Japanese MP admits to being vaccine injured

Meet Kazuhiro Haraguchi. He is currently a lower house MP for the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and was the Minister of Internal Affairs from 2009 to 2010.

Actually, that was him in 2021. He looks a bit different now.

So what happened? Speaking on Twitter Spaces on 22nd April, Mr Haraguchi told listeners that had got a 3rd dose of Covid vaccine in order to attend the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum in Thailand last October. Soon after his booster jab, he started suffering from a terrible sore throat. He went to hospital and was told that his left tonsil was severely swollen. Shortly after, he was diagnosed as having a malignant lymphoma, and as a result of undergoing treatment, has lost all his hair. Thankfully, his treatment is going well and should be finished by late May or early June. He publicly admitted to developing a severe illness after his Covid booster in the hope that his “message will be hopeful and encouraging to those who are suffering from a similar disease.”

I think we can all agree that is a worthy reason to come out as vaccine injured. But there’s one big problem: his message won’t offer much hope or encouragement to anyone unless the media report it accurately. And they haven’t.

CDP House of Representatives MP Kazuhiro Haraguchi announces that he is battling malignant lymphoma ``to encourage those who are fighting similar diseases'.'

None of the articles reporting on Mr Haraguchi’s illness mention that it developed immediately after his booster despite him explicitly drawing a link. I suppose you could say it’s just an unfortunate coincidence that he developed a malignant lymphoma after his 3rd shot. But there are nine case reports of people suffering very similar unfortunate coincidences soon after their Covid shots too.

I wish Mr Haraguchi the best of luck with his recovery. I also wish the Japanese media would report honestly about vaccine safety. But only one of those wishes is likely to come true.