A woman has filed a lawsuit alleging her Zostavax inoculation resulted in a shingles vaccine failure.

Plaintiff Betty M. says she received the Zostavax shot on April 12, 2012, to prevent shingles and other varicella zoster-related illnesses. However, according to Betty, the shingles vaccine failure resulted in her contracting a persistent strain of herpes zoster, which is the virus Zostavax was supposed to prevent.

Betty alleges she was treated at a hospital for an infection in her lungs that was caused by a varicella virus, which was diagnosed as varicella pneumonia.

Shingles Vaccine Failure Points to Live Virus

Adults who had the chicken pox when they were children still retain the varicella zoster virus that causes chicken pox. After causing chicken pox, the varicella zoster virus lies dormant in the nervous system for years.

When the virus is reactivated due to stress, disease or immune function issues, the patient develops shingles. Even before the skin eruptions are visible along the nerve line, the patient often feels shooting or stabbing pains in the affected area.

Zostavax by Merck & Co., Inc. and McKesson Corp. is a live-attenuated virus vaccine. Because Zostavax contains a live virus, the virus is “attenuated,” which means it is supposed to be weakened enough to avoid causing the patient to develop the disease, but strong enough to instill immunity.

The Zostavax vaccine is developed from a live-attenuated version of the chicken pox vaccine.

According to the shingles vaccine failure complaint, “Once injected, attenuated live virus vaccines have been shown to recombine into more virulent strains causing disease.”

Elderly people are three to seven times more likely to develop shingles than the rest of the U.S. population. When the FDA approved Zostavax in May 2006, the vaccine “was initially indicated for the ‘prevention of herpes zoster (shingles) in individuals 60 years of age and older when administered as a single-dose.’”

The FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) allegedly received 1,111 Zostavax adverse event reports by September 2015. Among the reported issues were rash, shingles or herpes zoster, pneumonia and death.

After the shingles sores heal, some patients continue to experience lingering nerve pain. Other patients develop a secondary bacterial infection in the shingles rash.

The Zostavax patient information sheet only alerted patients that they might have a rash or itching at the site of their vaccination’s injection. No mention was made of the possibility of the shingles vaccine failure that could lead to the patient developing a more virulent strain of shingles.

Betty “suffered from herpes zoster and zoster-related pneumonia, with painful and persistent physical injuries and damages, and other serious injuries as a direct and proximate result of being inoculated with the Zostavax vaccine,” alleges the shingles vaccine failure complaint.

The Zostavax lawsuit asserts the risk of inducing shingles was a side effect that allegedly should have been known by the vaccine’s makers.

The Shingles Vaccine Failure Lawsuit is Case No. 3:18-cv-01553-MCR-GRJ, in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial Circuit for Santa Rosa County, Florida.