Shortly after Tisir Otahbachi received his second dose of the Moderna vaccine in August 2021, a burning rash that had started on his hand spread to his limbs and back, forcing him to quit his jobs and seek medical treatment in Ontario. Otahbachi is now seeking redress through Quebec’s vaccine injury compensation program.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, only a tiny fraction — 0.011 per cent — of the more than 95 million vaccine doses administered in this country as of Dec. 9 resulted in serious adverse reactions. But that’s still more than 10,000 reported cases.
Otahbachi, who had never experienced any skin problems before, told CBC that throughout his ordeal, most of the doctors who examined him dismissed the possibility of any link between the vaccine and the sudden onset of his painful condition.
“I told [them] I’m not against the vaccine, but the vaccine damaged my body,” he said. “The doctors that I’ve been to, all of them were scared.”
Tisir Otahbachi developed a painful skin condition shortly after receiving two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in July and August 2021. He’s seeking compensation from the province of Quebec, but has been unable to find a doctor there who will back his claim. (Jean Delisle/CBC)
Health units monitoring reactions
According to Earl Brown, a professor emeritus of virology at the University of Ottawa, certain elements of these vaccines can trigger an autoimmune response that targets our own tissues.
“You’ve got a lot of people who have developed antibodies to these vaccine components because they’re used elsewhere in medicine or in cosmetics or in food,” Brown told CBC last week.
“Most of us do very well, but some of us are getting adverse reactions.”
While many of those who reached out after reading Otahbachi’s story said they’d also had a difficult time convincing doctors that a COVID vaccine may have caused their skin condition, Ottawa’s medical officer of health Vera Etches told CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning last week that medical professionals are encouraged to report all suspected cases.
“We want to understand the full range of what can happen with vaccines,” Etches said. “We know these kinds of things are extremely rare, but we have a system for reporting so that we can find rare things and assist people.”
Local health units then report those reactions to Public Health Ontario, which compiles and examines the data to spot wider trends, Etches said.
“Overall of course we know vaccines are providing a great benefit in protecting people from severe outcomes [of COVID-19].”
Here’s a small sample of some of the adverse reactions described to CBC.
Andrew Corless says the itchy rash that appeared on his neck and torso after his second COVID-19 shot worsened after he received a booster last January. (Submitted by Andrew Corless)
Andrew
Andrew Corless, 52, first developed hives on his torso and neck after his second shot of the Moderna vaccine, but didn’t think too much of it at the time.
It wasn’t until about two weeks after his first Moderna booster last January that his symptoms “really blew up,” Corless told CBC.
I think we’re just kind of all left stranded.– Andrew Corless
“My skin erupted in pretty severe urticaria and my breathing became restricted, similar to asthma attacks, occurring every few hours but unresponsive to asthma inhalers and even prednisone,” he said.
Corless, a writer and dual citizen who now lives near Montreal after spending years in the U.S., has been to a series of specialists including one doctor who convinced him to give up the family dog over allergy concerns.
“None of that moved the needle,” Corless said. “I think they just don’t know enough about it.”
Corless has joined a Facebook group with thousands of members who have been dealing with similar symptoms since receiving a COVID vaccine. He said he’s also reached out to Moderna, but got nowhere.
“I am absolutely pro-vaccine, I want to be vaccinated,” Corless said. “But now what? Where’s the backup and help with this? I think we’re just kind of all left stranded. That’s the difficult part. It’s like, we played along — now what?”
Sandra Ashby says she developed an itchy rash over three-quarters of her body after receiving her second COVID booster last spring. (Submitted by Sandra Ashby)
Sandra
Sandra Ashby spent New Year’s Eve in the emergency room of a hospital in Haliburton, Ont., her skin burning to the point that she could no longer stand it.
“I was there because I didn’t know where to go,” Ashby told CBC. “This is where it’s so painful, because there is no help in dealing with this.”
Eight months earlier, Ashby, a retired teacher in her mid-60s who resides in Toronto, had received her second booster shot of the Moderna vaccine before travelling to England. Small spots resembling insect bites soon appeared on her legs, forming an itchy rash that eventually covered three-quarters of her body.
I’m not looking for money. I just want some relief.– Sandra Ashby
Ashby, who had experienced mild eczema in the past, was prescribed a series of topical corticosteroids, but worried about the long-term effects on her skin, tried to wean herself off the powerful medication. She now suspects she’s experiencing steroid withdrawal, compounding her discomfort.
