In the year since he became partially paralyzed, Ross Wightman has kept his focus on small victories — from getting up the stairs unassisted, to going for a solo walk near his rural B.C. home.
But the biggest win came in the form of an e-mail from Canada’s Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) that confirmed something he says he knew all along: that his condition was likely caused by the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
“That was quite vindicating,” Wightman said from his Lake Country home in the Okanagan Valley. “To have it in hand, in paper, acknowledging it has been vindicating.”
Wightman was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), a rare condition that affects the nervous system, just days after his first and only dose of the vaccine. The condition can cause paralysis, muscle weakness, and even death.
“Every day is a grind,” said Wightman, who still has substantially limited mobility in his arms and legs. “[The letter] doesn’t change my condition, or the way I feel overly — it’s just nice to have,” he added.
GBS diagnoses following a COVID-19 vaccination are extremely rare — about one in 700,000 — according to data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) and Health Canada.
More than 11.7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., with health experts noting the risks associated with coronavirus infection far outweigh the risks of vaccination. There have been more than 41,000 deaths associated with COVID-19 in Canada.
The letter Wightman received makes him one of just a handful of Canadians to become approved for a COVID-19 vaccine injury benefit. He chose not to share his total allotment with CBC News citing privacy concerns, but said the maximum payout under the program is about $284,000. Wightman said he did not qualify for the full amount.
Ross Wightman received this letter confirming a probable link between his GBS and his dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. (Ross Wightman/Facebook)
He said he is also eligible for income replacement up to $90,000 per year.
CBC News has reached out to Health Canada for clarity on the payout structure of the program. Its most recent data suggests less than five people have been approved for the injury benefit, with numbers to be updated on Wednesday.
‘Not overly excited’
Wightman, who worked as a pilot and real estate agent prior to his diagnosis, has spent the last year unable to work. He can’t travel far on his own. But the hardest thing is sitting on the sidelines, unable to do physical activities with his kids, he says.
“Playing soccer with the kids in the yard. My oldest is big into baseball, and one of my favourite things to do is just play catch in the yard, and I can’t do that. That’s hard,” he said.
Ross Wightman was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome shortly after his first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. According to the BCCDC and Health Canada, there have been 10 reports of individuals hospitalized with GBS within 30 days of a COVID-19 vaccine since December 2020. (Submitted by Ross Wightman)
Despite his approval of vaccine injury payout, he says he still doesn’t think it matches the physical, emotional and financial toll he’s endured over the past year.
“I don’t know what number I can say is enough, but [the payout] is not something that I’m overly excited about,” he said. “The income replacement won’t be what we’ve been used to … so that’s a little disappointing to me.”
Wightman says a number of his symptoms, including loss of feeling in his feet and vision impairments, weren’t included in his injury benefit assessment, so he plans to appeal to the program’s medical review board. He says he’s also seeking legal advice.
Ross Wightman has limited ability in his arms and wrists, but has improved and is able to take on more activities independently. (Jon Hernandez/CBC)
“If the lump sum was huge, then maybe the income replacement is something we could make work, but the way things have been presented so far, it’s not something we’ve decided on yet,” he said.
Vaccine compensation
Prior to the pandemic, Canada was the only G7 country that did not have a vaccine injury compensation program.
The country’s mass COVID-19 immunization plan spurred the development of the VISP, said Dr. Kumanan Wilson, an internal medicine physician at Ottawa Hospital who was consulted as a subject matter expert for the program. Wilson is also the CEO of CANImmunize, the tech company behind the digital vaccine tracking platform of the same name, and an expert in vaccine hesitancy.
Vials of Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines sit empty at the Junction Chemist Pharmacy, in Toronto, June 2021. Prior to the pandemic, Canada was the only G7 country that did not have a vaccine injury compensation program. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
“We did tell people you need to get vaccinated, and in many cases mandates were brought in,” he said. “We needed to hold up our end of the bargain, and that was making sure that these individuals were treated fairly if something untoward were to happen.
“I’m a very strong believer in the safety of vaccines. They go through rigorous phase three trials, but rare events can happen, and in those circumstances, those individuals need to be supported,” he added.
Wilson notes risks of COVID-19 infection far outweigh the risks of adverse reactions to vaccines. The AstraZeneca vaccine was largely phased out in Canada after blood clots appeared in recipients at a rate of about one in 100,000.
Wilson said there were challenges early on in the development of the program determining what should be considered a serious illness that’s associated with a vaccine. GBS was among the disorders discussed, given that it comes with severe health challenges that can often be overcome after a number of years.
“I’m encouraged to see that condition was compensated, that they erred on the side of a liberal interpretation of serious and permanent harm,” he said.
As to whether or not recipients will be happy with the assessed payouts from the program, Wilson said they can exercise their right to appeal, while noting that VISP is still in its early stages.
“There will likely be a lot of adaptations made based on the experiences of the initial claims.”
OTTAWA – Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the Canada carbon rebate for small businesses will be tax-free.
In a statement posted to X late Tuesday, Freeland clarified the parameters of the program after an advocacy group for small business raised concerns that the rebate would be a taxable benefit.
Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, posted on X soon after that post that he had received a call from Freeland, who offered “assurance” that the rebate would be tax-free.
In a letter to Freeland Nov. 6, the CFIB said it had initially been told by the Canada Revenue Agency the rebate would be tax-free, but was subsequently told by the Finance Department that the rebate was actually taxable.
The Canadian Press contacted both the CRA and Freeland’s office for clarity and comment Monday and Tuesday. The CRA said it would have information available mid-week.
