Former CNN News Anchor Sick from COVID Shot Reactions

by Rishma Parpia

Published May 13, 2024
Risk & Failure Reports

In an interview with nurse practitioner Shaun Barcavage, Chris Cuomo, a news anchor at NewsNation and former anchor at CNN, admitted to suffering from adverse effects caused by COVID-19 shots he received. While interviewing Barcavage, Cuomo stated:

We know that vaccines can have unintended consequences, aka side effects, but nobody’s really talking about it because they’re too afraid of blame, and they just want it to go away. But the problem is people like Shaun—and me—and millions of others who still have weird stuff with their blood work and their lives and their feelings, you know, physically, are not going away.¹

On Sept. 11, 2021, during the pandemic, Cuomo said that Americans were “weak people” and suggested “somebody” or “somebodies” were responsible for making Americans question the safety and efficacy of the COVID shots. He said:

I’m telling you, this vaccine hesitancy, sure there’s a little bit of a personal freedom thing, people don’t want to be told what to do. Somebody made people think that the vaccine is a personal choice issue. But all of a sudden, it’s a big deal. Somebody put an idea of that in their heads. Or somebodies, a group of people. We are not who we were after 9/11. This pandemic has proven that. We are weak people, and we are making hard times for ourselves.²

New York Times Article Describes COVID Shot Adverse Reactions

Cuomo brought Barcavage on his show at NewsNation in which Barcavage was featured in a New York Times opinion piece that showcased several people who believe they have been injured by the COVID shots.³ In the article, Barcavage said that he experienced a ringing s in his ears, an increased heartbeat and pain in his eyes, mouth and genitals for more than three years after receiving the COVID shots. “I can’t get the government to help me. I am told I’m not real,” he said.⁴

The Times article noted that more than 13,000 people had filed vaccine-injury claims with the U.S. government’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). In addition, the article acknowledged that those individuals, who have suffered adverse reactions from the shots, deserve recognition and that denying adverse reactions can be extremely frustrating for victims.

COVID Shot Reaction Reports Should Not Have Been Ignored

Janet Woodcock, MD, a former Principal Deputy Commissioner at that U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told The New York Times that she regretted not having responded appropriately to people who reported adverse reactions from the COVID shots while she was still in office. She said:

I believe their suffering should be acknowledged, that they have real problems, and they should be taken seriously.

David Leonhardt, author of the Times article, wrote that adverse reactions to the COVID shots need to be brought to attention because honesty creates public trust with respect to public health issues. Leonhardt wrote:

Instead, experts emphasized evidence that was convenient to their recommendations and buried inconvenient facts. They exaggerated the risk of outdoor COVID transmission, the virus’s danger to children and the benefits of mask mandates, among other things. The goal may have been admirable—fighting a deadly virus—but the strategy backfired. Many people ended up confused, wondering what the truth was.⁵

Cuomo Says He Will Never Stop Reporting on Adverse Reactions from COVID Shots

In the interview with Cuomo, Barcavage, a nurse practitioner, said that he experienced adverse reactions to the COVID shots within the first 15 to 20 minutes of the first dose. He described the reactions as paresthesias, numbness and tingling up and down his arm that spread to his face and eyes. He visited a neurologist regarding the adverse affects and the neurologist said:

Well, this is all new. We don’t know much about it, but the hospital is going to mandate it. You should get a second dose.⁶

Barcavage said that he did not want to get the second dose, but he caved under the pressure. “After that everything blew up. I went from being a healthy, 100% healthy, fully functioning nurse to a complete downward spiral of health. I developed a myriad of symptoms,” he said.⁷

Barcavage complained that he received no assistance from anyone including local politicians and medical professionals. As a result, he sent his blood samples to Germany for testing since German physicians are less likely to be political with respect with COVID shots and adverse reactions. He stated:

If the government had just said, ‘Hey, these are novel vaccines. There will be reactions. Let’s just have a program in place to deal with them, set up a fund, and obligate the manufacturers to provide help or research.’ I think the citizens would have appreciated that but instead what happened was they just suppressed me.

Cuomo responded: