Like tens of thousands of Brits, Clare Bowie’s life was turned upside down during the Covid pandemic.
But the 56-year-old from Dumbarton, near Glasgow, did not have to fight for her life because of the virus.
Instead, she was left paralyzed from the chest down after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine in April 2021.
The mother-of-three worked as an administrative officer at a submarine base for the Ministry of Defense for 37 years before being forced to retire on medical grounds due to loss of mobility in her hands.
However, Mrs Bowie’s frustration lies with the ‘woefully inadequate’ Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, which does not cover the cost of her mortgage or the cost of modifying her home for her level of disability.
Clare Bowie, 56, was left paralyzed from the chest down after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine in April 2021.
Dave Bowie, 55, pictured, who was previously in the Royal Navy, now works as an administrator for the Ministry of Defense and looks after Mrs Bowie.
Mrs Bowie received the AstraZeneca vaccine on April 17, 2021 and, two weeks later, was hospitalized on May 2 at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley with mysterious spreading paralysis.
“He was completely paralyzed up to chest level and it was spreading. I began to lose the ability to breathe and speak. He was terrifying,” Mrs Bowie recalls.
Doctors initially thought Ms Bowie had Guillian-Barré syndrome, which is a very rare and serious condition affecting the nerves that has been linked to complications with the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
But after six MRI scans at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, doctors diagnosed acute disseminated encephalitis complicated by transverse myelitis (ADEM), a condition that causes inflammation in the brain and spinal cord.
It can follow a minor infection and is the result of the immune system going crazy and attacking the nerves.
The doctors did everything they could to control the swelling. In the end, a combination of steroids and other drugs helped half.
The doctors did everything they could to control the swelling. Eventually, a combination of steroids and other drugs helped stop the deterioration.
But I still couldn’t move anything from my chest down for three months.
Mrs Bowie was paralyzed from the chest down for three months until she was offered rituximab, an immunosuppressive drug that has shown promise in combating severe Covid infections.
In July 2021, still in Glasgow hospital, Mrs Bowie remembers a consultant coming to her hospital bed with a student and telling him to try moving his toes.
‘He said to try moving my toes, and my left toe moved. I thought it was a spasm, but I tried again and it moved. “I hadn’t moved a muscle since May 2 and by July 17 I could move my left big toe and my left foot,” she said.
But, due to muscle wasting, the road to recovery was long and slow.
After spending months in rehabilitation being moved with a hoist starting in September 2021, she finally gathered enough strength to stand with a zimmer frame and transfer to a wheelchair and was discharged in December 2021.
‘I do physiotherapy every day so I can walk. But it’s probably about 20 steps. But it’s actually enough to take me from bed to bathroom to living room couch. I can get there. That’s good, it makes a big difference,” he said.
‘If I’m completely honest, I’m just grateful to be alive. At first it was very scary, because no one knew what was happening to me,” he added.
Mrs Bowie, pictured with Nathan, 22, and Michael, 19, on her last holiday before getting the vaccine.
The graph shows the cumulative number of Covid jabs administered in the UK since the pandemic began, the percentage of each age group who have received a jab (bottom left) and the number of each brand of Covid vaccine administered.
Doctors never had any doubt that his paralysis was caused by the vaccine.
Mrs Bowie, mother of Nathan, 22, Cecilia, 21, and Michael, 19, remembers the consultant turning up and immediately telling her: “I think it’s Guillian-Barré syndrome and it’s because you had the vaccine.”
“I actually argued with him,” Mrs Bowie said. ‘I really couldn’t believe it could be the vaccine.
‘He said it is 100 percent the vaccine. He was absolutely definitive about it and I’m very grateful for that because I guess that’s why I got the vaccine damage payment.”
The Vaccine Injury Payment Scheme, which has been around since the 1970s, offers individuals, or their families, a tax-free sum of £120,000.
Established in 1979, the policy covers a range of Government-recommended vaccines, including measles, mumps and rubella, and aims to reassure people that, in the unlikely event that something goes wrong, the State will provide support .
Mrs Bowie’s husband Dave, 55, applied for the scheme in October 2021, while she was still in hospital. But the money wasn’t in his account until February 2023, a year and a half after he applied.
“It took a while and we really don’t hear from them,” he said.
But after going through the application process for the government scheme, Mrs Bowie says it is “woefully inadequate” and “traumatic for people”.
She said: ‘You think £120,000 is a huge amount. I’ve been in public service my whole life, I wasn’t used to that money. But the bottom line is that you don’t pay off your mortgage or modify your house.
In 1979, the scheme gave £10,000 to people injured or killed by vaccines; This amount has been increased several times, but the current level (£120,000) was set in 2007.
But according to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, that equates to £195,183, meaning people are now losing around £75,000 in cash.
She said: ‘They review his medical records. I’ve talked to people who have been denied because something happened to them 10 years ago. But I’ve been lucky and I’m a very healthy person, so you can’t put it down to anything else.’
Strict eligibility criteria mean those affected must have died or been 60 percent disabled due to a vaccine.
This means that a person who is theoretically considered only 59 percent disabled will not receive a cent.
The extent of a person’s disability is based on a doctor’s evaluation and can include both a physical disability, such as the loss of a limb, and a mental disability, such as a decline in cognitive function.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is a genetically modified common cold virus that used to infect chimpanzees. It has been modified to weaken it so it does not cause disease in people and loaded with the coronavirus spike protein gene, which Covid-19 uses to invade human cells.
It also means that there is no increase in the sum received.
So, for example, someone who is completely paralyzed by a vaccine would receive the same £120,000 as someone who lost a leg.
Going blind or deaf is considered 100 percent disabled.
‘People who have lost someone receive the same amount as me and if you have a 59 per cent disability you receive nothing. That horrifies me,’ she added.
Mrs Bowie admits her condition is “quite extreme” and says she has never had a medical professional doubt that it was the vaccine that caused it and she has only received support.
But he worries about those fighting to prove that the vaccine could be to blame for his disability.
‘Can you imagine what happens to people whose heart suddenly doesn’t work properly, or every time they get up they get dizzy? Nobody believes them. “Their lives have completely changed and they receive nothing, not even basic NHS support,” he said.
‘The plan is very unfair. They will tell someone they are not disabled enough, but the person could have been a marathon runner and now they can’t walk to the shops. ‘
“Most people have mortgages for a few hundred thousand, so this figure is nowhere near paying off a normal mortgage.”
Mr Bowie, who was previously in the Royal Navy, now works as an administrator for the Ministry of Defense and looks after Mrs Bowie.