[00:00:00]

Ches Crosbie
Elizabeth, do you affirm that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Elizabeth Cummings
Yes, I do.

Ches Crosbie
Thank you.

Nicolle Snow
Can you state your full name?

Elizabeth Cummings
Yes. My name is Elizabeth Cummings.

Nicolle Snow
And Ms. Cummings, where do you come from today to be here?

Elizabeth Cummings
I come from Cole Harbor, Nova Scotia.

Nicolle Snow
Now I understand that you received two Pfizer shots, one in May and the other in July of 2021.

Elizabeth Cummings
Yes.

Nicolle Snow
Why did you vaccinate?

Elizabeth Cummings
I’m vaccinated because I take care of both of my elderly parents. One is ambulatory and one is not. At the time, Dr. Strang and Ian Rankin had advocated that it was proper to protect our older community by vaccinating if you were going to be around the elderly. And I absolutely, without question, took their directive and did my part.

Nicolle Snow
Did you have any adverse reactions following the first shot?

Elizabeth Cummings
No, I did not.

Nicolle Snow
And did you have any adverse reactions following the second shot?

Elizabeth Cummings
Yes, I certainly did.

Nicolle Snow
What happened?

Elizabeth Cummings
Well, the first shot was fine. It was just like a sore arm, but the second one: I had the sore arm while I was sitting there in the 15-minute time-out period. And I started to develop a headache there, and I started pressing my temples and I’m like, “Oh, that’s strange.” So I went home and by the time that evening had hit, it hit my neck and my whole head, like around the base of my neck, and it started to spread across my skull. It incapacitated me for three days. I could not move. And in addition to that headache was a nerve pain that was, surprisingly, just on the left side of my body. And it was confusing because it was literally the left side of my body.

Nicolle Snow
Do you know which arm you had the shot in?

Elizabeth Cummings
I had that in my left arm.

Nicolle Snow
Okay.

Elizabeth Cummings
So the headache, like I said, lasted for three days. And the nerve pain was constant. And then that ramped up over a couple of months. But then into the fourth day afterwards, the headache had just subsided—so thankfully that went away. And then I was given a day with just the nerve pain, and then all of a sudden, for the first time in my life, when I haven’t even had a cold sore, I developed shingles. It spread all over my neck, which you can still see some of the scar from that, and it went across my chest, and it was blistering. It was pretty bad.

What I did for that was I took my top off, and I couldn’t wear clothes. It was too uncomfortable. I washed with soap and water, peroxide, alcohol for five days, and then finally that subsided and went away. But the nerve pain continued, and I tried to deal with it myself by yoga, stretching. I knew it wasn’t normal to have that kind of nerve pain; it wasn’t a pinched nerve, because my skin—all of my skin hurt too. If I was rubbing my pants or my shirt against my skin too much, it became very raw.

Nicolle Snow
Did you see anyone for this?

Elizabeth Cummings
I looked, but you couldn’t at that time. They were taking elderly patients and they were— You couldn’t see anybody. There was nobody to see. You had to deal with it yourself, like there was not a lot of—

So then by the time October hit, I was in so much pain at that point that I went to the chiropractor. And I talked to him about it and I said, “You know, I got nerve pain but, confusingly, I’ve got skin pain too.” After about five times, I limped very badly out of the last session that I had with him. And I thought, okay, I can’t do that again. That’s not going to work. This is the fifth such session; it’s actually made things worse. Then I called my doctor that just started to take patients back, but they were only taking the elevated cases that were in-house visits.

[00:05:00]

The receptionist gave me a phone call appointment. Then, when I made the phone call appointment, my doctor said, “I can’t give you anything without giving you a physical exam because you’re talking about physical pain.” And I said, “Well, this is just the way I was directed.” Then I had to wait even longer, until November had hit. And I went in, and I talked to him about the symptoms that I was having from the vaccine, and it happened immediately. And he did acknowledge the fact that nerve pain was one of them, and he gave me a prescription for pregabalin. So I took that, then I went to a follow-up visit with him. And then at that follow-up visit, I asked for an exemption, because at that point, they started talking about boosters. And I was afraid that I was going to get a job and they were going to mandate this booster or require me to have a booster, so I wanted to be on the exemption list.

Nicolle Snow
Were you able to secure the exemption?

