Widower of BBC presenter who died from Covid-19 vaccine complications launches legal action against AstraZeneca on behalf of 75 people whose ‘relatives passed away or suffered jab-related injuries’
- Lisa Shaw died of ‘vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia’ in May 2021
- Husband says he tried for two years to engage with UK leaders about her death
- ARE YOU JOINING THE ACTION AGAINST ASTRAZENECA? Email tips@dailymail.com and natasha.anderson@mailonline.com
The widower of a BBC presenter who died from coronavirus vaccine complications has launched legal action against pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca on behalf of 75 people whose ‘relatives died or suffered injuries related to the jab’.
Mother-of-one Lisa Shaw, 44, died from ‘vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia’ in May 2021, about a week after receiving her first Covid jab. She worked for BBC Radio Newcastle.
Lawyers for her husband, Gareth Eve, reportedly sent pre-action protocol letters to AstraZeneca last year on the behalf of nearly 75 people who allege that their relatives died or suffered injuries related to the vaccine.
Her husband, Gareth Eve, reportedly spent two years trying to get the Government, MPs and three prime ministers to address what happened to Lisa and now feels he has ‘no alternative’ but to pursue legal action.
Mr Eve, who is vaccinated himself, says the lawsuit is not about ‘whether somebody is anti-vax’ but about those who lost loved ones and have been ‘made to feel like it’s a dirty secret’.
‘It’s not about Covid, it’s not about how many lives the Covid vaccination has saved, it’s about what this vaccination has done to Lisa and other families,’ he told the BBC.
Mr Eve said he sought legal action after two years of failed attempts to contact officials, alleging no one had ‘reached out or engaged with us at all’.
He reiterated that he and the fellow claimants are ‘not crackpots or conspiracy theorists’ but instead family members who lost someone because of the vaccine.
‘These things have happened to too many people and we’re made to feel like it’s a dirty secret, that we’re talking about something we shouldn’t be talking about.’
The father of one said the lawsuit is aimed at drawing attention to ‘what this vaccination has done to Lisa and other families’.
He added that it’s established that his wife’s death was ’caused by AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccination’.
Mr Eve said he is seeking ‘some sort of acknowledgement or recognition that these deaths have occurred’.
He also stated that the complaint is not about financial compensation because no amount of money is ‘going to bring my son’s mam back’.
The claimants have taken legal action against AstraZeneca under the Consumer Protection Act 1987.
It is understood that they are pursuing damages on the basis that the Covid vaccine was a ‘defective product in that it was not as safe as consumers generally were reasonably entitled to expect’.
The claimants have also demanded payment under the Government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.
The Government says that if a person is ‘severely disabled’ as a result of a vaccination against certain diseases, they could get a one-off tax-free payment of £120,000.
The Vaccine Damage Payment is not a compensation scheme. Applicants can still take legal action to claim compensation, even if they get a payment from the scheme, the Government says.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was first approved for use in the UK in December 2020 when the Government ordered 100million doses of it as part of its inoculation programme. The jab was rolled out alongside Pfizer’s Covid vaccine.
Ms Shaw died from a vaccine-linked condition that induces brain swelling and bleeding the following May.
A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘More than 144 million Covid vaccines have been given in England, which has helped the country to live with Covid and saved thousands of lives.
‘All vaccines being used in the UK have undergone robust clinical trials and have met the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) strict standards of safety, effectiveness and quality.
‘The Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme (VDPS) provides financial support to help ease the burden on individuals who have, in extremely rare circumstances, been severely disabled or died due to receiving a government-recommended vaccine.’
Similarly, a spokesman for AstraZeneca – declining to comment on pending litigation – told the broadcaster that patient safety is its ‘highest priority’.
The company also reiterated that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has ‘clear and stringent standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines’.
The spokesman added: ‘Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has reported health problems.’
MailOnline has approached AstraZeneca for comment.
One death for every two million jabs in the UK… but each one a tragic loss for their heartbroken families
Seventy-five Brits have been killed by Covid vaccines, official statistics published in February show.
It equates to roughly one death for every 2million jabs dished out in the UK.
Leading experts the claim the low death toll is proof the life-saving vaccines are incredibly safe. They also admitted it could be a slight under-count.
But no matter how low the count, the deaths have taken a heartbreaking toll on the families of those who passed.
Among those whose deaths were linked to Covd jabs includes a ‘wonderful’ mother-of-two, a design graduate and a father who died from an ultra-rare blood clot triggered by AstraZeneca’s jab just ten days before he would have been recommended for an alternative vaccine.
Dawn Woolridge, 36
Dawn Wooldridge, 36, was found dead in her home in June 2021 after having failed to collect her five-year-old son from school.
Her unexpected death, which happened 11 days after Mrs Wooldridge’s first Covid jab, was likely caused as a result of the vaccination, an inquest heard last year.
A postmortem examination showed showed Mrs Wooldridge had been healthy at the time of her death and the toxicology report had found no signs of alcohol or drugs in her system at the time.
The only points noted were inflammation of the heart, fluid in her lungs alongside a small clot on her lungs. These, alongside menstrual irregularity and complaints of pain in her jaw and arm in the days after the vaccine – the pathologist suggested, were linked to myocarditis.
The doctor argued, on the balance of probabilities, that it is more likely than not she died from acute myocarditis due to her recent vaccination.
