Monique was injured in the gap between what Medsafe knew and what New Zealanders were told.
WATCH & READ: In April 2021, Medsafe signalled an investigation into myocarditis after the Pfizer vaccine. On 9 June 2021 they published a Monitoring Communication about the potential risk of myo/pericarditis. Two days later, on 11 June 2021, health worker Monique, received her second Pfizer dose at work and was severely injured.
“I was injured on the 11th of June 2021, two days after the Medsafe monitoring warning to physicians regarding the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis. This risk wasn’t conveyed to consumers.”
Monique was a fit, active, 24-year-old, who played hockey competitively and socially for nearly 15 years. A health science postgraduate, specialising in geriatric health psychology — she was loving her first job with one of New Zealand’s major aged-care providers.
Less than a year into the role, and carrying student debt from her studies, she faced an internal workplace mandate: be fully vaccinated by 30 June 2021 or risk losing shifts and her job. This was well before national mandates.
“It was conveyed to us that we wouldn’t have our jobs or wouldn’t be given shifts if we were not vaccinated.”
She received her second dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine on 11 June 2021, at 2:41 pm during her work shift under direction of her manager.
Within three hours she felt the same symptoms as on her first dose, except heightened: dizzy with nausea, instantaneously fatigued with a foggy brain. Swelling spread from the injection site across her chest, armpit and shoulder. Her legs turned from red to purple with nerve pain. By day three she had chest pain, tachycardia and shortness of breath. She quickly made an appointment with a nearby GP, who dismissed her serious reaction as ‘a normal immune response for a healthy young fit person’ and told her to take a Panadol and rest — ignoring the requirement in Medsafe’s Monitoring Communication to report such symptoms.
Days later Monique’s heart rate swung violently — dropping as low as 29 bpm then racing to 195. “The closest I have ever been to death,” she recalls, describing the out-of-body experience. An echocardiogram diagnosed pericarditis with pericardial effusion.
On the day of this diagnosis the doctor told her: “Yeah, it was the vaccine. This is a known side effect.”
“I was actually shocked to hear that, given I was not informed of the cardiac risk—despite the government knowing.”
She was discharged and advised that it would take at least two months for her to recover. Her symptoms did not resolve — constant nausea, low grade fever, evolving nerve pain and troubling heart symptoms. Her brain fog continued to get worse to the point where she would confuse words mid-sentence, and her short and long term memory became patchy. Monique was in and out of hospital.
The internal timeline versus public messaging
By the time Monique was vaccinated, Medsafe and their COVID-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board (ISMB) had been tracking the myocarditis signal for weeks, and had already issued a Monitoring Communication, to ‘encourage further reports and obtain more information on this potential safety concern.’
More reports kept coming in. It took Medsafe another six weeks to confirm that myocarditis and pericarditis were indeed serious reactions to the vaccination. Pfizer Inc. also confirmed the risk with their product at this time.
Medsafe published an Alert Communication on 21 July 2021, warning healthcare professionals to be ‘alert to the signs and symptoms of myocarditis and pericarditis.’ And also advised vaccinated individuals who experience ‘new onset of chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations or arrhythmias’ to seek immediate medical attention.
The patient-facing Consumer Medicine Information wasn’t updated until 28 July.
However, despite Medsafe’s Alert Communication (and best intentions) — very few vaccinators were actioning the advice – most failed to give clear, explicit warnings to vaccine recipients, meaning many New Zealanders were never informed of the risk.
It would take another 5 months and a death from vaccine-induced myocarditis, before an explicit requirement was introduced to provide information to patients about the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis BEFORE vaccination.
The Director-General of Heath, Ashley Bloomfield sent all health professionals a letter on 15 December, explicitly ordering that full information be provided both ‘verbally and in writing to every consumer.’ This was followed up by a Reminder Alert Communication by Medsafe.
The shifting “reassurance” line
On 29 April 2021, as the ISMB began discussing myocarditis and working out how to calculate background rates in order to detect a clear vaccine-related signal of myocarditis, they noted that infective (viral) myocarditis is certainly rare and not comparable with vaccine-induced acute myocarditis.
