Did the Mysterious Medical Condition in Take Care of Maya Begin After an HPV Vaccine?
The new Netflix documentary Take Care of Maya tracks the heartbreaking and enraging medical kidnapping story of Maya Kowalski, who in 2015 at age 9 suddenly began having strange symptoms such as headaches, shortness of breath, immense pain in her limbs and skin, and strange bending of her feet, which are signs of dystonia. She was eventually diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). I couldn’t help but wonder: did the young girl receive an HPV vaccine before her sudden symptoms?
If her parents followed the CDC vaccine schedule, and her mom was a registered nurse, young Maya would have been eligible for the HPV vaccine at 9 years of age.
About Take Care of Maya
Take Care of Maya tells the true story of young Maya’s medical kidnapping by Florida CPS and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, and the trauma that caused for her and her family, who were trying to get proper medical care for their child but found themselves instead treated as criminals.
Her parents Beata and Jack did everything they could for their daughter’s strange and sudden illness, seeking out several doctors with medical expertise in her rare condition, traveling to Mexico for treatment, getting her physical therapy and medications that would help ease her relentless pain.
But that all changed in October 2016, when Maya relapsed and they brought her to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. Once admitted, doctors questioned her diagnosis, sought the assistance of child abuse pediatrician and former medical director for the Pinellas County Child Protective Services (CPS) Dr. Sally Smith, who then recommended Maya be placed into Florida state custody.
For three months the State medically kidnapped Maya, preventing her from having contact with her parents. Maya’s mother Beata was accused of Munchausen by proxy and with making up her child’s illness (all the while the hospital was billing insurance for CRPS, the medical condition they denied she had).
I will not give any spoilers. But the trauma of what happened, and what they experienced will unfold over the family’s lifetime, and as a mother my heart breaks for the Kowalski’s. A lawsuit has been canceled over and over and is re-scheduled for October. Johns Hopkins lawyers may not want it to go to court at all. I hope it does.
One key takeaway from Take Care of Maya is that this situation is not unique, it’s not a one-off. Medical kidnapping happens way more than we realize.
Same is true for vaccine injuries.
What is CRPS?
CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) is a condition of chronic, severe, often burning pain, usually in one or more extremities, that is often accompanied by swelling, skin discoloration, allodynia (pain due to a stimulus that does not normally provoke pain), abnormal sweating, and impaired motor function in the affected area.
CRPS often develops following trauma or injury, and occurs more often in females.
CRPS and HPV Vaccine
While I have no way of knowing whether Maya received a Gardasil vaccine prior to her symptoms onset, the vaccine is recommended beginning at 9 years of age. Being that her mother was a registered nurse, I can’t imagine why she would not have her daughter take the vaccine when it is recommended.
In 2013, Japan suspended the national HPV vaccination program after concern that the vaccine was associated with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and some other serious concerns. That nation did not begin promoting the HPV vaccine again until April 2022. There continues to be case reports added to the literature.
Epidemiological studies cannot prove or disprove causation. A disease or condition does not have to have one cause, for it to have a causal association with an environmental trigger. Vaccines not only elicit trauma and tissue injury to limbs, but they also can cause auto-immune mechanisms of disease.
CRPS has been documented to occur after several different vaccines, and continues to be studied:
CRPS Post mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination
“We describe the case of a 17-year-old woman diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) at a pain clinic after the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. She was referred to our department for surgical treatment of movement disorder seven months after the second inoculation.
This is a case report written by a practicing oral medical specialist and University faculty member who experienced CRPS post covid vaccination.
CRPS Post HPV Vaccination
“We report a previously fit healthy 14 years old Irish girl. She had received her 2nd HPV (Gardasil) vaccine on 09/04/18 having received her 1st vaccine without any problems in October 2017. Twenty minutes post vaccine her left arm from the elbow down became swollen, purple and painful.Presentation was consistent, CRPS which was initially not diagnosed at first presentation to ED and Paediatrics. Correct diagnosis made four weeks post event and appropriate treatment initiated with full recovery withing eight months.
