The wife of high-profile doctor Kerryn Phelps has detailed the horrific side effects in her first interview about her battle with a debilitating Covid vaccine injury.
Jackie Stricker-Phelps told Daily Mail Australia her life as she once knew it is gone and there is no prospect of recovery from her vaccine injury.
The former schoolteacher’s symptoms started minutes after her first Pfizer jab in May 2021 and she is still unable to walk without pain.
She is one of thousands of Australians who suffer devastating long-term side effects, but feel like the government and medical regulators deny that it’s happening.
‘I have had debilitating neurological and rheumatological effects since the initial Pfizer vaccine,’ she said.
Dr Kerryn Phelps’ wife Jackie Stricker-Phelps (right) is still unable to walk without without pain 19 months after suffering a Covid vaccine injury
‘I had a surge of heat in my head, my face went bright red, my gums and sinuses started to throb, I felt my hands and feet go numb and I developed pins and needles all over my torso, arms and legs.
‘I could hardly walk, and so begin the next 19 months of hell.’
Ms Stricker-Phelps said she saw a neurologist the next day, who closely monitored her symptoms, and later also visited a rheumatologist.
‘I have had visual disturbance, nerve pains, burning gums, flushed face, hair loss, musculoskeletal inflammation, and night sweats,’ she said.
‘I tried multiple prescribed medications, steroid injections into my spine and hips for pain.
‘Two of my specialists have confirmed it is a vaccine injury and say they see other people with the same adverse events.’
Both she and Dr Phelps, who also suffered a serious vaccine injury from her second Pfizer jab, investigated the possible risks before getting vaccinated.
‘We were told the most common symptoms were a sore arm with maybe a temperature for a few days and a rare possibility of anaphylaxis. We were both told it was far safer to get the vaccine than the illness,’ she said.
Ms Stricker-Phelps said the serious side effects started minutes after her first Pfizer shot and caused ‘damage to her entire body’
To manage the risk of anaphylaxis, Ms Stricker-Phelps had her shot in a hospital and was observed afterwards by Dr Phelps, another doctor, and a registered nurse.
When her symptoms began, she claimed the nurse told her ‘this is not anaphylaxis so you can go home’ despite her barely being able to walk.
Ms Stricker-Phelps said her symptoms had not shown any significant improvement and frequent flare-ups made her unable to perform many basic tasks.
In the midst of a recent flare-up, she found it extremely painful to walk, communicating was difficult, and she struggled to leave the house.
‘Flareups are even harder to deal with as there are no protocols in place for treatment,’ she said.
To deal with the latest one, her specialist sent her for ‘yet another spinal injection’ to try to reduce inflammation across her body.
Even when the flare-ups subside, exercise is difficult because of the pain she suffers throughout her body.
But she said the hardest thing was having to live an isolated life to avoid catching Covid.
‘I cannot receive any more of the current vaccines so am not protected from Covid,’ she said.
‘I have to isolate from family and friends, and avoid group activities such as parties or the theatre as the virus is transmissible even from vaccinated people.’
Ms Stricker-Phelps said her symptoms had not shown any significant improvement and frequent flareups rendered her unable to perform many basic tasks
Ms Stricker-Phelps said she had no idea if and when her condition would improve, let alone recover, because so little was known about it.
‘The best chance of recovery is for more effort and funding into research to find the underlying mechanism of the injury and for specific treatments to be developed,’ she said.
‘But first, the government and the medical profession need to acknowledge the extent of the problem.’
Dr Phelps was among the first well-known Australian medical experts to publicly address Covid vaccine injury in her submission to a Senate inquiry into long Covid.
Her lengthy testimony revealed both she and her wife suffered ongoing serious adverse affects from the vaccine, and that doctors were too afraid of losing their medical licences to talk about it.
‘The cloak of silence has been lifted and people are starting to talk about long Covid and vaccine injuries,’ Ms Stricker-Phelps said.
Because the government never publicly acknowledged the full risk, she argues Australians didn’t have proper informed consent when they decided to get the jab.
‘It is important that people have fully informed consent by being made aware of the risks and then make their own decisions about their vaccinations,’ she said.
Ms Stricker-Phelps said she had no idea if and when her condition would improve, let alone recover, because so little was known about it
Ms Stricker-Phelps said she and her wife were strong supporters of vaccination, but couldn’t encourage anyone to take a Covid shot while the true extent of the risks was unknown.
‘Until now, I have had all recommended vaccines without a problem. Flu vaccines every year the pneumovax vaccine, no problem,’ she said.
‘I fronted up for the Pfizer shot. People were all told these vaccines were safe. Clearly not the case for all people.
‘These novel vaccines have had devastating effects on many people and for those who were lucky not to have any bad effects I am happy for them.