Yet from that point onward, Medsafe’s public messaging repeatedly reassured New Zealanders that the risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 infection was higher than the risk from the vaccine itself. They were also encouraged by the Safety Board to use “reassuring” words.
The 21 July Alert Communication confirmed the vaccine link but emphasised that cases were ‘typically mild’, that individuals ‘tend to recover within a short time following standard treatment and rest’, and that ‘myocarditis has also been seen in relation to COVID-19 infection’.
Even he December 2021 reminder Alert Communication continued the same comparison, stating explicitly: ‘Myocarditis also occurs after COVID-19 infection at a higher rate than after vaccination with Comirnaty.’
However, according to an Official Information Act response to NZDSOS, the official number of cases of infective myocarditis diagnosed after COVID-19 infection in New Zealand, from 1 January 2020 to 21 June 2024, is zero.
This framing persisted even as the number of reported vaccine-associated cases rose sharply. The early internal acknowledgement that infective myocarditis is uncommon sits in clear tension with the public messaging that consistently positioned the vaccine risk as the smaller of the two.
For Monique, the official language of mildness and comparison to infection offered no protection. Her symptoms were not mild. Her recovery was not swift.
One senior cardiologist even told her she was “wasting resources” because others were worse off after COVID infection.
“I physically could not walk without supporting myself, and that resulted in me being in a wheelchair for many months.”
Even after the 21 July Alert instructed healthcare professionals to look for the signs and symptoms of myo/pericarditis, the doctors who assessed her continued to dismiss her worsening condition as a ‘normal immune response.’ She was denied timely recognition, left without appropriate specialist support in New Zealand, and still has no clear pathway for treatment of her chronic vaccine injury.
Living with the consequences
Five years later Monique lives with recurring chronic pericarditis (confirmed by an Australian cardiologist), postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS (confirmed following testing as an outpatient at Christchurch Hospital), dysautonomia, full-body tremors, immune dysfunction, and days of complete debilitation. She no longer has full body tremors, but still experiences swelling down her injection side.
In 2025 she estimates she has had only about four weeks of anything resembling normal function.
“I have days where I’m debilitated and I can’t do anything due to recurring chronic pericarditis, chronic chest pain, shortness of breath, and still have issues with my heart rate.”
She has had to travel to Australia for supportive specialist care because she could not find it at home, but that comes with a cost. Private insurance covers her in New Zealand but not overseas. ACC eventually accepted her claim after she challenged the lack of support.
Desperate for any path forward, Monique repeatedly emailed her ACC case managers asking for information on treatments that had helped other clients.
“As someone who wants their full function back, I would do anything and go anywhere to help myself.”
The responses she received from both ACC and the Ministry of Health were the same: there was no information available. Pericarditis and myocarditis were described as ‘self-limiting conditions’, and ‘investigations were still ongoing.’
There is no willingness to research and help vaccine injured patients. Almost all the specialists I have consulted in New Zealand say: “I don’t know anything about this.”
A 2024 Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora study of 298 people diagnosed with myocarditis or pericarditis after Comirnaty (and 161 of their healthcare providers) confirms that Monique’s experience is far from unique. Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed were still experiencing chest pain at the time of the survey. Forty-four percent of healthcare providers considered their patients unrecovered. Many participants reported feeling unsupported and described a lack of clear pathways within government agencies that caused frustration.
“I feel entirely let down by the medical system in New Zealand.”
The study itself concluded that pathways for people affected by vaccine adverse reactions need improvement, including better coordination between Health New Zealand, ACC and the Ministry of Health.
Monique is still fighting for recognition, still seeking answers, and still living with the consequences of a risk that was known, monitored, discussed behind closed doors, and then barely communicated to the public. Yet she is determined to thrive again one day.
I was told by a specialist to adjust my life to my symptoms—I was not satisfied with that approach, and committed myself to relentless rehabilitation.
Monique has found significant improvement in targeting each symptom individually and in careful order: Neural retraining for her nerve pain, brain fog and generalised fatigue; vestibular and respiratory physiotherapy; and two gruelling years of daily heart rate conditioning under supervision of a doctor, physiotherapist and personal trainer.
She is adamant that the choice to either accept the risk of heart damage versus dealing with the effects of a Covid-19 illness, should have been hers to make.
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