Paula Johnson v. HHS - Influenza, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) (2021)

On August 28, 2020, Paula Johnson filed a petition seeking compensation under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) allegedly caused by an influenza vaccination she received on September 11, 2018. The case proceeded in the Special Processing Unit before Chief Special Master Brian H.

Corcoran. The record described a long gap between vaccination and symptom onset.

On December 12, 2018, ninety-two days after the flu shot, Johnson reported sudden numbness in her lower extremities. The next day she underwent diagnostic imaging and a lumbar puncture.

Although her lumbar puncture showed normal protein levels, her presentation and neurological examination led providers to consider GBS, and she received five doses of IVIG. She improved somewhat but remained very symptomatic.

She was discharged to a rehabilitation facility on December 19, 2018, stayed there until January 3, 2019, and continued treatment afterward for incontinence, gait and balance problems, numbness, weakness, and urinary and neurological issues. By March 2019 she had been given a note stating that she could not return to work, and she continued therapy into 2020.

The case did not turn on whether Johnson had serious symptoms. Instead, it turned on timing.

The Vaccine Injury Table recognizes influenza-vaccine GBS only when onset occurs between three and forty-two days after vaccination, and prior causation-in-fact decisions had generally treated six to eight weeks as the longest medically acceptable timeframe even for off-Table flu-GBS claims. Johnson's own affidavit and the contemporaneous medical records fixed onset on December 12, 2018, which was ninety-two days after vaccination.

After ordering Johnson to show cause why the case should not be dismissed, Chief Special Master Corcoran found that the record could not support either a Table claim or a causation-in-fact claim because the onset interval was too long. Johnson did not provide additional evidence or argument sufficient to overcome that timing problem.

On May 14, 2021, the special master dismissed the petition in its entirety.