‘But after what happened to me post that initial reaction and the ongoing aftermath, I would never tell anyone they had to have one of these novel vaccines.’
Ms Stricker-Phelps said she found the ‘cone of silence’ about vaccine injuries frustrating because it stifled research into how to treat them.
She called for better compensation for those affected – many of whom are not eligible for government payouts because their symptoms are not recognised – and better access to anti-viral Covid treatments.
‘Safety measures are needed to protect vulnerable Australians like myself from catching Covid on top of our vaccine injuries which have already given us long Covid-like symptoms,’ she said.
‘So vulnerable people can once more go to the shops or indoor venues, without fear, or catch public transport without being coughed on by people because it is not mandated to wear a mask or isolate when sick.
‘This is an important public health issue and it is time it is addressed. It has had devastating consequences on my life and on the lives of many other people.’
Ms Stricker-Phelps said she and her wife were strong supporters of vaccination, but couldn’t encourage anyone to take a Covid shot while the true extent of the risks was unknown
Ms Stricker-Phelps is a founding member of Coverse, a support group for Australians suffering Covid vaccine adverse effects.
Rado Faletič, who leads the group, argued Australians still had no way of knowing their risk of serious side effects because there was not enough data.
‘Without the right information, nobody in this country has been able to give informed consent, we couldn’t weigh up the odds properly,’ he said.
‘The biggest issue is when we go to the Therapeutic Goods Administration to report it, they don’t follow it up.
‘So it’s a bit rich to say all this stuff is rare when it’s not being investigated. the problem is we don’t know how rare it is because they’re not looking into it.
‘I really hope it was all worth it, but without proper studies we don’t know.’
Dr Phelps in her submission to the Senate inquiry also complained that she and her wife received little to no follow up after reporting their conditions to the TGA.
Mr Faletič said unless, as in Ms Stricker-Phelps’ case, the effects began almost immediately, vaccine injuries were hard to diagnose as there were no bio-markers and a huge variety of symptoms.
Doctors also had little to no advice from the government about what the symptoms were and how to treat them, as only a small list of minor side effects is officially recognised.
‘It’s really offensive to people who’ve been struggling with this, many for up to 18 months, it’s like we don’t exist,’ he said.
‘Australians were asked to step up and the least we could expect in return is some honesty and transparency and we’ve had none of that, and that’s deeply hurtful to us, who’ve been discarded as friendly fire.’
Mr Faletič said Coverse had members affected after taking all the Covid vaccines, not just the newer mRNA types, but they kept quiet in fear no one would believe them.
‘Every time someone spoke out about their injury they were told they were an anti-vaxxer or putting the whole country in jeopardy, so they learned to keep it to themselves,’ he said.
‘I held off telling some elderly family members about my vaccine injury because they’re more vulnerable to Covid. If I had my time again, I think I would tell them straight away.’
Dr Phelps in her submission to the long Covid inquiry wrote that German surveys found the incidence of serious reactions was as high as 1 in 1,000 people.
‘Without acknowledgment and recognition of post-vaccination syndrome or vaccine injury, there can be no progress in developing protocols for diagnosis and treatment and it is difficult to be included in research projects or treatment programs,’ she wrote.
‘It has also meant a long and frustrating search for acknowledgment and an attempt at treatment for many individual patients.’
Dr Phelps said other doctors also ‘experienced a serious and persistent adverse event’ but that ‘vaccine injury is a subject that few in the medical profession have wanted to talk about’.
‘Regulators of the medical profession have censored public discussion about adverse events following immunisation, with threats to doctors not to make any public statements about anything that ‘might undermine the government’s vaccine rollout’ or risk suspension or loss of their registration,’ she wrote.
Of the 64.4 million Covid vaccine doses administered across Australia, only 137,210 adverse events have been reported to the TGA – but the reality is likely far higher
Doctors were advised in March 2021 by AHPRA and national medical boards to not ‘undermine’ the national vaccine rollout.
‘Any promotion of anti-vaccination statements or health advice which contradicts the best available scientific evidence or seeks to actively undermine the national immunisation campaign… may be in breach of the codes of conduct and subject to investigation and possible regulatory action,’ the joint statement said.
AHPRA denied this inhibited the way doctors performed their duties.
‘Doctors do not need to be afraid to take notes about the vaccine,’ AHPRA said.
‘It is good medical practice and a professional obligation for doctors to make accurate medical records.
‘We encourage practitioners to discuss the various vaccines with their patients and use their professional judgement and the best available evidence to help the patient make the safest choices.’
AHPRA said it only intervened ‘where the public is at serious risk’.
Dr Phelps’ submission did not call for the vaccine rollout to be altered, merely for much greater transparency about the prevalence of adverse affects, and opposed doctors being censored for speaking about them.
