Family left with questions after vaccine reaction raised at inquest

Cause of death unknown

The inquest into the death of Bridget Kerr (86) of Cooleeney, Co Longford this week marked a new era in post covid critique.

The hearing is the first reported formal public inquiry into an Irish death, whereby family suspect an adverse reaction played a role.

Doctors were unable to rule out the Pfizer vaccine as a factor in Mrs Kerr’s demise.

A limited autopsy left the cause of death unknown.

And an open verdict with no mention of adverse vaccine reaction left a family with questions unanswered.

“Mam was much loved and is painfully missed. She was creative, witty and sociable – she loved company. She loved history,” the family said.

“We still have questions about how her death was dealt with and the post mortem in particular. We think there should be procedures in place for pathologists in Ireland to look for covid 19 vaccine adverse reactions. We will take these issues up with the Health Products Regulation Authority (HPRA) as the Coroner advised,” the family said.

A former silver service waitress and later, a carer, Mrs Kerr received her first shot on February 26 2021.

The roll out schedule placed her top of the list, in the over 85’s age bracket.

She received her covid injection from her GP Dr Padraig McGarry six weeks into the campaign. Eight weeks later, she was dead.

Dominating the news on the day of Bridget Kerr’s vaccination was the shocking story of a murder suicide involving three members of the one family at an isolated farm in north Cork.

Elsewhere, at the High Court in Dublin, a ‘groundbreaking settlement’ set to pave the way for the resolution of 80 cases over the Pandemrix vaccine was underway. A boy who received the vaccine aged five, had been diagnosed with narcolepsy two years later.

From a Breaking News report:

“It was claimed neither he nor his parents would have consented to the vaccination if various matters were made clear to them, including that Pandemrix had allegedly never been, or never been adequately, tested, on children of his age.

The claims were denied.”

Mrs Kerr, a mother of seven, lived a full and healthy life, managing to avoid the doctor’s surgery for a 35 year period up to 2020, her family told Dublin Coroner’s Court.

She was hospitalised in November 2020 for diverticulitis and discharged on December 1 under the care of a public health nurse, whom she never saw. She was cared for at home by her husband Jack Kerr and daughter Deirdre Greene in the midst of Level 5 lockdown restrictions. She was making a good recovery, the inquest heard.

On television, the family were watching nightly media reports documenting the highest recorded death rates since the arrival of covid.

January 2021 recorded 703 deceased. Some 531 deaths followed in February.

After Mrs Kerr received her covid 19 vaccine, her health subsequently deteriorated, her mobility and cognitive function declined and she was admitted to hospital.

She suffered seizures in hospital and multiple scans were conducted to determine what was causing her descent into delirium. Ultimately on April 27 2021, she died. Nobody really knows why.

Her daughter Deirdre Greene had been staying overnight in the family home since her mother’s discharge from hospital in December. She told the inquest she was shown how to administer Clexane (anticoagulant) injections for her mother using a plastic doll.

“I continued with the Clexane day and night. There was no visit from a public health nurse. It was a very severe situation. There was a level five lockdown,” she said.

Mrs Kerr suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease and Ms Greene wanted to postpone the vaccination appointment until after she’d seen her specialist.

“My mother hadn’t seen her rheumatoid arthritis consultant for months,” she said.

Up until her vaccination on February 26, Mrs Kerr had been doing well. She’d been walking around with the aid of a zimmer frame.

The family had expressed a preference to postpone her first vaccine to her GP, Dr Padraig McGarry, a former president of the Irish Medical Organisation.

On the basis that the benefits outweighed the risks, Dr McGarry recommended the vaccine for Mrs Kerr.

Dr McGarry said he discussed the vaccine with the patient and she consented verbally.

“You had to temper the risk of not getting the vaccine with the potential of getting infected. Given her co-morbidities there was risk of severe reaction (after infection.) Or give what was considered by NIAC (National Immunisation Advisory Committee) as a safe vaccine,” he said.

The GP said he was aware some relatives had expressed reservations about the vaccine for Mrs Kerr. He said their concerns were ‘totally legitimate’.

Family members present at Dublin Coroner’s Court for the inquest were four of Mrs Kerr’s children and a granddaughter, Erin Kevin via videolink from Switzerland.

Witnesses included Mrs Kerr’s GP, a consultant geriatrician, a consultant neurologist with expertise in stroke medicine and a neuropathologist from Beaumont Hospital. The doctors and hospital were legally represented, the family were not.

Around the same time that Mrs Kerr was vaccinated in early 2021, Celbridge GP Gerry Waters was suspended by the Irish Medical Council over refusing to administer covid vaccines. He attended the inquest as an observer.

Dr Waters addressed the Coroner from the public gallery seeking to ask questions of Dr McGarry. The Coroner said she could not allow this as he was not an ‘interested party’ but said Dr Waters could put the question to her, the Coroner.

Dr Waters asked if the GP had obtained informed consent from the patient regarding the vaccine, in particular if she had been informed it was experimental and had not been used before.

Ms Greene agreed for this question be put to her mother’s GP.

“I told her this was a new vaccine, it wasn’t as if it wasn’t public knowledge that this was the first time it was being used,” Dr McGarry said.

Two weeks after the jab, Mrs Kerr was still suffering chills, headache and fever. She was growing more confused. “Her mobility had completely gone,” Ms Greene said.

Another daughter, Breege Brady visited on Mother’s Day, March 14.

“She had no clue who I was. Her grandson was with me. She said, ‘who’s that little boy, did you bring him here?’” Ms Brady told the inquest.

Dr McGarry agreed the elderly woman’s symptoms were ‘what would be part of the flagged covid vaccine side effects’ and said most people recovered from these effects.