Freeland’s office did not respond to requests Monday or Tuesday until a spokesperson sent a link to the minister’s social media post just after it was posted Tuesday night.
In his letter to Freeland last week, Kelly said the rebate is for taxes paid by small firms, not a “gift” to small firms from general revenue.
“This would be akin to levying income taxes on one’s income tax return,” he said.
Kelly also said 83 per cent of the group’s 97,000 members want the carbon price to be repealed.
The Canada carbon rebate for small businesses was a measure introduced in this year’s federal budget, in which $2.5 billion of carbon price revenue would be paid back to some 600,000 small and medium-sized businesses.
In his letter, Kelly commended Freeland and thanked her for her work in getting the rebate done.
“While this will likely not change the fact that … our members now oppose the carbon tax, the rebate will help government meet its long-outstanding promise to small firms and restore some degree of revenue neutrality,” Kelly wrote.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. syphilis epidemic slowed dramatically last year, gonorrhea cases fell and chlamydia cases remained below prepandemic levels, according to federal data released Tuesday.
The numbers represented some good news about sexually transmitted diseases, which experienced some alarming increases in past years due to declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing and treatment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Last year, cases of the most infectious stages of syphilis fell 10% from the year before — the first substantial decline in more than two decades. Gonorrhea cases dropped 7%, marking a second straight year of decline and bringing the number below what it was in 2019.
“I’m encouraged, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way” about the nation’s epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, said the CDC’s Dr. Jonathan Mermin. “Something is working.”
More than 2.4 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported last year — 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, 600,000 of gonorrhea, and more than 209,000 of syphilis.
Syphilis is a particular concern. For centuries, it was a common but feared infection that could deform the body and end in death. New cases plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when infection-fighting antibiotics became widely available, and they trended down for a half century after that. By 2002, however, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected.
The new report found cases of syphilis in their early, most infectious stages dropped 13% among gay and bisexual men. It was the first such drop since the agency began reporting data for that group in the mid-2000s.
However, there was a 12% increase in the rate of cases of unknown- or later-stage syphilis — a reflection of people infected years ago.
Cases of syphilis in newborns, passed on from infected mothers, also rose. There were nearly 4,000 cases, including 279 stillbirths and infant deaths.
“This means pregnant women are not being tested often enough,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.
What caused some of the STD trends to improve? Several experts say one contributor is the growing use of an antibiotic as a “morning-after pill.” Studies have shown that taking doxycycline within 72 hours of unprotected sex cuts the risk of developing syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
In June, the CDC started recommending doxycycline as a morning-after pill, specifically for gay and bisexual men and transgender women who recently had an STD diagnosis. But health departments and organizations in some cities had been giving the pills to people for a couple years.
Some experts believe that the 2022 mpox outbreak — which mainly hit gay and bisexual men — may have had a lingering effect on sexual behavior in 2023, or at least on people’s willingness to get tested when strange sores appeared.
Another factor may have been an increase in the number of health workers testing people for infections, doing contact tracing and connecting people to treatment. Congress gave $1.2 billion to expand the workforce over five years, including $600 million to states, cities and territories that get STD prevention funding from CDC.
Last year had the “most activity with that funding throughout the U.S.,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.
However, Congress ended the funds early as a part of last year’s debt ceiling deal, cutting off $400 million. Some people already have lost their jobs, said a spokeswoman for Harvey’s organization.
Still, Harvey said he had reasons for optimism, including the growing use of doxycycline and a push for at-home STD test kits.
Also, there are reasons to think the next presidential administration could get behind STD prevention. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. HIV epidemic by 2030. (Federal health officials later clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections — fewer than 3,000 a year.)
There were nearly 32,000 new HIV infections in 2022, the CDC estimates. But a boost in public health funding for HIV could also also help bring down other sexually transmitted infections, experts said.
“When the government puts in resources, puts in money, we see declines in STDs,” Klausner said.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t know precisely when a volcano is about to erupt, but they can sometimes pick up telltale signs.
That happened two years ago with the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed rivers of glowing orange molten lava, geologists detected small earthquakes nearby and other signs, and they warned residents on Hawaii‘s Big Island.
Now a study of the volcano’s lava confirms their timeline for when the molten rock below was on the move.
“Volcanoes are tricky because we don’t get to watch directly what’s happening inside – we have to look for other signs,” said Erik Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University, who was not involved in the study.
Upswelling ground and increased earthquake activity near the volcano resulted from magma rising from lower levels of Earth’s crust to fill chambers beneath the volcano, said Kendra Lynn, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study in Nature Communications.
When pressure was high enough, the magma broke through brittle surface rock and became lava – and the eruption began in late November 2022. Later, researchers collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.
The chemical makeup of certain crystals within the lava indicated that around 70 days before the eruption, large quantities of molten rock had moved from around 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the summit to a mile (2 kilometers) or less beneath, the study found. This matched the timeline the geologists had observed with other signs.
The last time Mauna Loa erupted was in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists consider to be active are found in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast.
Worldwide, around 585 volcanoes are considered active.
Scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can make a “forecast,” said Ben Andrews, who heads the global volcano program at the Smithsonian Institution and who was not involved in the study.
Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts – informed “probabilities” that an event will occur. And better data about the past behavior of specific volcanos can help researchers finetune forecasts of future activity, experts say.
(asterisk)We can look for similar patterns in the future and expect that there’s a higher probability of conditions for an eruption happening,” said Klemetti Gonzalez.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
