A woman from Texas alleges she developed a severe shingles shot reaction, which has allegedly caused her permanent vision damage and compromised quality of life. Her Zostavax lawsuit is joining a growing multidistrict litigation (MDL), consisting of other claims alleging serious vaccine reactions from this routine shot.

Plaintiff Karen S. says she received the Zostavax shot for typical shingles prevention on Dec. 14, 2015, and had no reason to believe she was at risk for any serious shingles shot reaction.

According to the patient brochure for the Zostavax shot, patients may develop headaches, local shingles vaccine reaction, fever, joint pain, muscle pain, nausea, and chickenpox or shingles after vaccine implementation.

However, the Zostavax lawsuit alleges Karen developed a much more serious shingles shot reaction that was allegedly not mentioned in the brochure. Karen reportedly developed severe and debilitating vision damage, and was eventually diagnosed with Optic Neuritis and Optic Neuropathy.

According to the Zostavax lawsuit, Karen has suffered severe emotional disease and economic losses due to her inability to work. Karen opted to file legal action after discovering there were much more serious complications associated with the Zostavax vaccine.

Overview of Zostavax Vaccine Complications

The Zostavax vaccine contains a weakened chickenpox virus and helps the immune system protect against shingles, which is thought to be caused by a dormant chickenpox virus. Once a patient experiences chickenpox, the virus becomes dormant for a number of years before possibly being reactivated again due to various factors like stress and aging.

The Zostavax shot has been on the market since May 2006, and is one of two vaccines used to prevent shingles. The other is Shingrix, which is a recombinant vaccine. In contrast to a live vaccine like Zostavax, recombinant vaccines consist of purified DNA codes for an antigen that triggers an immune response to combat the virus, according to Healthline.

The shingles vaccine is recommended to patients before they are 60 years old and has been shown to be greatly successful in preventing shingles, with the CDC stating it has been shown to reduce the risks of shingles by 51 percent. However, the concern surrounding the serious vaccine complications has spurred major concern in the medical community.

Patients have reportedly developed blindness, paralysis, and brain damage, and even faced death prompting the FDA to add two black box warnings to the Zostavax label.

In 2016, vision damage from eye inflammation was added to the warning label as a potential shingles shot reaction. Other adverse reactions reported to the FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) include gastrointestinal issues, rashes, arthralgia, myalgia, anaphylactic reactions and necrotizing retinitis.

Even though these vaccine reactions can be devastating to patients, some of them claim Merck & Co. allegedly failed to warn patients of this information. At all times relevant, Karen says she and her physicians had relied on the product information provided by Merck and had no reason to believe she was at risk for severe vision loss.

Karen’s Zostavax lawsuit is joining MDL No.2848, where it will be streamlined through the litigation process and avoid potential problems like conflicting rulings from different judges.

This Zostavax Lawsuit is Case No. 2:19-cv-00455-HB, in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Pennsylvania