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Dellene Church

Hi James, can you hear me?

James Blyth

[inaudible]

Dellene Church

So our next witness is James Blyth. Please state your name and spell your first and last name for the record, James.

James Blyth

My name is James Blyth. It’s B-L-Y-T-H.

Dellene Church

Thank you. James, in your testimony here today, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

James Blyth

Yes, I do.

Dellene Church

Thank you. James, you are a young man with two serious pre-existing health conditions. When the vaccine mandates in Saskatchewan became very restrictive, you went to your doctor for guidance on the risk of you getting a COVID vaccine with your health conditions.

James Blyth

Yes.

Dellene Church

You were not given a medical exemption and encouraged to get the vaccine. Can you tell us how that affected you?

James Blyth

Yeah, so I had obvious questions, especially since it was such a rushed vaccine. My parents had gotten it. I think they had three doses before I even got my first one. And then my brother had got a second one. So all the pressure from family and the government, I decided, “Okay, well, maybe I should look into this.”

So I went to my family doctor and I asked him—and I still remember this. He didn’t have any problems with my Type 1 diabetes or my Lyme disease. And I remember this, he said that I should get the vaccine so that “I can go out to the bar with my friends.” Which was a pretty big red flag because I don’t go to the bar, first of all, and that’s none of his business. My social life has nothing to do with my health.

So that didn’t go well. But anyways, I ended up going to Saskatoon for the vaccine, which they had at the carnival grounds there. It was really weird because there was nobody there really because everyone had already had their shots earlier. So it was just like a big kind of empty— It looked like an empty slaughterhouse with, like, the gates where they would have all the people travel through.

So when I got to the nurse to give me my vaccine, I had questions and she had answered them. And I kind of knew that the nurses they don’t really know— They aren’t scientists, they don’t really know what’s going on with the vaccine. So it was kind of like they were reading from a script in a way, for all the answers.

So I got the vaccine. I waited there for 15 minutes, talked to some people. The one guy worked with the City of Saskatoon. He said that he had to get the vaccine in order to keep his job, which must have felt nice. And then I just carried on through my day.

I started noticing side effects probably a day or two after. My arm was definitely sore. My breathing went really shallow and I had a bad chest tightness. It was significant. I had never had a reaction to a vaccine like that before. So I had body aches all over and then I thought I could just kind of tough it out. So I just stayed like that for a couple days. And then one day, in the night, I woke up from my sleep. It felt like my heart had skipped a beat or something. Like, it felt like my heart shot through to my throat in a weird way. I said, “You know what, screw it, I’m going to go to the ER in my town and just get checked up and see what they have to say.”

Well, they didn’t say much or do much. They just took my vitals and that was all good. And they just told me, “You know what, it could be just a strange reaction but you seem fine.” And so I got checked up and then I went home. Then I had a phone call with, not my family doctor but just another doctor at the clinic in town.

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And I just told him what happened and within a couple seconds he just said, “Yeah that’s not— It’s not the vaccine.” And I can’t, you know— I can’t tell him otherwise. Like I just said, this all happened after I got vaccinated. And he just—He just threw it under the bus, whatever. He didn’t care, he gets his paycheck regardless.

So I was just kind of left abandoned. I just went home, I rested, I did some detoxing, thought it could help. But I still had body aches and chest tightness and shallow breathing all over. And I was starting to have some problems with my sleep.

So about five weeks or so after— This carried on for five weeks, the symptoms didn’t go away. And then I started noticing some insomnia. I was starting to have really bad insomnia right around Christmas time. And so I went to the ER again. They gave me a pill for my sleep. It didn’t work. And then I went back home, took the pill. Yeah, it didn’t work. And this was all during Christmas too, so we had family over and everything.

So that first time I went to the ER, it didn’t work. So then I went another time, probably a day or two later saying, “I can’t sleep.” And they gave me another pill and it didn’t work. And then right after Christmas time—I hadn’t slept for probably two or three days—I just told my dad, “You’re going to have to drive me to the psych ward in Saskatoon: I cannot sleep.”

