Morgan Tirone v. HHS - Pneumococcal, fibromyalgia (2025)

Morgan Tirone, a 25-year-old woman, filed a petition alleging that she suffered from fibromyalgia (FM) as a result of receiving the meningococcal (Menactra) and pneumococcal conjugate (Prevnar 13) vaccines on June 29, 2015. She later received a third vaccine, Pneumovax 23, on August 24, 2015, which is not a covered vaccine under the program.

The court focused on the Prevnar 13 vaccine for entitlement. Petitioner's expert, Dr.

Gershwin, proposed several theories of causation, including that the Prevnar 13 vaccine caused a local reaction that led to "over-doctoring" and subsequent FM, or that it "primed" her immune system for a worse reaction to the Pneumovax 23 vaccine. Respondent's expert, Dr.

Matloubian, disagreed, opining that Petitioner experienced only a local injection site reaction to Prevnar 13, not an allergic reaction, and that there was no evidence of a "prime-boost" effect or that such reactions could cause FM. The court found that Petitioner's reaction to the Prevnar 13 vaccine was a local injection site reaction that lasted about one week and resolved without further complications.

The court also found that Petitioner failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the Prevnar 13 vaccine caused her FM, citing a lack of a sound medical theory, a logical sequence of cause and effect, and a medically acceptable temporal relationship. Furthermore, the court determined that Petitioner did not meet the Vaccine Act's severity requirement, as her reaction did not last more than six months.

Consequently, the petition was dismissed.