Donald C. Adams v. HHS - Influenza, cardiac arrest, anoxic brain injury, and death (2025)

On June 26, 2019, Abby Adams filed a petition on behalf of the estate of her father, Donald C. Adams.

Mr. Adams was 69 years old when he received influenza and Pneumovax 23 vaccinations on October 11, 2018.

The pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine was not itself a covered vaccine under the Program, so the case proceeded on the claim that the covered influenza vaccine caused or significantly aggravated the events that led to his death. Early the next morning, Mr.

Adams felt hot and diaphoretic, had difficulty breathing, and collapsed. He was found in pulseless electrical activity cardiac arrest.

Although emergency responders restored circulation, he suffered anoxic brain injury and intracerebral bleeding and died on October 14, 2018. His death certificate identified anoxic brain injury, intracerebral bleeding, coronary artery disease, and diabetes, and classified the manner of death as natural.

Petitioner relied on Dr. Mayer Rashtian, a cardiac electrophysiologist, who proposed that the influenza vaccine produced physiologic stress or immune activation that exacerbated Mr.

Adams's cardiac vulnerability and triggered a ventricular arrhythmia, possibly through delayed anaphylaxis, vasovagal reaction, acute pulmonary edema, or cytokine-mediated inflammation. Respondent's expert, Dr.

Shane J. LaRue, a cardiologist, responded that the clinical event was PEA arrest rather than ventricular arrhythmia, that the record did not support anaphylaxis or vaccine-caused inflammation, and that treating physicians had considered the vaccine unlikely to explain the arrest.

Special Master Daniel T. Horner denied compensation on September 3, 2025.

He found that petitioner had not established a reliable medical theory linking the influenza vaccine to PEA arrest, had not shown a logical sequence of cause and effect in Mr. Adams's case, and had not shown that the next-morning timing itself supplied causation.

No compensation was awarded.