Major case on vaccine injury reporting moves forward

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that a whistleblower’s lawsuit against a hospital system for refusing to report vaccine injuries will move forward.

When the COVID-19 shots were rolled out in December 2020, Deb Conrad was working as a physician assistant at United Memorial Medical Center (UMMC), one of the hospitals in the Rochester Regional Health (RRH) system. Conrad began to notice adverse events in patients directly following the injections, including breakthrough infections and deaths. 

However, Conrad noticed that these adverse events were going unreported. Under federal law, medical providers who administer COVID-19 vaccines must report adverse events patients suffer after getting a vaccine to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Importantly, they are not required to prove that the vaccine caused the event—only to report what occurred. As a condition for administering vaccines, providers must sign an agreement with the CDC pledging both to report adverse events and to train their staff on how to do so.

"The VAERS system and the reports sent to this system from providers and the public offer critical information that helps the CDC and the FDA to rapidly identify safety signals for vaccines that may be harmful or ineffective after release on the population and also documents the event/symptoms that occurred following an individual's receipt of a vaccine," Conrad explained. "This is a permanent record which includes a permanent number given after the report is verified by the CDC. Medwatch for medications and VAERS for vaccines are the two critical systems developed to help keep the public safe from potentially unsafe products after release to the population following clinical trials."

When she saw that RRH was neither reporting adverse events to VAERS nor training its staff to do so, Conrad took it upon herself to begin filing VAERS reports after her shifts. She collaborated with UMMC’s lead emergency physician, Dr. Danielle Notebaert, who helped identify patients in the ER with potential vaccine-related injuries. By May 2021, Conrad had submitted over 160 reports. She also began training other hospital staff members to recognize and report patients with possibly vaccine-related adverse events to VAERS.

Hospital: Stop being ‘anti-vaxxy’

Conrad repeatedly reminded hospital administrators of the reporting requirement and even offered to take on the responsibility herself. But UMMC leadership showed no interest. Internal emails revealed that administrators dismissed adverse event reports as insignificant, citing the overall volume of vaccinations. In one message dated May 6, 2021, higher-ups discussed a vaccine-related skin reaction but chose not to notify their teams.

When Conrad asked to be allowed to continue reporting, she was told to “dial it back” and limit reports to her own patients. At one point, administrators accused her of sounding “anti-vaxxy”:

“In reading the few emails you sent me... it does come across a bit… uh very vaccine...ugh I won’t say very but it comes out quite, it comes out quite almost anti-vaxxy, right... We are very much advocating for patients to receive the vaccine... We want people to understand that on the whole this is a very safe vaccine and that the science supports that.”

She was further instructed to “tow [sic] the company line”:

“Yes, just like other vaccines, there are folks that are going to be negatively impacted but, on the whole, we have seen a tremendous benefit... we’re employee providers and we do on some level need to... tow the company line.”

Hospital administrators later told Conrad her VAERS submissions were being audited because they conflicted with RRH’s “approach to the vaccine.” Since she could no longer submit reports for patients under the care of other staff members, she began forwarding reports on those patients to the hospital's leadership for VAERS reporting. Not only were the reports ignored, but, in at least one case, staff refused to record the deceased patient’s vaccination status or list it as a possible contributing cause of death—even though the shot was administered less than 48 hours before the patient died.

Humiliated and fired

In September 2021, UMMC’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tara Gellasch and President Dr. Peter Janes met with Conrad and claimed there were “complaints” from patients or patients’ families about her VAERS reporting. This came as a surprise—Conrad had been recognized for her stellar work and had even been recommended for a seat on the New York State Board for Professional Medical Conduct by the New York State Society of PAs. Nevertheless, the executives threatened to report her for “spreading misinformation about the vaccines.”

Conrad went public about the illegal suppression of VAERS reports. Days later, she was fired from her job. To make an example of her, the hospital humiliated her in front of her colleagues. As she was charting her patients, she was suddenly surrounded by hospital staff, escorted to her workstation to retrieve her personal belongings, and then escorted out of the hospital while closely monitored by HR employees.

The case moves forward

In May 2023, Conrad sued RRH and UMMC under the federal False Claims Act, which prohibits knowingly defrauding the government. Her legal team, the Warner Mendenhall Law Group, argues that RRH violated its contract with the CDC by knowingly failing to report adverse events and falsifying records. The complaint was later amended to include a retaliation claim under the same law.

In response, RRH and UMMC attempted to dismiss the case by arguing that the CDC’s reporting requirement applies only to individuals handling the vaccines—not the hospital system as a whole. But on June 11th, U.S. District Court Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr. denied the motion, allowing the case to proceed.

"I am thrilled that our case will move forward," Conrad told The Gold Report. "As a medical provider, my duty to the patients I serve is first do no harm. We cannot allow organizations to suppress and threaten the providers on the ground from identifying and reporting safety issues related to new medical products and vaccines, especially when given under emergency use authorization and mandated on the population. This compromises not just trust in the medical system and governing bodies as a whole but compromises the entire vaccine program."

Conrad added that a favorable judgment in United States v. Rochester Regional Health would set a major legal precedent that enforces VAERS reporting. This could dramatically increase the number of reported adverse events and potentially expose critical safety issues with existing vaccines.

Conrad now works as an advanced practice provider director at GoldCare.