Coalition of People Injured by COVID Vaccines Speak at Mississippi Capitol

Julia Marks discusses her vaccine injury and her work with React19 in Jackson, Miss., on Feb. 27, 2023. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)

JACKSON, Miss.—Because their stories don’t fit the “safe and effective” narrative about the COVID-19 vaccines, people with vaccine injuries have been—as one person reported—“left in the shadows.”

Accompanied by physicians and scientists, the vaccine injured shared their stories on Feb. 27–28 at the Mississippi Capitol in Jackson as a part of a campaign held by the MS Against Mandates (MAM) to bring attention to adverse events and those who have been harmed from the vaccines.

Among them was Elizabeth Tucker from Enterprise, Mississippi.

Within 15 minutes after receiving her COVID-19 vaccine at the pharmacy in 2021, Tucker began having one of what would become many severe adverse reactions to the vaccine that landed her in the hospital on multiple occasions.

Shaking and unable to breathe, Tucker—formerly an active personal trainer—left the pharmacy in an ambulance, then left the hospital in a wheelchair, from which she has had to find a new way of maneuvering in the world.

“My entire life has been turned upside down,” she told the audience.

Among Tucker’s symptoms are neurological issues and nerve and brain damage that prevents the signals for movement to travel to her limbs.

“I’m getting help, but it’s slow,” Tucker said.

However, she said, she’s turning it into an opportunity to bring awareness.

“Obviously, this vaccine isn’t safe,” Tucker said. “You can’t go from being healthy—literally training three people that morning—to taking the vaccine and being hospitalized.”

Death Sentence for a Career

Cody Flint was a commercial agricultural pilot in the Mississippi Delta for 15 years, a career he began at the age of 19.

Thirty minutes after he received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, he said he began having severe headaches that became a burning sensation on the back of his neck, accompanied by the feeling that he was hungover.

“At the time, the listed possible side effects included temporary headaches and dizziness, so I assumed this was normal,” he told the audience.

Despite the vaccine being touted as safe and effective, Flint said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) required that pilots wait 48 hours after each jab before flying.

Epoch Times Photo — Cody Flint speaks about the loss of his career due to a COVID-19 vaccine injury in Jackson, Miss., on Feb. 28, 2023. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)

Within an hour of his flight two days later, Flint said his stabbing headache turned into severe tunnel vision and loss of focus.

The situation rapidly deteriorated and he decided it was no longer safe to fly, he said.

“While flying only a few hundred feet above the ground, I attempted to turn around and head back to the base,” Flint said. “Within one second, I felt an extreme burst of my pressure in my head and immediately slumped over in the seat of my airplane.”

Dizzy, disorientated and shaking, he somehow found a way to land the plane, though he said he doesn’t remember any of it.

“I can only attribute the landing to muscle memory and good luck,” Flint said.

His family doctor refused to acknowledge that what happened was the result of the vaccine and diagnosed him with vertigo and panic attacks, though he doesn’t have a history of either, he said.

Misdiagnosis to avoid the truth is a common theme among the vaccine injured, Flint said.

Seeking a second opinion, Flint underwent two days of diagnostic testing that included balance and hearing tests, an MRI, and a CT scan.

The lumbar puncture, he said, showed that his intracranial pressure was three times higher than normal, and the MRI scans showed that he had left and right perilymphatic fistulas, which is a tear in the membrane that separates the middle and inner ear.

The rupturing of this membrane causes perilymphatic fluid to flow from the inner ear into the middle ear, resulting in pressure changes that can cause balance and hearing problems.

“Following my vaccination, my intracranial pressure had risen so rapidly that it caused both of my inner ears to rupture simultaneously,” Flint said.

It was a death sentence for his career, Flint said, and over the next year, he underwent two surgeries to repair the fistulas and a half-dozen lumbar punctures to monitor his intracranial pressure and to remove the excess spinal fluid.

Flint must take a drug called Diamox to reduce the intracranial pressure, he said, which is on the FAA’s list of medications pilots can’t take and fly, with no better alternative.

“As of today, I still suffer from brain fog, tinnitus, confusion, memory loss, and random bouts of dizziness,” Flint said.

Despite this, like Tucker, he’s striving to turn his experience into a message to help others.

Flint is the government affairs director for React19, a vaccine-injured organization that provides financial, physical, and emotional support to the vaccine injured while raising awareness in communities through public outreach.

Support for the Vaccine Injured

Julia Marks, a California-based registered nurse and React19 volunteer, told the audience she suffered from a severe neurological disorder after her vaccine that left her feeling like she was dying for five months.

Marks said her left side went numb, and she experienced internal vibrations and tremors.

“Today, I have nerve damage in my feet and hands,” Marks said.

With React19, Marks said she takes calls from the vaccine injured and connects them with physicians who won’t ignore them.

“The mainstream media’s goal is that we should not listen to our fellow man and keep listening to the talking heads appointed as their spokesperson,” Marks said. “They don’t want us to answer the cries for help. They want the public to remain silent and confused in disbelief.”