Maria Dunning-Ballagh lays out the multitude of pills she takes on a daily basis, just to manage the chronic pain she lives with. “So, from the second I wake up, by body is in this screaming pain, from my shoulders to my toes. I get electrical shocks all over my body, throughout the day. Restless legs. I’ve been diagnosed with Sjogren’s Disease, which means I make no moisture, no saliva, I can’t cry. I’ve also lost most of my teeth,” says the Walkerton woman. The normally healthy Dunning-Ballagh, says all these symptoms started three weeks after she received her first COVID-19 vaccine, on April 27, 2021. She was working three jobs at that time, but has had to quit them all, due to the constant, chronic pain. “I’ve tried everything from ketamine injections, to Reset, and nothing has helped the pain,” she says. A frustrated Dunning-Ballagh applied to the government’s Vaccine Injury Support Program back in January of 2023, but in three years hasn’t progressed past Phase I. Which is why, when Conservative MP Dean Allison invited COVID injury victims to share their stories, at an inquiry, she applied. She wasn’t one of the 50 picked to testify, but tuned in, only to be disappointed by, what she calls, the anti-vaccine, anti-mandate politicization of her injuries. Especially the testimony of an American anti-mandate, anti-vaccination politician, and an American doctor, recently stripped of his medical license. “I was more than disappointed, I was disgusted, I felt betrayed, and duped,” she says. Dunning-Ballagh says there isn’t currently a place for people like her, that were amongst the 12,000 Canadians who suffered serious adverse effects from the COVID vaccine, but who aren’t anti-vaccine, or anti-Covid mandates. “I go into a doctor and I even hint that it might be a vaccine injury, and they automatically think I’m an anti-vaxxer, I’m against mandates, I’m against science, I’m against vaccines, but I am far from it. I had my initial vaccine, and then my doctor and I decided it was smart for me to continue to get vaccines, because now I’m immune compromised, and I’ve not got any reactions to any of the other vaccines. Because science does work. I’m a believer in it. I believe, overall, the vaccines helped most everybody,” she says. She fears the Allison Inquiry set back her cause, and that of others, who are trying to get the government to help them, through the newly named, Vaccine Impact Assistance Program. “The large number of people that were vaccinated in such a short time, there were bound to be injuries. That’s what we need to stay focused on, us injured, and ensuring we get the care and help that we deserve and need from the government.” Dunning says while her physician supported her application to the Vaccine Injury Assistance Program, no doctor has directly diagnosed her chronic pain, as a direct result of the COVID vaccine. Approximately, 28 million Canadians received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. 58,000 Canadians reported adverse effects, 12,000 of those were considered serious effects. 3500 Canadians have applied to the government’s Vaccine Injury Assistance Program, but only 252 claims have been approved for compensation, totalling a combined $21 million. Conservative MP Dean Allison who launched the inquiry, said on the final day last week, that the inquiry “was intended to begin a conversation that should’ve begun years ago,” and that “no matter what people think about [COVID-19] or the vaccines or public policy, compassion should never be controversial.”
