Vaccine victims criticize that submitting an application for compensation is still far too time-consuming. They demand more clarification and treatment offers.
More than 17 million doses of vaccine have been administered in Switzerland. For some vaccinated people, this resulted in long-lasting side effects.
Georgios Kefalas / Keystone
As he leaves, he is self-critical: Christoph Berger, outgoing head of the Federal Vaccination Commission, admitted mistakes in an interview with the “Sonntags-Zeitung”. Regarding the vaccine damage, he said: “The skepticism is there and there are complications. Those affected must be taken seriously and they should be helped.” Are these the words of satisfaction that those affected have been waiting for?
«Respect for his insight. But compassion doesn’t help us,” says Gregor Haab, President of the Post-Vaccine Syndrome Association. The association advocates for the interests of people who have suffered serious side effects from the Covid-19 vaccination. “It is not enough if he appeals to an anonymous authority in his statements that these people need to be helped.”
Haab says this not only as president, but also as someone affected. Both his wife and daughter suffered serious side effects after the vaccination: severe dizziness, poor vision, a damaged thyroid and severe fatigue and migraines. According to Haab, they were unable to work for two years because of this.
Haab’s family and the other members of the club feel abandoned by society, by politics, by the authorities – and also by Berger, whom they continue to see as responsible. «Christoph Berger would have had enough opportunity to support those affected in recent years. So far, all attempts to contact us with him and the vaccination commission have been ignored. Interdisciplinary clarification and treatment offers are now expected for those affected in the hospitals.
Berger, on the other hand, is of the opinion that the existing offers of help for those affected are sufficient. “But you also need the willingness to accept it.” Berger does not believe it is necessary to have a separate, official contact point for Covid vaccination consequences, as the association demands: “Vaccination side effects involve a wide range of symptoms that can vary greatly from person to person. It makes more sense to address the symptoms according to their type in order to be able to make specific therapy suggestions.”
340 requests for compensation were received
The discussion shows that the gaps are still there three years after the pandemic. The first compensation payment that the federal government announced did not change this. At the end of September, a person received compensation of 12,500 francs and compensation of 1,360 francs because of damage caused by a corona vaccine.
For Haab, the payment shows that serious vaccination side effects are a reality. But that doesn’t mean that everyone affected gets their rights. “Submitting such an application is extremely complex and lengthy. You have to submit all medical reports, every insurance benefit statement, every medication prescription.” You also have to be able to prove a causal connection, which is very difficult without legal help. “Many of those affected do not yet have the strength for it, or they lack the financial resources,” says Haab.
According to the Interior Department (EDI), around 340 people had submitted such a request for compensation or satisfaction by the end of October. That’s only about 20 more since the first compensation. Around 70 applications are pending. The remaining 270 were rejected because they were incomplete and did not meet the legal requirements for the applications.
The association criticizes that the rejections are not justified transparently. The EDI, however, emphasizes that no application that met the formal criteria has been rejected so far. One should be aware that those affected often find themselves in a very difficult situation. “Nevertheless, we are required to determine the damage suffered in a procedure that meets the requirements of the rule of law, which often involves a certain amount of effort for the person concerned,” the department states.
The applications are first formally examined by the General Secretariat of the FDHA and then the Federal Office of Public Health examines whether there is a causal connection between the vaccination and the complaints.
It is unclear how many people are affected
Haab also submitted a request for his daughter. They spent about a year compiling the documents and establishing a causal connection between the vaccination and the symptoms. In the end, the application filled two federal folders. The decision is still pending.
It is still unclear how many people in Switzerland are affected by corona vaccine injuries. Around 17 million doses of vaccine were administered in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Since then, around 17,700 suspected cases of adverse vaccination effects have been reported to Swissmedic, of which over 7,000 were serious. While doctors are obliged to report any side effects they observe to Swissmedic, private individuals can also do this themselves. The reporting person also assesses the severity themselves. Therefore, the numbers do not really allow any conclusions to be drawn about the actual number of cases.
Haab from the Postvac association assumes that the number of unreported cases is large, since in general only around 10 percent of cases of drug side effects are reported. Swissmedic, on the other hand, stated upon request that the underreporting rate for Covid-19 vaccines is likely to be lower than for other medicines due to public attention. “But we cannot estimate this specifically; the total number of these undesirable effects in the population is not known.”
The data on the frequency of vaccination side effects is still relatively thin. This is also because there is still no uniform definition of post-vaccine syndrome and its symptoms. There are only estimates, for example from the Marburg University Hospital. This offers a special consultation for people with long-lasting consequences of vaccination and assumes that for every 100,000 people vaccinated against Covid, 20 to 30 people will suffer serious health problems.
However, even with the broader recording of vaccination side effects, there is still a consensus in science and among the regulatory authorities that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the advantages and that the risks of infection with the coronavirus are still significantly higher than the risks of a Covid-19 vaccination.
Haab’s wife and daughter are feeling better again after three years and can manage a somewhat normal everyday life. But they have not yet fully recovered – and there were around 50,000 francs left behind in costs that the family had to pay themselves because many of the therapies are only available abroad or still involve “off label use” treatments and are therefore not covered by them Insurance will be taken over.
Haab believes that there are still many more support offers for those affected by Long Covid than for those who suffer from long-term consequences after a Covid vaccination. It shouldn’t stay like this: “For politicians and the authorities, the pandemic is over. For us only when we have fully recovered from the injuries inflicted by the vaccination urgently recommended by the authorities.”
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