Jay M. Burrows v. HHS - Influenza, right-sided Table shoulder injury related to vaccine administration (SIRVA) (2025)

Jay M. Burrows filed a petition alleging that an influenza vaccine administered on December 31, 2020, caused him to suffer a right-sided shoulder injury related to vaccine administration (SIRVA).

He claimed this injury was a Table injury, meaning it should be presumed to be caused by the vaccine if certain criteria were met, including an onset within 48 hours of vaccination. The respondent, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, argued that the medical records did not support the claim that the injury began within the required 48-hour window.

The court reviewed the medical records, which showed no reports of shoulder pain during four visits for hip pain between March and November 2021, nearly a year after vaccination. The first documented mention of right shoulder pain occurred on December 23, 2021, almost a full year post-vaccination.

While Mr. Burrows provided affidavits and a text message from his primary care physician suggesting earlier complaints, the court found these lacked sufficient corroboration in contemporaneous medical records.

The court also noted that the medical records indicated the onset of significant symptoms impacting his work occurred around May 2021, approximately five to eight months after vaccination. This delayed onset was deemed inconsistent with the typical timeframe for SIRVA.

The court concluded that Mr. Burrows failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that his injury met the Table criteria for SIRVA, specifically the 48-hour onset requirement.

Furthermore, the court found that the delayed onset also failed to satisfy the proximate temporal relationship required for an off-Table causation-in-fact claim. Consequently, the petition was dismissed.