Concluding the inquest, assistant Coroner Alison McCormick ruled: ‘I give the narrative conclusion that her death was caused by acute myocarditis, due to recent Covid-19 immunisation.’
Tom Dudley, 31
Tom Dudley, 31, who had no underlying health conditions, got his first dose near his home in Sheffield on April 27, 2021.
But the carpet salesman soon began to suffer headaches — a common side effect of the British-made vaccine that normally fades within days.
Two weeks after getting the jab, he was found unresponsive in the early hours at the home he shared with his partner Simone and their two daughters.
The Sheffield United fan was rushed to Northern General Hospital, but doctors said the bleed on his brain was ‘incurable’ and he died three days later.
Britain’s medical regulator recommended under-30s should get an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine in early April when it became clear that younger people were at greater risk of the clots — but it did not widen the advice to under-40s until May 7.
Mr Dudley’s GP said that given his age, lack of underlying conditions and the medical advice at the time, it was appropriate to give him AstraZeneca’s jab.
A medic who treated the father-of-two in hospital following the clot told the inquest it was ‘fair to say’ he would still be alive if he was given a different vaccine.
Coroner Tanyka Rawden recorded his cause of death as a bleed on the brain, caused by the vaccine
Jack Hurn, 26
Jack Hurn, from Redditch, died from ‘catastrophic’ blood clots on his brain two weeks after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine.
The 26-year-old graduate died in June 2021, less than two weeks after receiving the jab at a Dudley vaccine centre.
A week-long inquest at Birmingham Coroner’s Court heard that a GP informed Mr Hurn the risk of blood clots on the brain for his age group was one in 250,000, when NHS guidance had actually estimated it to be one in 50,000.
The inquest heard the automotive design graduate chose to go ahead with the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on May 29, 2021, after being told there was no Pfizer jab in stock.
Mr Hurn, originally from Devon, began suffering with headaches within days and died on June 11 at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital despite emergency surgery.
Doctors allegedly described him as having ‘catastrophic’ blood clots on the brain.
Emma Brown, HM Area Coroner for Birmingham and Solihull, ruled in a report that Mr Hurn’s death was ‘due to a rare but recognised complication’ of the vaccination.
Kelly Dunley, 38
Kelly Dunley, 38, tragically died after developing a deep vein thrombosis – a type of blood clot – after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid jab, a coroner ruled.
Ms Dunley, from Stoke-on-Trent, had her first jab on March 2, 2021.
She was rushed to Royal Stoke University Hospital on May 17, 2021, after collapsing.
Despite the best efforts of medics she died at the hospital, and a post-mortem found a blood clot in her leg had travelled to her lung.
The examination also found she had a laceration to her liver, which was likely caused by the attempted resuscitation, and an abnormal spleen.
A coroner ruled last year that her death was a pulmonary embolism caused by deep vein thrombosis and linked to ‘complications of the vaccine’.
Oli Akram Hoque, 26
Oli Akram Hoque, 26, from Ilford, died from a rare blood clot weeks after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, an inquest heard.
The trainee solicitor received a dose of the vaccine on March 19, 2021 before suffering increasingly ‘excruciating’ headaches.
His condition deteriorated and resulted in his death at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, on April 15, 2021 – one month before his 27th birthday.
His father told the court that Mr Hoque had gone to the Urgent Treatment Centre located at the Royal London Hospital ten days before his death on April 5.
However, he said his son was was ‘discharged without proper diagnosis or investigation’ with an injection to stop him being sick.
Mr Hogue ‘requested a scan to be carried out but his request was declined’.
He later had a seizure and was taken to Queen’s Hospital where a CT scan identified a blood clot. He was then put on blood thinners and later died in hospital.
Mr Hogue’s only medical history was a childhood asthma diagnosis with no mention of migraines
Britain’s medical regulator recommended under-30s should get an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine in early April when it became clear that younger people were at greater risk of the clots.
Nicola Weideling, 45
Nicola Weideling died of a stroke caused by the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.
The 45-year-old Oxford University Press executive suffered catastrophic bleeds on her brain after being hospitalised with blood clots caused by the vaccine which she had received 24 days before dying, a coroner has ruled.
She had complained to her GP about neck pain but she was not diagnosed with vaccine side effects until she was taken to hospital with several other symptoms of blood clots.
A post-mortem examination showed Mrs Weideling died on May 15, 2021 after suffering a stroke caused by Vaccine-Induced Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT), otherwise known as blood clots caused by a vaccine.
Alpa Tailor, 35
Healthy mother-of-two Alpa Tailor, 35, died from blood clots on her brain caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine, a coroner ruled.
Ms Tailor fell ill just over a week after getting her first dose of the coronavirus jab in March 2021.
St Pancras Coroner’s Court heard that Ms Tailor was complaining of a headache before she suffered stroke-like symptoms including including slurred speech and a facial droop.
She was rushed to hospital on April 8 and quickly diagnosed with the then-new condition known as vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT).
Ms Tailor had surgery to relieve pressure on her brain and whilst doctors initially thought she had responded well to treatment, on April 22, medics discovered she was suffering from massive brain hemorrhaging.
Tragically, the devoted mother – who had the jab to ‘protect her family’ – then died and a post-mortem examination found she had suffered multiple brain clots.