Elizabeth Cummings
No, I was not. He told me that— He picked up a piece of paper in his office and he said that that piece of paper said that, unless I had an overnight visit in a hospital from a side effect, I could not be put on that exemption list.

Nicolle Snow
And did you speak with him about whether or not to complete an adverse event form, or did he speak with you about that?

Elizabeth Cummings
No.

Nicolle Snow
You don’t know whether he did?

Elizabeth Cummings
I didn’t know what that was at that point.

Nicolle Snow
Okay, all right. And there were no indications that he filled one of those out for you?

Elizabeth Cummings
I am unaware if he did. I don’t know. He does all of his little paperwork, but I don’t know.

Nicolle Snow
And are you still on the pregabalin for the nerve pain?

Elizabeth Cummings
Yes, I unfortunately am in the middle of a relapse right now. Unfortunately.

Nicolle Snow
And what, if any, other measures did you take to address the concerns that you had about the vaccine?

Elizabeth Cummings
Well, the only recourse that I had at that point— I guess what happened was, I noticed in March of 2022 that there was a Pfizer dump of the safety data. So at that point, I read the cumulative 5.3.6 safety events, and I noticed— Like, I’m not a doctor, I’m just an electrician. I don’t really understand much, but I do understand adverse events. And when I read that cumulative report and I saw the nine pages of adverse events, I became very alarmed. And herpes zoster; there was also meningitis, and there were certain neuralgias. And I thought, that’s everything that happened to me—like everything! I got really, you know— I felt kind of betrayed.

What I did was, I tried to put it where I thought my complaint was supposed to go. I sent a complaint to Health Canada. Because Health Canada, if you look on their website, they have statements that they approved the Pfizer vaccine, that they deemed after a stringent—what do you call it—analyzation of it, that it was safe to use. And they did that in October 2020. So I thought, that’s where I needed to go, to complain to the fact that I took two Pfizer vaccines and I became injured from the second one. What they did was they returned my email saying that I should have had a complaint with the pharmacist, because I asked the pharmacist about an insert. And the second Pfizer vaccine, I asked him if he had any information with an insert, and he said that there was no information. And they told me that I needed to contact the Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists to make a complaint, but I found that confusing because he didn’t make the insert. Like, I found that strange.

Nicolle Snow
Let’s go back to your visit with the pharmacist. Is that who administered the second dose? A pharmacist?

Elizabeth Cummings
Yes.

Nicolle Snow
You were asking the pharmacist for the insert with the ingredient list?

Elizabeth Cummings
I asked him about the safety data.

[00:10:00]

And any kind of information about the vaccine itself, because I was starting to see some alarming things online that were concerning me. And after he told me that there was no insert, I asked him what his thoughts were. And the only response he gave me was that he didn’t know whether he was going to vaccinate his 13-year-old daughter or not. So I had to make the decision then. There’s like, a 15-minute window to get your vaccination. You’re huddled in and then you’re huddled out.

Nicolle Snow
He didn’t give you any other information on possible side effects.

Elizabeth Cummings
No, no. But I did ask.

Nicolle Snow
Okay, back to your story.

Elizabeth Cummings
Fast forwarding to the complaint, because I put all of that in the complaint to Health Canada. In addition to that complaint with Health Canada, I had said that—

Nicolle Snow
Also, just to go back: Health Canada placed it back on the pharmacist to say you should have had the discussion with your pharmacist?

Elizabeth Cummings
Yes. And these are all in those documents that I had sent you in a zipped file [16 exhibits: TR-25, TR-25a through o]. Their response to that along with my complaint. But in that complaint, I had said that it was a trial vaccine, that I wasn’t given an exemption, that I bled from the PCR tests, that I was masked over and over and over again, which was harmful to me. And one of the two most important things that I put in that was that they allowed the authorization, because that’s the whole reason I went to them, was because they authorized the use in Canada. And then the last thing that I closed within the letter was informed consent. Saying, you know—and I even embedded the link to the Pfizer documents in the email—“Had I been given that information—” Because you state that you’ve reviewed this, then if I had been given this informed consent, I would not have taken that vaccine.

Then the response they gave me besides that was that I basically needed to go to VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System], which was the Canada Vigilance [Program], to fill out my adverse events. I was like, “Okay, I’ll do that, what is this?” So I studied it.

