Kathleen J. Auch v. HHS - Influenza, generalized polyneuropathic injury (2017)

Kathleen Auch, a 50-year-old woman, filed a petition alleging that she suffered a generalized polyneuropathic injury after receiving an influenza vaccine on October 6, 2009. She reported immediate symptoms including blurry vision and weakness, leading to emergency room visits and hospitalization.

While her treaters explored various diagnoses, including POTS and Guillain-Barré syndrome, no definitive cause was identified at that time. Approximately ten months later, in August 2010, Ms.

Auch was diagnosed with polyneuropathy. She presented medical records, fact witness testimony, and expert reports from Dr.

Robert Neumayr and Dr. Lawrence Steinman to support her claim that the flu vaccine caused her condition.

Respondent, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, presented expert testimony from Dr. Eric Lancaster, who argued that Ms.

Auch's symptoms were more likely attributable to pre-existing conditions like fibromyalgia or anxiety, and that the temporal relationship between the vaccination and the 2010 diagnosis was too long to establish causation. The court considered the medical records, including EMG test results from both 2009 and 2010, and expert opinions on the plausibility of vaccine-induced neuropathy and the timing of symptom onset.

Ultimately, the Special Master found that Ms. Auch failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the flu vaccine caused her 2010 polyneuropathy diagnosis.

The court noted that the 2009 symptoms were not definitively neuropathic, that the temporal gap between the vaccination and the diagnosis was significant, and that her symptoms had largely subsided for a period before the 2010 diagnosis. Therefore, the petition for entitlement to compensation was denied.