by Sharon Rondeau
(May 16, 2024) — Beginning at 2:00 p.m. EDT Thursday, The Highwire, hosted by Del Bigtree, interviewed the plaintiff and her attorney in a case just filed against AstraZeneca, whose COVID-19 vaccine product was deployed in the United States only in a clinical trial.
Brianne Dressen, who despite severe illness and disability went on to co-found React19.org, a group advocating for those reporting post-COVID-19 vaccination injuries, was Bigtree’s guest, along with Atty. Aaron Siri, the lead attorney for ICAN, The Highwire‘s non-profit organization.
Dressen has testified at Sen. Ron Johnson’s Capitol Hill roundtables about her illness, inability to work and accompanying expenses following vaccination, which the federal government not only encouraged, but also mandated in many workplaces beginning in 2021.
Siri and ICAN are responsible for obtaining thousands of pages of documents from the CDC from COVID-19 trials, including “V-Safe Data” indicating participants’ reported side effects after vaccination.
Bigtree began the broadcast by introducing Dressen and replaying an interview with Dressen and Siri by NewsNation host Chris Cuomo, formerly of CNN, who initially vigorously promoted the vaccines.
On May 3, Cuomo revealed he has been suffering from what he believes is vaccine-related illness from the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and is receiving treatment from a number of clinicians.
Dressen told Cuomo she has been diagnosed with a “severe, progressive neuropathy” which will progress to the end of her life and that she is often unable to perform daily tasks such as assisting her children with their homework.
In the clinical-trial agreement she signed, Dressen said, AstraZeneca promised to provide compensation for any medical expenses incurred as a result of the vaccine but failed to follow through by ignoring her pleas for help.
Finally, Dressen reported on her Twitter feed, AZ offered her a settlement of $1,200.
She has reported her medical expenses as nearly $450,000 annually.
At 2:10, the interview with Cuomo ended, returning to Bigtree’s live interview.
“The reality is I didn’t want to do this,” Dressen told him when he asked why she has decided to sue the company.
“It’s been three and a half years, and my condition is not getting better,” she explained, and that symptoms began “within an hour” after vaccination.
Dressen was a former skiier, mountainclimber and preschool teacher and said she wishes to be “part of the solution” despite her “health, in the condition that it is.”
She praised Cuomo for his newfound pledge to expose the many reports of vaccine-related injuries after his initial stance in lockstep with the mainstream medical establishment and said she is “taking him at his word” to keep his promise.
“The corruption,” she said, was the stark “reality” she faced after having received the vaccine.
On Tuesday, Dressen tweeted her story trending on “X,” formerly Twitter.
On April 30, The Independent reported that AstraZeneca “has admitted that its widely used Covid vaccine, branded Covishield, can cause rare side effects including blood clots and low platelet count.”
Overseas, The Times of India, The Telegraph and Deccan Herald have covered Dressen’s story. Domestically, The Miami Herald, The Blaze and Bloomberg Law have issued reports.
The case filing can be found here.