In a new shingles vaccine injury lawsuit, multiple plaintiffs have alleged that the Zostavax vaccine has caused them extreme reactions and personal injuries.

Seven plaintiffs, all women, have joined together to file this shingles vaccine injury lawsuit against Zostavax maker, Merck, claiming that when they received the Zostavax vaccine for the long-term prevention of shingles, they each suffered a shingles vaccine injury.

What is Shingles?

Shingles is a painful rash with blisters that can occur when someone has had chickenpox in the past. The chickenpox virus is “reactivated” somehow and creates painful rashes and blisters on a patient, often on the torso or trunk.

It can be treated by pain relief and antiviral medications. But often, adults receive shingles vaccines to prevent this condition. Zostavax is one such vaccine. However, the Zostavax vaccine has been connected with shingles vaccine injury in many adults that receive the vaccine.

Shingles Vaccine Injury

Each plaintiff in this shingles vaccine injury claims that she has experienced significant reactions to the Zostavax vaccine. They each say they have “suffered serious physical, emotional, and economic damages as a result of her shingles and associated injuries” according to this shingles vaccine injury lawsuit.

One plaintiff, Beulah V., a resident of Florida, was inoculated with the Zostavax vaccine in September 2013. In May 2016, however, she claims she was diagnosed by her doctor with a shingles outbreak affecting her face and interfering with her eyesight.

Another plaintiff in this shingles vaccine injury lawsuit, Gail S., also a resident of Florida, says that she received the Zostavax vaccine in 2016 for the prevention of shingles. Later that same year, Gail claims she was diagnosed with shingles. She claims that she has “suffered painful injuries and damages, and required extensive medical care and treatment.”

Each of the other five plaintiff’s stories are similar. They were each inoculated with the Zostavax vaccine, and each subsequently suffered from a shingles outbreak.

Aside from a shingles outbreak, Zostavax has been associated with other serious complications after patients receive the vaccine. These reports of shingles vaccine injury include the following:

• Spinal cord inflammation known as myelitis
• Postherpetic neuralgia, or continuing pain after shingles
• Vision complications including blindness, eye infections, and retinal damage
• Loss of hearing
• Autoimmune disorders such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, and Meniere’s Disease
• Cardiovascular complications such as congestive heart failure or stroke
• Pneumonia
• Bell’s Palsy
• Vasculitis

Many believe that Merck did not properly communicate to the public the range of risks associated with their Zostavax shingles vaccine. This shingles vaccine injury lawsuit claims that Merck knew that there were Vaccine Adverse Events Reports (VAERS) of “myalgia; arthralgia; lymphadenopathy; rash; actinic keratosis; severe cutaneous disease; peripheral neuropathy; cellulitis; herpes keratitis resulting in vision loss; facial paralysis; pneumonia; brain inflammation (encephalitis); and death.”

Allegedly, they also knew that Zostavax may lead to “scarring, bacterial superinfection, allodynia, cranial and motor neuron palsies, pneumonia, encephalitis, visual impairment [and] hearing loss.”

This Shingles Vaccine Injury Lawsuit is Case No. 8:18-cv-01032-VMC-JSS in the Circuit Court of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit for Hillsborough County, Florida.