"Medicine and Science Abandoned Us" - Roy Butler inquest

Inquest verdict deferred as Coroner to consider evidence

A verdict at the inquest into the death of Roy Butler has been deferred until next week. Cork City Coroner Philip Comyn said he would take time to consider all the evidence.

“I have listened to the testimony over the last three days, some of it very complicated and some of it very moving. I am going to take time to consider. I will endeavour to give my decision and reasoning next week,” Mr Comyn said.

The case was ‘particularly tragic and upsetting,’ the Coroner said, due to the loss of Roy (23) in such ‘difficult and unexpected circumstances.’

The Coroner thanked the Butler family for ‘the manner in which you have conducted yourselves throughout the inquest.’

Roy, a talented footballer from O’Reilly Road, Cork Road in Waterford died at Cork University Hospital on August 17th 2021.

Roy himself reported feeling immediately unwell after taking the Johnson and Johnson Janssen ‘one shot’ vaccine, documenting his symptoms in a series of texts to friends in the days leading up to his death. Roy attributed his symptoms – headache, grogginess, sweating, pain in his neck and his jaw, to the vaccine.

The final day of evidence heard from Assistance State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster, who could find no cause for the catastrophic brain hemorrhage that cost the young footballer his life.

Dr Bolster described Roy’s death as ‘baffling’ and said a direct link to the Janssen vaccine that Roy received four days before the brain hemorrhage could not be ruled out.

Dr Bolster gave the cause of death as a spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage resulting in raised intracranial pressure.

The pathologist, who said she had conducted some 20,000 autopsies over a thirty year period, said that the death of a young healthy man like Mr Butler from a spontaneous intracerebral bleed was ‘extremely rare.’  

Barrister for the Butler family, Ciara Davin BL asked Dr Bolster if, in her opinion, in the absence of any other explanation for the catastrophic brain bleed, it was reasonable to conclude that Roy’s demise was due to the Janssen vaccine, which he received on August 12 2021. Dr Bolster said she could not definitively link the death to the vaccine.

“It would have to be based on sound scientific evidence. I cannot say any more than I cannot rule it in or out and the correct procedure was to contact the National Drugs Advisory Board who correlate all of this data and that was done,” Dr Bolster said.

The inquest heard from Cork University Hospital Neuropathologist Dr Niamh Bermingham who conducted an examination of the brain at autopsy.

Dr Bermingham described the case as ‘unusual’ and said the investigations carried out found no cause or origin for the bleed.

‘A voice from Beyond the Grave’

In her closing submission, Ms Davin described the text messages Roy sent to his friends in the days before his death as particularly poignant, in that unknown to himself, he was documenting his own demise.

“What we do have is a voice from beyond the grave. He has told us what it was that harmed him. He directly attributed his symptoms to the vaccine. What evidence could be more compelling that the words of a dying man?” Ms Davin said.

She read out some of the texts that Roy sent to his friends:

“I actually feel mental.”

“I’m not great after the vaccine the last two days.”

“I’m not dying, just not well.”

“Little did he know that he was in fact dying,” Ms Davin said.

“These are the honest and innocent messages to his friends that tell of what happened him. He did not know he was going to die. He did not anticipate the text messages would be read out in the coroners court,” Ms Davin said.

“He has left all the evidence we need,” the barrister said, noting that Roy himself ‘is the person best placed to tell us what was going on.’

Ms Davin said ‘it would simply fly in the face of reason’ not to attribute the devastating brain bleed to the vaccine and asked the Coroner to consider a verdict of medical misadventure.

“There is simply no other reasonable explanation than that he suffered some sort of reaction to the vaccine and in those circumstances Coroner I am asking you to return a verdict of medical misadventure.”

“I am asking you to take everything into account, to look at the surrounding circumstances, what we do know, I am asking that you acknowledge the link,” Ms Davin said.

At the end of a difficult three days for the Butler family, Roy’s mother Angela shed tears of anguish as the family’s barrister told the court of one final text before his tragic and untimely death.

“His last communication on this earth was calling to his mother for help,” Ms Davin said.

‘Medicine and science has abandoned us’

The court heard that while Roy’s own evidence was compelling, the details of the vaccine, it’s side effects and ultimate withdrawal from use, required serious consideration.

“We also need to consider the vaccine itself…. We know that warnings were issued and we know that it’s been withdrawn altogether, as Janssen acknowledged here - for commercial reasons,” Ms Davin said.

The barrister referred to the vaccine safety information that Janssen provided to the Coroner as part of the inquest’s investigation process.

Initially, the pharmaceutical company told of just two reports of intracerebral hemorrhage within seven days of receiving the shot.

When the family asked Johnson and Johnson to ‘widen the parameters’ of this safety search, the company returned a report that documented 59 other reported fatalities, due to intracerebral hemorrhage, up to ten days post vaccine administration.  

On the second day of the hearing, it was heard that some 36 deaths were officially recorded in Janssen’s safety monitoring process ‘from an original pool of 400’ deaths due to intracerebral hemorrhage.

These reported deaths occurred up to 28 days of receiving the vaccine and excluded any deaths in people over fifty years of age.

The evidence of this pool of 400 deaths was not made known to the family’s barrister ahead of the inquest and only emerged at the inquest itself, Ms Davin told the court.

“Coroner these vaccines are new, they were rushed out…the research and science is still evolving,” Ms Davin said.

“This is a case in which medicine and science has abandoned us.”

In his closing statements, Barrister for Johnson and Johnson Mr John Lucey SC of Dublin based firm McCann Fitzgerald described the case as a ‘shocking tragedy’ but said there was ‘no evidence whatsoever’ that the vaccine caused Roy’s death.

“I accept there was administration of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.  I accept it is an event that occurred within a very short timeline of the vaccine, but there is no evidence whatsoever that the administration of the vaccine caused the death,” he said.

The Coroner thanked the witnesses from Johnson and Johnson who had travelled from the US to attend the hearing and said that he would attempt to deliver a verdict next week. Mr Comyn said he would deliver his verdict directly to the legal teams representing the parties involved.

The Full Package

On the steps of the Washington Street courthouse in Cork, the Butler family gathered to deliver a statement following proceedings.

“We want to thank all those who have supported us throughout the past three years, especially our family and friends and the people of Waterford city who have carried us through and helped keep Roy’s memory alive.”

“We are very grateful for all the support we have received from all over the country this week. We would like to thank in particular our legal team Callan Tansey, our solicitor Sorcha King and Ciara Davin our barrister, who gave Roy his voice from start to finish.”

“Roy was my brother, he was a loving son, he lived for his family and friends. He left a lasting impression on anybody that met him. He was caring, positive and content. Three words that are constantly used to describe Roy are ‘the full package’."

“We know he took the Johnson and Johnson vaccine on August 12 2021, his health deteriorated until he passed on August 17^th. We now await the verdict from the Coroner. We ask that the privacy of the family be respected.”

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