Irina Ioffe v. HHS - Influenza, shoulder injury related to vaccine administration (SIRVA) (2025)

On October 10, 2023, Irina Ioffe filed a petition alleging that an influenza vaccination administered on November 16, 2021 caused a shoulder injury related to vaccine administration. She received both a COVID-19 vaccine and a flu vaccine in her left deltoid that day, with the COVID-19 dose given first and the flu shot afterward.

Ms. Ioffe reported left shoulder pain and was diagnosed early with adhesive capsulitis and tendonitis.

She received a Medrol dosepak and Celebrex and attended five physical therapy sessions in December 2021, but stated that therapy worsened her pain. She stopped formal care while working full time as a single mother of two and relied on advice from her brother-in-law, a physician, who told her frozen-shoulder recovery could be long.

Declarations described her continuing home exercises and shoulder pain through the gap in formal treatment. When she returned to care in July 2022, more than six months after vaccination, she reported she was still having pain from the prior November flu shot and that physical therapy had helped only partially; later treatment included MRI, cortisone injections, surgery, and post-surgical therapy.

Respondent conceded that the record satisfied the Table SIRVA criteria but argued that the treatment gap defeated the six-month severity requirement. Chief Special Master Corcoran rejected that argument.

He credited Ms. Ioffe's explanation for the gap, the family-witness evidence, and the July 2022 record documenting continued pain.

On November 19, 2025, he found her entitled to compensation. Damages remain pending.