On March 15 he called to Mrs Kerr’s house.

“Was it unusual for you to conduct such a home visit?” Coroner Aisling Gannon asked.

“Yes, this was in the middle of the pandemic when we were asked not to go out to patients,” he replied.

That night, Mrs Kerr was taken by ambulance to the Midlands Regional Hospital in Mullingar, where she began suffering seizures two days later. She descended further into confusion, but doctors could not explain why. Under the care of Consultant Geriatrician Professor Clare Fallon, Mrs Kerr underwent CT brain and MRI scans and a lumbar puncture in a bid to identify the cause of the delirium.

“It can be triggered by many causes. Sometimes we don’t find a cause,” Prof Fallon told the inquest.

Asked could the vaccine have caused the delirium, Prof Fallan replied, “quite possibly.”

Visiting her mother in Mullingar, Breege Brady said Mrs Kerr was repeatedly described to her as a ‘mystery patient.’

“To go everyday and watch your mother deteriorate and that phrase was used almost daily. It was very upsetting,” she said.

On April 20 Mrs Kerr was transferred to the Mater Hospital in Dublin where she died a week later.

The day of her death, April 27, secretary to Professor Clare Fallon filled out a suspected adverse reaction report to be submitted to the HPRA. This document was obtained by the family via Freedom of Information request.

The report includes a description of the suspected reaction, the vaccine batch number and date of administration. The report indicated the adverse reaction was ‘life threatening’.

At the direction of Dublin Coroner’s office, an autopsy was conducted at Beaumont Hospital.

Consultant Neurologist at the Mater, Dr Killian O’Rourke requested an external post mortem due to a concern about Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease (CJD), a rare and fatal condition affecting the brain.

“It’s a difficult diagnosis. If your patient is consistently getting worse... you should consider CJD,” Dr O’Rourke told the court.

Mrs Kerr’s granddaughter Erin Kevin asked if this doctor believed the vaccine could have caused the woman’s deterioration?

“I would be open to that possibility yes but I don’t know that. We have a patient who died of a progressive encephalopathy...it seems she had been reasonably well up to the vaccine and deteriorated from that point which is circumstantial and I think that needs to be taken into account.

“I think that is possible but I don’t know that, that’s about as far as I can take it,” Dr O’Rourke said.

The Coroner urged caution.

“We have to be careful, we cannot deal solely in respect of possibilities, we must deal in facts,” Ms Gannon said.

Photo by Mat Napo on Unsplash

In the witness box, Neuropathologist Dr Alan Beausang explained that CJD is not contagious, but is potentially transmissible if it becomes airborne.

“There is no treatment, it is potentially fatal,” he said.

As a result, the scope of his autopsy was ‘very much scaled back.’

The brain was examined and samples were taken for examination under the microscope.

The retention of the brain required a process of consent from family.

“I fill out the form and then it goes to the social work department and the family are - or at least should be – notified,” he said.

The scaled back autopsy found no cause of death.

The family told the inquest they learned that no full post mortem had been carried out, through their undertaker.

“That is unacceptable. I would not like that to happen to another family,” Ms Brady said.

Dr Beausang said he was not sure why that happened.

Ms Brady said the undertaker informed the family that the body had been embalmed at Beaumont hospital.

“The funeral director said he found it extremely strange that she was already embalmed. Someone must have directed this?” she said.

“I wouldn’t know,” Dr Beausang replied. The embalming was not done at his direction.

Deirdre Greene asked if the pathologist was made aware her mother had suffered an adverse reaction to the vaccine and he replied he was not.

Asked why the body wasn’t retained until after CJD was ruled out, so that a full autopsy might be done, the pathologist said the body would have had to be repatriated to the Mater Hospital.

“The reason the postmortem was done in Beaumont was because CJD was a concern,” Dr Beausang said.

Ms Greene asked if there were policies and procedures in place for pathologists to test for suspected vaccine reactions. The pathologist replied no.

The HPRA mention 113 deaths following adverse reactions on their latest vaccine safety report published last May:

“Have pathologists been given procedures to follow and advice on what to look for?” Ms Greene asked.

When the pathologist replied this was not the case, Ms Greene asked if he thought it should be?

“My postmortem work is quite specific. I guess you are right, it is something that should be looked at maybe. But it’s not particularly relevant to my work on this case,” he said.

Returning an open verdict, the Coroner said ‘we must deal in facts that are definitive and determined.’

“In these circumstances we have to indicate that the medical cause of death of Ms Kerr is regrettably not determined, it is unascertained.”

“When the facts are unascertained, it follows that the verdict is open.

“I’m conscious it is not the position that any family wishes to find themselves in,” Ms Gannon said.

Ms Greene raised the issue of the pathologist not being made aware of a report made to the HPRA of an adverse reaction deemed ‘life threatening.’

The family were advised ‘to take up this matter’ themselves with the HPRA.

“Now this matter is closed you can bring that matter forward to engage with the HPRA,” the Coroner replied.

There were no recommendations issued by the Coroner in respect of issues raised around the autopsy.

“We were in shock coming out of the court. There was so much information to take in. We need to take some time to process what happened. But certainly we will be following up on the adverse reaction report,” Deirdre Greene said.

“We just need to gather ourselves and reflect and then start again.”

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Photo of Bridget Kerr by Corin Bishop

*The purpose of an inquest is to determine not just the medical cause of death but all the circumstances leading to a death. The verdict is a formal legal conclusion to the case and there are multiple verdicts available. Examples include misadventure, natural causes and accidental death.

*In complex medical cases involving hospital care, a narrative verdict is a common option, setting out a summary of events leading to death.

*A coroner also has an option to issue recommendations, should specific concerns arise during the inquiry.