“What I’ve got now is unbelievably painful. I mean, sleeping is just awful. I’m lucky if I get some sleep,” she said.
Still, none of the many doctors she’s seen have been willing to draw a direct link between the vaccine and her condition.
“They don’t have time to address it, they don’t want to make the connection, they’re concerned about the anti-vaxxers, they’re concerned about the politics of it, and I understand all of that. But what I’m upset about is, I’m in this situation and I don’t know how to get out,” she said.
“I’m not looking for money. I just want some relief.”
Daniel
Daniel, 41, was eager to share his story, but asked CBC to withhold his surname because some of his family members work in the medical field.
“I wouldn’t want any sort of stigma being placed on them, or any sort of association with the anti-vaccine movement or anything like that,” said the engineer, who lives with his wife and their young daughter in Edmonton.
They kind of just brushed it off or ignored it.– Daniel
“I’m not anti-vaccine by any means — I’ve had every vaccine under the sun. It’s just that I’ve had this adverse reaction that can’t be explained through normal, typical medical history.”
Daniel, who had never experienced any sort of skin ailment before, first developed itchy, acne-like blisters on his fingers about three weeks after receiving his second dose of the Moderna vaccine in June 2021. His condition soon worsened, leaving him with painful open sores.
“If you look around my home, you’ll see blood smeared on the light switches and door handles because my hands are just constantly bleeding,” he said.
Daniel, who asked CBC not to publish his surname because he has relatives in the medical field and doesn’t want them tarred as anti-vaxxers, broke out in painful blisters on his hands and fingers shortly after receiving his second dose of the Moderna COVID vaccine. (Submitted)
Daniel was eventually diagnosed with dyshidrotic eczema and was prescribed a series of increasingly powerful steroid creams. He also undergoes ultraviolet light therapy three times a week.
While his symptoms have improved somewhat, Daniel worries he’s “chasing his tail” instead of addressing the root cause of his condition.
“I started bringing it up with the medical professionals and saying hey, there seems to be this temporal link between developing my symptoms and when I was vaccinated, but none of [them] really addressed that or even acknowledged that statement. They kind of just brushed it off or ignored it,” he said.
“If there is something in this vaccine that’s triggering this event, that could change the course of treatment for people and maybe lead to a successful treatment outcome.
“That’s why I think it’s really critical to start maybe getting less of the stigma there and not treating people as anti-vaccine, just realizing that hey, these people might be the unlucky ones.”
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona voters have approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access up to fetal viability, typically after 21 weeks — a major win for advocates of the measure in the presidential battleground state who have been seeking to expand access beyond the current 15-week limit.
Arizona was one of nine states with abortion on the ballot. Democrats have centered abortion rights in their campaigns since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Abortion-rights supporters prevailed in all seven abortion ballot questions in 2022 and 2023, including in conservative-leaning states.
Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition leading the state campaign, gathered well over the 383,923 signatures required to put it on the ballot, and the secretary of state’s office verified that enough were valid. The coalition far outpaced the opposition campaign, It Goes Too Far, in fundraising. The opposing campaign argued the measure was too far-reaching and cited its own polling in saying a majority of Arizonans support the 15-week limit. The measure allows post-viability abortions if they are necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the mother.
Access to abortion has been a cloudy issue in Arizona. In April, the state Supreme Court cleared the way for the enforcement of a long-dormant 1864 law banning nearly all abortions. The state Legislature swiftly repealed it.
Voters in Arizona are divided on abortion. Maddy Pennell, a junior at Arizona State University, said the possibility of a near-total abortion ban made her “depressed” and strengthened her desire to vote for the abortion ballot measure.
“I feel very strongly about having access to abortion,” she said.
Kyle Lee, an independent Arizona voter, does not support the abortion ballot measure.
“All abortion is pretty much, in my opinion, murder from beginning to end,” Lee said.
The Civil War-era ban also shaped the contours of tight legislative races. State Sen. Shawnna Bolick and state Rep. Matt Gress are among the handful of vulnerable Republican incumbents in competitive districts who crossed party lines to give the repeal vote the final push — a vote that will be tested as both parties vie for control of the narrowly GOP-held state Legislature.
Both of the Phoenix-area lawmakers were rebuked by some of their Republican colleagues for siding with Democrats. Gress made a motion on the House floor to initiate the repeal of the 1864 law. Bolick, explaining her repeal vote to her Senate colleagues, gave a 20-minute floor speech describing her three difficult pregnancies.