Nicolle Snow
Are you talking about the vaccine injury support program?

Elizabeth Cummings
The VAERS, yeah. They sent me to the Canada Vigilance VAERS. I had to figure out how to fill out that paperwork. So I did: I put in my lot number, and I put in what I was prescribed and they asked me if it was reoccurring or not. I had to put unknown because I didn’t know at that point. And then that was it. It stopped there. So there was no recourse. It was just, you’re injured, you’re done.

Then interestingly enough, July 11th came, and I noticed a Dr. Philip Oldfield had advocated that he had already talked to Dr. Tam and the Board of Physicians, I believe in Ontario, and that he was given no information. They weren’t responding to him, so he decided to elevate his complaint to the International Criminal Court. And he was asking Canadians that were injured if they would call or email the International Criminal Court and explain their injuries. I did do that. In the subject line, I put his complaint number, gave them the exact complaint that I gave to Health Canada. And I told them that I wanted to either make a complaint against— I said Health Canada, et. al., because I didn’t know who that encompassed. And I said that I wanted to add to his complaint, and if that wasn’t satisfactory, that we could make another complaint with crimes against humanity. For the informed consent, for all the things that I had already outlined, but the vaccine-injured as well. And I had to follow up twice. I didn’t get a response from that either.

In closing, I’ve been an advocate for people that have been vaccine-injured and the people that were mandated from day one. And I think we’ve all went through a period where loss of friends— They think that we’re conspiracy theorists. And I’ve had people say to me, “Before, you know, you were a rational human being. You were—”

[00:15:00]

Nicolle Snow
Suggesting that you’re not that now.

Elizabeth Cummings
“But you’re no different than a Trumper now.” And I’m like, “what does President Trump have to do with me as a Canadian? I don’t understand what the correlation is here. I’m complaining about being vaccine-injured, and you’re calling me Trump. Unacceptable.”

Nicolle Snow
And so how are you doing now with respect to your condition?

Elizabeth Cummings
Well, I mean, it has its ups and downs. I had the original prescription, then I had to get it refilled. So that was December 2021. Then I had to get another prescription because I had two bottles there. Then I had to get another one in the summer. So June, July, I had to get another batch. And then just recently, I had to get another. So now, unfortunately, I’m going to have to look at this personally as something that’s chronic, that’s reoccurring. Because now it’s over a year and a half and it’s still going on. And it’s uncomfortable, it’s very uncomfortable. I can be sitting there, and the pain is just— I’ll have to get up, because if I’m still, if I’m moving in a wrong direction, it’ll inhibit me lifting. I was a robust, a very healthy individual before this. So not being able to lift 50 pounds for me, that hurts my position. I have an interview next week, and I’m worried that I’m going to have to self-disclose that I may not be able to pick up an electrical panel to drill it in the side because I can’t lift it now if I have another relapse.

So you know, everybody’s got their story and, fortunately, I’ve got my life. I know there’s a lot of people that don’t.

Nicolle Snow
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your testimony, Ms. Cummings. I’m going to turn you over to the board. They may have some questions.

Commissioners
No questions.

Nicolle Snow
All right. Thank you kindly.

[00:17:23]

Final Review and Approval: Jodi Bruhn, August 3, 2023.

The evidence offered in this transcript is a true and faithful record of witness testimony given during the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) hearings. The transcript was prepared by members of a team of volunteers using an “intelligent verbatim” transcription method.

For further information on the transcription process, method, and team, see the NCI website: https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca/about-these-transcripts/

Summary

Elizabeth is a Nova Scotian who had a Pfizer shot in May and July 2021. The second shot resulted in immediate head pain so that she was incapacitated for three days. After that she developed painful shingles but was unable to get in to see a doctor anywhere. She also began suffering from left side nerve pain wherein she had to be prescribed Pregabalin. She asked for a medical exemption against further potential COVID mandated injections, but her GP denied claiming that he was instructed only to give out exemptions if someone had an overnight visit in a hospital from a side effect.

After the Pfizer data was released she noticed that all of her symptoms were on the side effects list so she wrote a complaint to Health Canada. They redirected her to her pharmacist stating that they should have provided her with a side effects list upon vaccination. She is unaware if her case has been added to CAEFISS.