Deven Lomago v. HHS - HPV, Crohn's disease (2025)

On July 29, 2019, Careen Lomago filed a petition on behalf of her minor child, Deven Lomago, alleging that a Gardasil-9 human papillomavirus vaccine caused Crohn's disease. Deven was born on April 4, 2004 and was twelve years old when he received the HPV vaccine at a well-child visit on August 3, 2016.

At that visit, Deven's primary care physician recorded normal bowel movements, a soft and nontender abdomen, and no palpable masses. Twelve days later, Deven returned with a painful boil near the right buttock that had been growing for about a week.

On August 17, 2016, he went to Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh with fever and a perianal abscess, and the next day Dr. Aviva Katz performed incision and drainage.

His later course included gastrointestinal complaints and a diagnosis of Crohn's disease by late 2016, with perianal disease becoming a central part of the causation dispute. Petitioner's expert, Dr.

John Cromwell, offered two related theories. He first argued that nonspecific vaccine immune effects could dysregulate immunity and trigger intestinal inflammation.

He later emphasized molecular mimicry, proposing that HPV vaccine antigens could cross-react with intestinal proteins and provoke a cytokine-mediated inflammatory process. Respondent's experts, pediatric gastroenterologist Dr.

Chris Liacouras and immunologist Dr. Stephen McGeady, disputed both theories.

They stressed that Crohn's disease has an uncertain etiology, is often present before diagnosis, and had not been reliably linked to HPV vaccination; they also argued that Deven's growth pattern suggested intestinal inflammation before vaccination. Special Master Herbrina D.S.

Young denied the claim on November 20, 2025. She found the growth evidence especially important: Deven's weight, height, and BMI percentiles had already fallen before the August 2016 vaccination, beginning with a July 2015 well visit and continuing at the vaccination visit.

She concluded that the record did not preponderantly show that Crohn's symptoms began after vaccination. She also found Dr.

Cromwell's nonspecific-effects theory insufficiently specific to Crohn's disease and his molecular-mimicry theory unsupported by adequate evidence connecting HPV vaccine to Crohn's disease. Because Deven did not prove a reliable medical theory, a vaccine-caused sequence of events, or a medically acceptable timing, no compensation was awarded.