While Gress was first elected to his seat in 2022, Bolick is facing voters for the first time. She was appointed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to fill a seat vacancy in 2023. She has not emphasized her role in the repeal vote as she has campaigned, instead playing up traditional conservative issues — one of her signs reads “Bolick Backs the Blue.”
Voters rejected a measure to eliminate retention elections for state Superior Court judges and Supreme Court justices.
The measure was put on the ballot by Republican legislators hoping to protect two conservative justices up for a routine retention vote who favored allowing the Civil War-era ban to be enforced — Shawnna Bolick’s husband, Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, and Justice Kathryn Hackett King. Since the measure did not pass, both are still vulnerable to voter ouster, though those races hadn’t been decided by early Wednesday morning.
Under the existing system, voters decide every four to six years whether judges and justices should remain on the bench. The proposed measure would have allowed the judges and justices to stay on the bench without a popular vote unless one is triggered by felony convictions, crimes involving fraud and dishonesty, personal bankruptcy or mortgage foreclosure.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska voters supported a measure Tuesday that enshrines the state’s current ban on abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy in the state constitution, and they rejected a competing measure that sought to expand abortion rights. Nebraska was the first state to have competing abortion amendments on the same ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the nationwide right to abortion and allowing states to decide for themselves. The dueling measures were among a record number of petition-initiated measures on Nebraska’s ballot Tuesday.
What were the competing abortion measures?
A majority of voters supported a measure enshrining the state’s current ban on abortion after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in the state constitution. The measure will also allow for further restrictions. Last year, the Legislature passed the 12-week ban, which includes exceptions for cases of rape and incest and to protect the life of the pregnant woman.
Voters rejected the other abortion measure. If they had passed it by a larger number of “for” votes than the 12-week measure, it would have amended the constitution to guarantee the right to have an abortion until viability — the standard under Roe that is the point at which a fetus might survive outside the womb. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.
Abortion was on the ballot in several other states, as well. Coming into the election, voters in all seven states that had decided on abortion-related ballot measures since the reversal of Roe had favored abortion rights, including in some conservative states.
Who is behind the Nebraska abortion measures?
The 12-week ban measure was bankrolled by some of Nebraska’s wealthiest people, including Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, who previously served as governor and donated more than $1.1 million. His mother, Marlene Ricketts, gave $4 million to the cause. Members of the Peed family, which owns publishing company Sandhills Global, also gave $1 million.
The effort was organized under the name Protect Women and Children and was heavily backed by religious organizations, including the Nebraska Catholic Conference, a lobbying group that has organized rallies, phone banks and community townhalls to drum up support for the measure.
The effort to enshrine viability as the standard was called Protect Our Rights Nebraska and had the backing of several medical, advocacy and social justice groups. Planned Parenthood donated nearly $1 million to the cause, with the American Civil Liberties Union, I Be Black Girl, Nebraska Appleseed and the Women’s Fund of Omaha also contributing significantly to the roughly $3.7 million raised by Protect Our Rights.
What other initiatives were on Nebraska’s ballot?
Nebraska voters approved two measures Tuesday that will create a system for the use and manufacture of medical marijuana, if the measures survive an ongoing legal challenge.
The measures legalize the possession and use of medical marijuana, and allow for the manufacture, distribution and delivery of the drug. One would let patients and caregivers possess up to 5 ounces (142 grams) of marijuana if recommended by a doctor. The other would create the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission, which would oversee the private groups that would manufacture and dispense the drug.
Those initiatives were challenged over allegations that the petition campaign that put them on the ballot broke election rules. Nebraska’s attorney general said supporters of the measures may have submitted several thousand invalid signatures, and one man has been charged in connection with 164 allegedly fraudulent signatures. That means a judge could still invalidate the measures.
Voters also opted Tuesday to repeal a new conservative-backed law that allocates millions of dollars in taxpayer money to fund private school tuition.
Finally, they approved a measure that will require all Nebraska employers to provide at least 40 hours of paid sick leave to their employees.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in Missouri cleared the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in one of seven victories for abortion rights advocates, while Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The results include firsts for the abortion landscape, which underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
They also came in the same election that Republican Donald Trump won the presidency. Among his inconsistent positions on abortion has been an insistence that it’s an issue best left to the states. Still, the president can have a major impact on abortion policy through executive action.
In the meantime, Missouri is positioned to be the first state where a vote will undo a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with an amendment that would allow lawmakers to restrict abortions only past the point of a fetus’ viability — usually considered after 21 weeks, although there’s no exact defined time frame.
