only vaccines but medicines, medical devices, blood products and e-cigarettes over concerns.

Eventually Ms Furno went to the private London Clinic after developing a rash all over her body in July 2023, using a work insurance scheme, and a skin biopsy there revealed she had cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.

Ms Furno says rheumatologists told her it was ‘aggressive’ and that ‘the vaccine is likely the causative thing, something like this it can trigger’.

After an appeal through the Anthony Nolan Trust charity for people with blood cancer and blood disorders, an anonymous bone marrow donor was found in Belgium earlier this year and she had the transplant five months ago.

She said: ‘I’m now cancer-free, vaccine-free – when you have a bone marrow transplant, it removes any vaccine you’ve ever had.

‘At the moment I’m still pretty fatigued. The recovery takes about 12 months. The new immune system has to grow. I’m quite severely compromised.’

Ms Furno applied for compensation through the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme 18 months ago but has not yet had a decision.

She added: ‘Whether or not I’m going to be successful is anyone’s guess. But I do want to raise people’s awareness, of how frightening the situation is.

‘Certainly hospitals and doctors are not believing young people who were fit and healthy before.

‘Young people need to be listened to, and not judged as being health anxious. There needs to be less of a stigma about vaccine injuries and that it is recognised condition that needs treatment.

‘Vaccine injuries can lead to other conditions including serious blood cancers and this needs to be recognised without judgement or prejudice by medical professionals.’

She also urged people to sign up to the Anthony Nolan Trust’s stem cell register.

Among those who has been unsuccessful with a VDPS claim – and then had an appeal rejected – is former delivery driver Phil Wilson, 54, from Sheffield.

The VDPS medical assessment ruled but he was ‘not severely disabled as a result of vaccination’ but he remains convinced that having the vaccine has helped wreck his health.

The father-of-one, married for 19 years, began suffering problems after getting his third, booster jab – a Moderna vaccine – to enable him to go on a family skiing holiday in Andorra.

He says he felt ill for 36 hours afterwards and then, after returning home from the trip, collapsed while coaching his son’s football team three months later. 

He suffered a bleed on the brain which led to a massive stroke, now leaving him disabled and unable to work.

Mr Wilson said: ‘I had been driving a seven-and-a-half ton truck with 120 deliveries a day. I was playing football still, at the age of 52. I was a very fit bloke for my age before this.

‘When we got to half-time, I was feeling really strange, pins and needles down my right hand side.

‘Before I knew it, I was in the back of an ambulance to hospital – they told me I had blood on the brain which led to a massive stroke.

‘That was two years ago and it’s changed our lives massively. I firmly believe that the booster jab contributed to the blood on the brain.

‘I’m now unable to do what I could previously – I can’t actually run. I hated running before bit now it’s the one thing I want to be able to do. I have limited use of my right arm and right hand. I walk with a limp.’

He praised the NHS for their treatment, while recalling how he asked a surgeon whether the Covid jab might have been responsible.

Mr Wilson said: ‘He said there’s no evidence either way but said it could be – they can’t say either way, their hands are tired by the people above them.

‘I said, I’ve had every test known to man – like an MOT on my body. Everything has come back spot-on, no underlying issues and no previous medical history.

‘The thing that frustrates me, the Covid jab we now know is dangerous has contributed to making me disabled – and many people worldwide. We just want some answers.’ 

Those raising concerns about the impact they have suffered after receiving Covid vaccines have received backing from academics and health specialists.

Prof Beverley Hunt, an NHS consultant in thrombosis and haemostasis and chair of trustees of the charity Thrombosis UK, told MailOnline: ‘As a country we did really well and saved many lives, but unfortunately people have been left with disabilities.

‘Many have suffered stroke-like symptoms, fatigue, not feeling right, and other conditions.’

She also expressed concerns about the damages scheme and how it only offers payments for people deemed to have 60 per cent disabilities as a result of a Covid vaccine.

Prof Hunt added: ‘I really feel for these people who voluntarily had the vaccine to protect themselves and their families but now have these consequences.

‘They have physical suffering and a lot of them are clearly having psychological problems as well. They’re in a horrid position.’

An AstraZeneca spokesperson said: ‘Patient safety is our highest priority. From the body of evidence in clinical trials and real-world data, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile and regulators around the world consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects.

‘We are incredibly proud of the role Vaxzevria played in ending the global pandemic. According to independent estimates, over 6.5million lives were saved in the first year of use alone and over 3billion doses were supplied globally.

‘Our efforts have been recognised by governments around the world and are widely regarded as being a critical component of ending the global pandemic.’

Meanwhile, Oxford University’s Dr Sonia Macleod, a senior research fellow in civil justice systems, said that reforms to how the Vaccine Damages Payment Scheme was operated were ‘long overdue’.

She said: ‘There needs to be an open discussion about what we as a society think this is for.

‘So many people don’t feel it’s open, they don’t feel it’s transparent – they fill in a form and it feels like it just disappears into a void.

‘The Covid pandemic had such a big impact on society and everyone wants to move on, but for some people it remains ongoing – the damage is still there.’

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘Our deepest sympathies are with all those affected.

‘The Health and Social Care Secretary has met with families of those who have suffered harm following Covid-19 vaccination and who have concerns with the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, and agreed that the government will look closely at these concerns.’

A spokesperson for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said: ‘Over 90 per cent of people aged 12 years and over in the UK have received a Covid-19 vaccine. 

‘Vaccines are the best way to protect people from COVID-19 and have already saved millions of lives.

‘As part of our ongoing rigorous safety monitoring of Covid-19 vaccines, we closely review the Yellow Card reports submitted to us in the UK alongside safety data from other sources from the UK and internationally.

‘We also work closely with our UK public health partners to evaluate data on the safety and effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines.

‘As with all vaccines and medicines, the safety of Covid-19 vaccines is continuously monitored, and we continue to keep emerging information under review.’

MailOnline has also contacted for comment pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and Moderna, as well as the NHS Business Services Authority.