So I went to the University Hospital in Saskatoon and they put me in the psych ward and they put me on Seroquel, or quetiapine. And they gave me a big dose; it went up to about 800 milligrams, I think was the max dose they said. And they were kind of scratching their heads, like, why do I need such a big dose of this antipsychotic? But you know what, I didn’t care at the time because I hadn’t slept.

So I was sleeping finally; my pattern started to get to normal. And the 800 milligrams worked but I was still having issues at that time. It wasn’t perfect by any means. So about two weeks went by, I was on that high dose of quetiapine and then finally, my sleep patterns kind of regularized. Then I was released from the ward.

And I still remember this because it was pretty significant: After I got released from the ward it was around supper time—I don’t know, early January—and my dad and I were wondering about where we were going to go eat. And we must have come up with some restaurant we wanted to go to. And so, as we were driving, a couple minutes later I said, “Oh, you know what? We can’t even go eat because I didn’t have my second dose of the vaccine.” So that was fun.

And then after that I was on the quetiapine. I went to the pharmacy in town and they were all kind of scratching their heads too. They’re wondering, “Is this a new medication you’re on?” They’re wondering why I’m on this high dose of this drug all of a sudden, right? And I just said, “yeah, I had a bad reaction.” And they didn’t really care because— I don’t know why; they just don’t care.

And eventually, so I was taking the quetiapine, this high dose of quetiapine for a while. Eventually, until I got in touch with a naturopath doctor in B.C., who was able to prescribe a big round of antibiotics because he thinks the vaccine flared my Lyme disease and that’s what caused it.

And sure enough, after about two or three days of this antibiotic protocol,

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I was able to wean off the quetiapine from 800 to— Well, actually, I got off of it completely. But I was still having issues with my sleep a bit. So after that, that was kind of that.

And I eventually— Like, I talked to my family doctor when I was released from the psych ward and he acknowledged that I could have had a bad reaction, which I know I did because I know my body. And he just said, “But we can’t do anything about that now. We just have to deal with what we have to deal with right now. We can’t go back, back in the past.”

So there is just no— With the doctors and the health care, they just— They wouldn’t acknowledge it and if they did, there’s just there’s no accountability. I can’t get any help. It’s like they were working against me basically, and just telling me— They just wouldn’t believe me. They didn’t have to believe me because they get their paycheck anyways.

Dellene Church

James, when you say they believe the vaccine triggered a flare in your Lyme disease, what we had talked about was they believe it actually caused an inflammation in your brain.

James Blyth

Yeah.

Dellene Church

And that’s what led to this insomnia, you’re calling it. But basically, you were unable to sleep unless you took this extremely high dose of an antipsychotic.

James Blyth

Yeah, yeah, that’s correct.

Dellene Church

And how long were you on that medication?

James Blyth

Because it took a while to get in touch with the naturopath doctor in B.C., I must have been on that quetiapine for— I would say around three or four months, it was.

Dellene Church

And do you know what a normal dose of that medication would be for insomnia? Were you ever told that?

James Blyth

No. I mean, there’s Dr. Google, but no, no, I didn’t. I just know that the nurses were worried in the ward. Because I was on 800 milligrams. They didn’t want to go any higher because I think it can cause some heart issues or something like that if you go really high. And so yeah, my nurse was just kind of astounded because they had never really seen someone on that high of a dose of that drug. But it was able to get me to sleep, at least somewhat.

Dellene Church

So during this four months, what were you able to do?

James Blyth

Lay on the couch pretty much. I don’t do much because of the Lyme disease. I’m on disability as it is. So basically, the side effects from the drug itself made you really drowsy and tired. So I pretty much would just lay on the couch all day and try to find some better medical help.

Dellene Church

And you also experienced worsening symptoms with your type 1 diabetes because of this medication you were on to sleep. Is that right?

James Blyth

Yeah, that’s right. So I’m good with my diabetes. I have, I think it’s a 6.0 A1C. And a side effect of the drug is it raises your blood sugar. So I had to go on higher doses of insulin because of that.

