‘Torture’: Sydney mum’s painful vaccine injury wait drags on

A Sydney mother is bedridden and in agony from what specialists say is a Covid-19 vaccine injury. Her horror story keeps getting worse.

Sandra Byron will have to deal with her crippling affliction for the rest of her life.

She spends her days mainly chairbound or bedridden, suffering chronic pain, with her limbs hypersensitive and swollen like balloons.

She carries 20kg of fluid from lymphoedema, a brain injury and severe gastrointestinal injuries.

What made her this way? According to three separate specialists, it was the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine she was given in May 2021.

The agony felt by the previously “perfectly healthy” 59-year-old Sydneysider is being compounded by an excruciating wait for compensation.

It has been almost two years of hell for Ms Byron and her family, who have spent over a year battling for compensation through the Government’s Covid-19 Vaccine Injury Compensation Scheme.

A senior federal government minister has appealed to his colleagues regarding concerns around the severely vaccine-injured Sydney mother’s claim for compensation as her family’s frustration boils over.

In February, Education Minister Jason Clare wrote to Government Services Minister Bill Shorten and Health Minister Mark Butler regarding the case of Sandra Byron, a mother severely injured by her AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in May 2021.

The scheme, administered through Services Australia, sells itself as being a “simple, streamlined process to compensate eligible people, without the need for complex legal proceedings”.

Ms Byron, who has been rejected by the scheme and is waiting on the outcome of an appeal, says it’s anything but.

In her initial claim deemed “not payable” in August, three separate specialists linked her capillary leak syndrome, and Guillain-Barre syndrome, to her vaccination.

Other doctors, including those who treated her less than an hour after she was vaccinated, even submitted her case to the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI).

Ms Byron, once a happy, healthy mother and previously the leading photography curator at the Art Gallery of NSW, now waits for the outcome of her appeal, which was lodged with the help of a lawyer on November 21.

Ms Byron and her husband, Ashley Russell, have spent recent weeks lobbying the department, Mr Shorten and Mr Butler directly.

But in early February, their cause was picked up by Mr Clare, who wrote to Mr Shorten inquiring about the progress of their claim.

A month later, a response to Mr Clare from Mr Shorten offered little....

Very unfortunate.

But why are you suddenly bringing up these AstraZeneca vaccine issues from 2 years ago, Sir Nail?

Do you have anything more up to date (that isn't a meme or Facebook post)?

Carl D wrote on Apr 24^th, 2023 at 9:22pm:


“I want to be very clear – I’m not anti-vax – I’m just incredibly unlucky ...,” Ms Byron said.

So why is lastnail using this poor woman's bad luck to push his ignorant anti-vax agenda?

Why disrespect her like this?