But the ban, and other restrictive laws, are not automatically repealed. Advocates now have to ask courts to overturn laws to square with the new amendment.
“Today, Missourians made history and sent a clear message: decisions around pregnancy, including abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care are personal and private and should be left up to patients and their families, not politicians,” Rachel Sweet, campaign manager of Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said in a statement.
Roughly half of Missouri’s voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 2,200 of the state’s voters. But only about 1 in 10 said abortion should be illegal in all cases; nearly 4 in 10 said abortion should be illegal in most cases.
Bans remain in place in three states after votes
Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota became the first states since Roe was overturned where abortion opponents prevailed on a ballot measure. Most voters supported the Florida measure, but it fell short of the required 60% to pass constitutional amendments in the state. Most states require a simple majority.
The result was a political win for Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican with a national profile, who had steered state GOP funds to the cause. His administration has weighed in, too, with a campaign against the measure, investigators questioning people who signed petitions to add it to the ballot and threats to TV stations that aired one commercial supporting it.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the national anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, said in a statement that the result is “a momentous victory for life in Florida and for our entire country,” praising DeSantis for leading the charge against the measure.
The defeat makes permanent a shift in the Southern abortion landscape that began when the state’s six-week ban took effect in May. That removed Florida as a destination for abortion for many women from nearby states with deeper bans and also led to far more women from the state traveling to obtain abortion. The nearest states with looser restrictions are North Carolina and Virginia — hundreds of miles away.
“The reality is because of Florida’s constitution a minority of Florida voters have decided Amendment 4 will not be adopted,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for the Yes on 4 Campaign said while wiping away tears. “The reality is a majority of Floridians just voted to end Florida’s abortion ban.”
In South Dakota, another state with a ban on abortion throughout pregnancy with some exceptions, the defeat of an abortion measure was more decisive. It would have allowed some regulations related to the health of the woman after 12 weeks. Because of that wrinkle, most national abortion-rights groups did not support it.
Voters in Nebraska adopted a measure that allows more abortion restrictions and enshrines the state’s current 12-week ban and rejected a competing measure that would have ensured abortion rights.
Other states guaranteed abortion rights
Arizona’s amendment will mean replacing the current law that bans abortion after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The new measure ensures abortion access until viability. A ballot measure there gained momentum after a state Supreme Court ruling in April found that the state could enforce a strict abortion ban adopted in 1864. Some GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats to repeal the law before it could be enforced.
In Maryland, the abortion rights amendment is a legal change that won’t make an immediate difference to abortion access in a state that already allows it.
It’s a similar situation in Montana, where abortion is already legal until viability.
The Colorado measure exceeded the 55% of support required to pass. Besides enshrining access, it also undoes an earlier amendment that barred using state and local government funding for abortion, opening the possibility of state Medicaid and government employee insurance plans covering care.
A New York equal rights law that abortion rights group say will bolster abortion rights also passed. It doesn’t contain the word “abortion” but rather bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” Sasha Ahuja, campaign director of New Yorkers for Equal Rights, called the result “a monumental victory for all New Yorkers” and a vote against opponents who she says used misleading parental rights and anti-trans messages to thwart the measure.
The results end a win streak for abortion-rights advocates
Until Tuesday, abortion rights advocates had prevailed on all seven measures that have appeared on statewide ballots since the fall of Roe.
The abortion rights campaigns have a big fundraising advantage this year. Their opponents’ efforts are focused on portraying the amendments as too extreme rather than abortion as immoral.
Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Four more bar abortion in most cases after about six weeks of pregnancy — before women often realize they’re pregnant. Despite the bans, the number of monthly abortions in the U.S. has risen slightly, because of the growing use of abortion pills and organized efforts to help women travel for abortion. Still, advocates say the bans have reduced access, especially for lower-income and minority residents of the states with bans.
The issue is resonating with voters. About one-fourth said abortion policy was the single most important factor for their vote, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide. Close to half said it was an important factor, but not the most important. Just over 1 in 10 said it was a minor factor.
The outcomes of ballot initiatives that sought to overturn strict abortion bans in Florida and Missouri were very important to a majority of voters in the states. More than half of Florida voters identified the result of the amendment as very important, while roughly 6 in 10 of Missouri’s voters said the same, the survey found.
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Associated Press reporters Hannah Fingerhut and Amanda Seitz contributed to this article.
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This article has been corrected to reflect in the ‘other states’ section that Montana, not Missouri, currently allows abortion until viability.
