A new patient-led group called COVERSE is calling for more support for Australians who have experienced an injury after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine
This group of Australians who have been injured by the vaccine will launch the nation’s first not-for-profit organisation to raise awareness and remove barriers for patients seeking treatment for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
COVERSE are advocates for Australians who have suffered, and continue to suffer, significant adverse reactions following their COVID-19 vaccinations. The group’s primary goal is to boost treatment and support for people whose lives have been upended by adverse reactions.
Despite known risks of adverse reactions to the vaccines, there is currently no robust Government or medical support for injured Australians.
The organisation says the time has come for a mature national discussion of vaccine adverse reactions and those who have been impacted by them, without being labelled anti-vax.
“One of the things that happens when you have a vaccine injury is you will quickly find out there are very few people you can talk to,” said COVERSE director Rado Feletic.
“One of the few ways we’ve been able to connect is through clandestine methods on the internet. We have to use code words otherwise we’ll get shut down. The further we progressed the further we realised that nobody else is taking care of the vaccine injured in Australia.”
It’s true, no body’s bringing this to the national attention, no body’s providing resources to help Australians and their doctors to work out what’s wrong.
“So, we decided if no-one else is going to do this, we have to do something. And that was the beginning of COVERSE. In the midst of all the symptoms we’re suffering with we put this organisation together and we’re slowly trying to piece together information and resources for people to help them on their own journey.
How many Australians — in terms of official reporting have been noted as experiencing adverse effects from the vaccine?
The TGA is a federal government authority that accepts information voluntary reports from doctors and patients. They have currently over 140,000 reports of adverse reactions. Some of these are very mild, some are extremely serious, and some are death. But it’s worthwhile pointing out two things that people need to be aware of about those numbers.
Firstly, it’s a small drop in the ocean to what’s being seen out in the market place.
And this is because sometimes doctors don’t report for a number of reasons, and sometimes patients who might have reported don’t know that they are able to report. We anticipate, and this is historically a problem, not just with the Covid vaccines, but somewhere between only 10%-20% get reported to the TGA.
So you take that 140,000 report and multiply it by 10 and that gives you a huge scale of numbers. Secondly, the TGA doesn’t give an indication of seriousness. That’s what we’re most interested in — people who have had their lives upended by having a serous adverse reaction.
