<img alt="A screenshot of Desiree Jennings in 2009, when she became briefly known as the flu shot cheerleader girl. Jennings has now spoken out about her realization that she was used then abandoned by the baseless anti-vaccine movement. ” src=”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f5fd597ffa2be2bb2d84dcdb8fb9e0a871ad17f4/0_58_2448_1470/master/2448.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none” width=”465″ height=”279.22794117647055″ class=”dcr-evn1e9″>
The woman who was once known as the “flu shot cheerleader” and briefly became the poster girl for the anti-vaccine movement is now speaking out about her realization that she was used as the movement’s “PR machine”.
In a new interview with NBC, Desiree Jennings – who in 2009 was cast into the national spotlight after she went on video and expressed her belief that her seasonal flu shot led to an unexplainable disability involving erratic movements and slurred speech – said that vaccine skeptics recruited her, sensationalized her story and ultimately discarded her after she was accused of being a fraud.
Desiree, 25 at the time, was a communications manager and a cheerleading ambassador for Washington’s NFL team. After a flu shot, she claimed she started to experience mysterious symptoms, including a twisted gait, difficulty reading, memory loss, as well as painful body aches.
Several doctors suggested that Desiree’s condition might be psychogenic, meaning the illness has a psychological cause rather than a physical one, NBC reported.
Desiree’s account of her strange symptoms and their post-flu shot timing became viral. And they soon drew the attention of Generation Rescue, an organization spearheaded by actor Jenny McCarthy, who claimed without evidence that vaccines caused her child’s autism.
Generation Rescue’s then president Stan Kurtz reportedly saw Desiree’s story and reached out to her. Speaking to a local Fox station, Kurtz said: “The story is just – anyone that sees it, it’s just so compelling. Jenny was crying.”
He then announced that Generation Rescue would help Desiree “recover” from her alleged vaccine injury, NBC reported.
NBC also reported that Generation Rescue helped Desiree launch a website which featured products affiliated with the anti-vaccine organization, and it raised money through its own website to “to help pay for her mounting medical expenses”.
Yet Desiree told NBC that she never received any of the money.
“I felt [obliged] to buy into what they were saying,” Desiree told NBC, adding: “I didn’t know anything back then.”
At the time, Generation Rescue also filmed Desiree in her Virginia home for more than 40 hours, which they said was for a future documentary warning against vaccines. The documentary was never made, but Desiree let NBC review footage meant for the film.
One clip showed Kurtz accompanying Desiree to North Carolina to see Rashid Buttar, an anti-vaccine osteopathic physician who promoted cures for various illnesses including autism and cancer. In 2010, the North Carolina medical board reprimanded Buttar for using treatments that “have not been proven effective by randomized, double-blind placebo controlled clinical trials”.
Buttar went on to treat Desiree’s mysterious symptoms through intravenuous chelation therapy, various vitamins and a lotion that he claimed could “detox” patients of the heavy metals that vaccines leave inside them, NBC reported. At…
2023-08-05 15:04:45
Original from www.theguardian.com
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