Role of Covid vaccine in Waterford man's death 'cannot be ruled out or ruled out', says pathologist

A coroner has reserved his verdict on the death of a 23-year-old man described by his mother as a ‘perfectly healthy boy’, who complained of feeling unwell immediately after receiving a Covid vaccine and died five days later.

Cork City Coroner Philip Comyn said he had much to consider after hearing three days of evidence at the inquest into the death of Roy Butler of O’Reilly Road, Cork Road, Waterford, who died at Cork University Hospital on August 17, 2021.

On Thursday, the third day of the inquest at Cork City Coroner’s Court, Deputy State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster said Mr Butler died from a spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage.

She found no evidence to explain the cause of the hemorrhage, as he had not suffered any trauma such as a head or skull injury and had no underlying pathology.

Dr Bolster said the death of a healthy young man like Mr Butler from a spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage was extremely rare and she had only encountered him once or twice before, realizing 20,000 autopsies over 30 years. In these cases, the person was elderly.

Asked by Ciara Davin BL, for the Butler family, whether in the absence of any other explanation and by a process of elimination, it was reasonable to conclude that Mr Butler’s death was due to the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine Covid, Dr. Bolster responded. she couldn’t say that.

Pressed by Ms Davin if she could rule out Mr Butler having received the Covid vaccine as the cause of his illness, his seizures and ultimately a brain haemorrhage which was to prove fatal, Dr Bolster said she could neither exclude nor affirm such a possibility. .

“I can’t rule it out, but I also can’t say that (receiving the vaccine) was the cause of Mr. Butler’s hemorrhage,” Dr. Bolster said, adding that there were not enough cases in the medical literature to allow him to draw any conclusion. between spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage and the vaccine.

“It’s extremely rare. This (establishing causation) should be based on sound scientific evidence. I can’t say more, I can’t rule it out or rule it out and the correct procedure was to contact the National Drug Advisory Board,” said Dr. Bolster, who agreed with Ms. Davin that he s This was a “confusing” case.

Consultant neuropathologist at CUH, Dr Niamh Bermingham, worked on Mr Butler’s autopsy, and she also described Mr Butler’s death as “very unusual” in a young man as they found no cause or explanation for his cerebral hemorrhage.

In her submissions, Ms. Davin argued that in the absence of other explanations and by a process of elimination, the only explanation on the balance of probabilities, given the temporal proximity between Mr. Butler’s death and getting the vaccine, was that his death was due to receiving the vaccine. vaccine.

She asked the coroner to return what she believed to be the only appropriate verdict: a verdict of medical accident.

Janssen’s lawyer, John Lucey SC, told the coroner he was “constrained by the medical evidence” which did not support a link between the death and the vaccine.

He said returning a verdict of death by medical misadventure would be “totally misconstrued” and the only verdicts available in this case were either an open verdict or a narrative verdict simply detailing the circumstances of Mr Butler’s death.

Mr Comyn thanked both lawyers for their arguments and said he would reserve his decision but would email his decision to lawyers for Janssen and the Butler family.

He sympathized with the Butler family over “the tragic loss of Roy in such difficult and unexpected circumstances”.