“Much like Guillain-Barré syndrome or acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, POTS, CRPS and other related conditions may occur in certain healthy individuals, possibly with a genetic predisposition toward adverse events, following immunization with HPV vaccines. In the future, identifying those at-risk individuals through genetic testing might be possible as part of personalized medicine, which may lead to a reduction in serious adverse events following vaccination. Until those tests become available, detailed package insert and informed consent serve to acknowledge the possible rare adverse events following vaccination. Including POTS, CRPS and related conditions as part of the informed consent for HPV vaccines rather than denying their occurrence after immunization is a better way to ensure vaccination compliance and improved HPV vaccination rates in the United States.”
“It is known that autoimmunity and autoantibodies are present in a subset of patients with CRPS, POTS, SFN, ME/CFS, and fibromyalgia. This article proposes that vaccine-triggered, immune-mediated autonomic dysfunction could lead to the development of de novo post-HPV vaccination syndrome possibly in genetically susceptible individuals.”
This Kaiser Permanente study was strictly looking at upper limb CRPS, and did not include lower limb if upper limb was not affected, regarding vaccine history. There was only 1 case which was specifically attributed to vaccination by their pediatrician (not surprised, most pediatricians will not correctly diagnose vaccine injuries).
So out of 113 cases, 16 had received an HPV vaccine within the past year, 9 of which had a clear precipitating event (sports injury, motor vehicle accident), 7 had no precipitating event, 4 cases included extremity of vaccination with symptom onset that varied: 0, 55, 120, 268 days since vaccination; none of these cases were attributed to vaccination by a practitioner.
The case above which starts at zero days, is not the same case that was attributed below:
“The authors identified 1 case of CRPS, categorized as a possible case following adjudication, that was attributed to a vaccination by a health care practitioner. This case was a 14-year-old female patient diagnosed with CRPS by a pediatrician following receipt of the second dose of the HPV vaccine. She experienced bilateral pain in the upper and lower extremities, including hyperesthesia/hyperalgia and temperature asymmetry. Symptom onset occurred on the same day as vaccination, and she was diagnosed by her practitioner 11 days after symptom onset. Her symptoms resolved 49 days after onset.
Overall, this means there are 2 persons whose CRPS begin the same day as vaccination, and another person within 2 months post-vaccine. One of the interesting aspects about epidemiological studies is they are designed to detect patterns as if a disease has only one cause. Trauma to the leg or arm could be one cause, and so could vaccination (which also causes trauma to a limb).
A case report of 40 girls over a 9 month period reporting nervous system disorders post-HPV vaccination.
“It has been reported that some autoimmune neurological diseases have developed in post-vaccinated girls, including Guillain-Barré syndrome, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis. Although CRPS is not generally accepted to be an autoimmune disorder, our patients with proven CRPS-I concomitant with OH or POTS had evidence of postganglionic sympathetic neuropathy, such as a decreased plasma level of noradrenalin (31), abnormal MIBG cardiac scintigram findings, as observed in the present Case 3 (15, 16), and an ultrastructural pathology of intradermal unmyelinated nerve fiber degeneration, all of which support that this condition is a form of autonomic neuropathy. Furthermore, POTS is now regarded to be an immune-mediated disorder (32). Based on the temporal relationship between immunization and the development of symptoms, we cannot deny the possibility that immunization with HPV vaccines may secondarily induce sympathetically mediated disorders, including CRPS-I, OH and POTS.
This CDC funded study writes about passive reporting systems such as VAERS:
“Such databases cannot be used to assess causality between CRPS and receipt of HPV vaccine; such an assessment would require additional data sources. However, CRPS cases have been reported following HPV and other injectable vaccines, and it has been suggested that the reported cases of CRPS following vaccination may simply be a result of the minor trauma from the injection.
This NIAID funded study affirms that the CDC recommendations should remain in place and support continued administration of HPV vaccines in the United States.
Other vaccines related to CRPS
- 2014: “Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type I Following Tetanus Toxoid Injection“
- 2003: “Complex regional pain syndrome after hepatitis B vaccine“
“Complex regional pain syndrome, characterized by pain, autonomic dysfunction, and decreased range of motion, developed after hepatitis B vaccination in four grade-6 children since the introduction of the vaccination program in British Columbia in 1992. The reaction may result from injection trauma or may be secondary to a vaccine constituent.”
My exact same thought
I thought this exact thing.
I’m 8 mins in and as soon as I saw the paralysis with legs and tremors I thought HPV