Dellene Church

And have you had any adverse health symptoms because of the higher insulin you were required to take?

James Blyth

Yes, in a way. I’m really good at watching it, but it’s a very— It’s hard to really finesse it and get it perfect. So sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night with low blood sugar or something because I had overcorrected the amount of insulin required. And yeah, so my insulin— Like my long-acting, which is Tresiba: it went from 18 units to 22 units, I believe. And then my fast-acting, I had to probably increase it by 10 units per day from the average of before I was on the drug.

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Dellene Church

And do you know, was your reaction reported as an adverse reaction to the COVID vaccine?

James Blyth

No. I definitely don’t think so. Because my doctor, when he acknowledged that, he wasn’t typing anything out on the computer or anything like that.

Dellene Church

And nowhere in your healthcare, medical people you dealt with, were you ever given any information on making a claim for compensation.

James Blyth

No, no. No, I was— It was disregarded pretty quick, that’s for sure. I think it’s because the doctors are also— Even if they do believe you, they’re also worried about the government coming after them as well, right? But it was disregarded. It was not taken very seriously.

But no one really cared either. Even the pharmacist was like, “Why are you on this drug now?” And I told them I had a bad reaction. And it’s just kind of, “Oh well. That’s that.” Right?

Dellene Church

What do you think, or wish, could have been done differently for you in this situation?

James Blyth

Well, having an exemption would have been nice. I wasn’t really sold on the vaccine as it was. I didn’t want to take it because I wasn’t sure how it would work with my diabetes and the Lyme disease. And I found out. So I would have liked an exemption, but it didn’t happen.

Dellene Church

And in your case, an exemption wouldn’t have been necessary if we didn’t have the strict severe mandates in place that made you feel isolated and unable to live your life. You weren’t working at the time. You weren’t at school. It was your desire to live a normal life.

James Blyth

Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, it’s amazing. The frustrating part is that we’re funding this. We’re funding to have people take our rights and control us like this. It’s ridiculous, I find.

Dellene Church

Is there anything else you’d like to add before I turn it over to the commissioners for questions?

James Blyth

I guess just, my frustrations with these doctors and nurses and anyone in government really is that there’s no accountability. They just get away with whatever. They get their paycheck regardless. And if there is an issue, they’re protected by the government. So that’s kind of my frustration, is the lack of accountability.

Dellene Church

Okay, I’ll ask the commissioners if they have any questions for you. And there are no questions, so I would just like to thank you on behalf of the National Citizens Inquiry for your testimony today and wish you health and healing in the future.

James Blyth

Yeah, well it’s going in the right direction now, so that’s good.

Dellene Church

That’s good. Thank you.

James Blyth

Thank you.

[00:18:36]

Final Review and Approval: Jodi Bruhn, August 21, 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

James is a young man on disability because of two serious pre-existing health conditions, Lyme disease and Type 1 diabetes. When the vaccine mandates in Saskatchewan became restrictive, he went to his doctor for guidance on the risk of getting a COVID vaccine given his health conditions. He requested an exemption, but his doctor declined. Soon after receiving the first dose of the vaccine, James started noticing side-effects. His arm was sore, his breathing was shallow, he had chest tightness and body aches. When his heart started to beat irregularly, he went to the hospital but they found nothing wrong.

Weeks later, he began suffering from insomnia and eventually went to the hospital for medication. He was admitted to the Psychiatric Ward at University Hospital in Saskatoon, and they gave him 800 milligrams of an antipsychotic called Quetiapine, a very high dosage. Released after two weeks, he remained on the Quetiapine for several months, until he was able to get in contact with his naturopath in B.C. His naturopath believed that the vaccine triggered a flare in his Lyme disease, causing inflammation of his brain. The naturopath prescribed antibiotics which helped James to wean off the Quetiapine. James spoke with his family doctor who acknowledged that James could have had a bad reaction from the vaccine, but said that nothing could be done about that now.