In China, a Nurse With Vaccine Side Effects Seeks Justice

.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has aggressively promoted domestically produced COVID-19 vaccines since 2021, claiming it has vaccinated more than a billion people in China.

In recent months a debate has been spurred in China on the effectiveness of the vaccines and their potential side effects.

Many Chinese who say they experienced side effects as a result of the domestic vaccines are saying that their voices have not been heard and have been repressed by the regime.

One such person is Liang Hui, a former nurse from Jiaxing city, who spoke to the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times. She says she developed symptoms of asthma and other health issues after receiving the Chinese vaccine.

Liang worked as an operating room nurse at Jiaxing Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital. She says that in January 2021, she received a COVID-19 vaccine because it was mandated by her workplace.

“The head nurse made it very clear: no vaccine, no work,“ she said. ”I had no choice.”

Shortly thereafter, Liang said she began experiencing severe respiratory symptoms, such as coughing, throat irritation, chest pain, and difficulty breathing. She sought treatment from hospitals in several cities and was eventually diagnosed with bronchial asthma, lung nodules, hypothyroidism, mitral and tricuspid valve insufficiency, and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

Liang said that she has accumulated around 100,000 yuan ($13,940) in medical debt. Now weighing just around 80 pounds, she faces daily medical costs of 6,000 to 7,000 yuan ($836 to $975).

The regime imposed widespread lockdowns and sent medical workers door-to-door to vaccinate the Chinese population.

Information obtained by the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times from a Chinese grassroots group that supports those who experienced side effects from the vaccine has recorded more than 3,000 suspected cases since September 2023. Documented side effects include severe reactions, including heart attacks, strokes, leukemia, lupus, asthma, diabetes, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The group operates underground due to constant surveillance from the CCP.

The Epoch Times was not able to independently verify the group’s findings.

“They’d call it a coincidence or say it wasn’t their responsibility,” she said.

She made three attempts to travel to the nation’s capital, Beijing, to petition the authorities for help. During her first two attempts, local police intercepted her at the train station and forcibly sent her back. On her third attempt, she took an unregistered taxi into Beijing and relied on friends to help her avoid being caught.

In China, petitioning is an administrative system for hearing complaints and grievances from the public. The National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration is located in Beijing, and therefore, many petitioners travel to the capital city to seek justice for their grievances.

In practice, the petitioning process is merely a formality. It is widely reported by human rights groups that the regime routinely dismisses petitioners and often persecutes those who are dissatisfied with the CCP’s authoritarian rule.

The local police also visited Liang’s family, warning that she could be charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” an ambiguous criminal charge often filed against the communist regime’s critics and dissidents. The pressure put a strain on her family relationships, she said.

Liang said that many others in her support group shared similar experiences after petitioning to authorities, including Zhao Yaqing, who was allegedly sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for seeking compensation after developing leukemia; He Cixiang, who was allegedly forced into psychiatric confinement by the police repeatedly; and Qian Dalong, who has allegedly been under Beijing’s strict surveillance for more than three years.

China CDC and regime officials maintain that the vaccines are safe and effective, side effects are rare and manageable, and that legal protections and investigation processes exist for affected individuals. However, many victims report significant barriers to accessing these channels, according to Chinese legal experts.

“On one hand, authorities emphasize the vaccines’ safety and efficacy, but on the other hand, they refuse to establish a transparent compensation mechanism for addressing potential health risks,” Zhao said. “Suppressing victims’ voices with ‘stability maintenance’ tactics causes secondary harm.”

“Stability maintenance” refers to the CCP’s tactics in quelling social unrest to maintain the regime’s stability in China.

Zhao pointed out that Liang’s case also underscores a broader crisis. The CCP’s public health campaign prioritizes scale over safety, leaving individuals such as Liang to bear the consequences in silence, with little recourse under an authoritarian communist regime.

Feeling hopeless, Liang said that she has contemplated taking her own life, but holds back each time.

“I haven’t gotten justice yet. I’m not ready to give up,” she said. “I just hope, while I’m still alive, someone will listen to our stories.”

.