A teenager whose family believe the HPV vaccine left her paralysed are trying to raise £10,000 for private mental health therapy.
Ruby Shallom, 18, had the jab five years ago as part of the NHS’s cervical cancer programme and then allegedly developed FND – functional neurological disorder.
She gradually lost feeling in her whole body and became paralysed by 2016, which left her wheelchair-bound and unable to move anything but her left arm.
Miss Shallom is still unable to walk and her mental health nosedived this year, amid an ongoing battle with depression that saw her try to kill herself.
After receiving NHS treatment, Miss Shallom began receiving private therapy this month costing £790 a night.
Parents Aron and Nicola Shallom, from Bracknell, fear it’s their daughter’s last hope but their funds have run low.
The HPV vaccine is regarded as safe by health officials, and Miss Shallom’s specialist believes her FND could have been triggered by emotional trauma after watching her sister battle cancer as a child.
Ruby Shallom’s family are trying to raise £10,000 for private mental health therapy believing that the HPV vaccine left her paralysed and wheelchair-bound. Pictured recently
Miss Shallom, of Bracknell, had the HPV vaccine five years ago and then developed FND – functional neurological disorder. Pictured aged 12, left and right
She gradually lost feeling in her whole body and had become paralysed by 2016 – she couldn’t move anything but her left arm
Miss Shallom was admitted to Prospect Park Hospital in Reading, an NHS mental health clinic, and was treated by a psychiatrist for one week.
The Shalloms paid for a transferral to Priory Hospital Woking, a private facility which provides treatment as well as therapy, after attempting suicide.
Her parents have been able to afford the expensive private clinic, which charges around £790 a night, thanks to their health insurance with WPA.
However, their £15,000 quota runs out today, April 26, and Miss Shallom will be discharged on Saturday unless enough money can be raised to prolong her treatment.
With chronic pain and fatigue plaguing her every day, Miss Shallom said: ‘I guess the trauma of everything I’ve been through has caught up with me.
Miss Shallom added: ‘At Prospect Park I think I would only get worse and I don’t really know what it would be like if I just went home – or if I can even go home.
‘If I went home I could still be a danger to myself and I would have to have a carer come in two or three times a day just to check up on me.’
Miss Shallom added: ‘I feel low all the time – I’m not coping at the moment.’
Her family are now appealing for the public to make donations as they raise money to keep her at the Priory.
Mr Shallom said: ‘She’s not well enough to come home – and we don’t want to put her on the NHS which won’t keep her safe and not simply make her better.
‘We’ve been through some tough times – we’re dealing with this as best as we can.’
Miss Shallom has been receiving private mental health therapy this month costing £790 a night. Pictured aged 18
Miss Shallom was given a triple vaccination in two month intervals during 2014 to protect against the risk of contracting the HPV infection, which can cause cervical cancer.
The HPV vaccine, Gardasil, is routinely offered to 12-13 year-old girls as part of the NHS’ cervical cancer programme.
Health authorities around the world, including the World Health Organization, have extensively reviewed the vaccine and have concluded it is safe.
But HPV vaccinations rates have plummeted globally – to as low as one per cent in some countries – due to largely unfounded fears that the jab causes disability.
In the following two years after her HPV vaccine, Miss Shallom became extremely sick, lost her appetite, fainted repeatedly while she battled debilitating chronic headaches, fatigue, intense abdominal and chest pains.
Miss Shallom noticed that she had difficulties walking from December 2015 as she dragged her feet behind her – and a month later, she was using crutches.
In May 2016, her condition deteriorated further as she became so weak she couldn’t walk at all – and developed total numbness from the waist down.
She began to display gastrointestinal symptoms and swollen glands too, and she was rushed to Frimley Park Hospital, where she was diagnosed with incontinence.
Miss Shallom was hospitalised for six weeks and woke up one morning with a crushing pain in her right arm which left her incapable of even wiggling her fingers.
By the end of the day, her back muscles ‘gave way’ and the paralysis spread through her whole body apart from her left arm.
With money running out, parents Aron and Nicola fear their daughter, pictured aged 12, will kill herself if she has to leave private therapy and treatment
Over the following two years since her HPV vaccine, Miss Shallom became extremely sick, losing her appetite and fainting repeatedly while she battled debilitating chronic headaches and fatigue
Too weak to support herself on a zimmer frame, Miss Shallom became wheelchair-bound.
She was diagnosed with FND, neurological symptoms which affect the functioning of the body, at St George’s Hospital in July 2016.
Now at her physically fittest since 2014, Miss Shallom can walk up to 20 metres in one spurt without aid or stopping.
Though she made a steady bodily recovery, her mental health took a nosedive this year.
In March, Miss Shallom was admitted to Prospect Park Hospital but was transferred to Priory Hospital Woking earlier this month for 19 nights, where she has received extensive group and one-on-one therapy.
Lou Dossett, a family friend who used to teach Miss Shallom when she attended St Joseph’s Primary School, set up a crowdfunding page on 19 April, and has raised nearly £2,200 of a £10,000 target from public contributions.
In May 2016, Miss Shallom became so weak she couldn’t walk at all and developed total numbness from the waist down. Pictured aged 17 in hospital due to her condition
Miss Shallom’s specialist believes her FND could have been triggered by the emotional trauma for sister’s battle with Hodgkin lymphoma
Miss Shallom, pictured aged 12, said: ‘I feel so trapped’
Miss Shallom, whose depression becomes more pronounced at nighttime when her therapy has finished, said it would mean the world to her and her family if she could stay on in a private capacity.
She said: ‘There’s no particular trigger for it really – it just seems to be around five or six o’clock and then gradually gets worse.
‘I feel so agitated, and shaky – I can’t keep still, I’m on edge.
‘At Priory, there’s lots of therapy and everyone has been lovely.
‘I have made lots of friends with mental illness too – just talking to people has been therapeutic and done more good than constant medication.
‘I can’t have any of that without the treatment as well as the therapy offered by Priory because without the therapy I just can’t get better.
‘This is my only hope – it’d mean so much to me if I stayed here, and it would only need to be for a few more weeks, I would imagine.’
Claims that HPV has caused disability are backed by various pressure groups including Time For Action and AHVID, the UK Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters.
A spokesperson for AHVID said that, of around 20million in total, 600 families are registered with the group who have injured daughters following the HPV jab.
But the issue is hotly debated in the scientific community – even by the specialist who met with Miss Shallom and her mother at St George’s Hospital in July 2016.
In a letter dated 14 July, the expert refuted any causal link, and explained – though Miss Shallom’s condition was real and not imagined – her central nervous system was intact and not damaged after the triple HPV vaccination.
The specialist speculated that FND has in the past been caused by severe emotional stress.
He suggested Miss Shallom’s sister Evie’s long-term battle with Hodgkin lymphoma – a cancer for which she’s had four rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant from her brother Oliver – could have been an underlying trigger.
He said: ‘Nicola expressed an understandable concern that the HPV vaccine might have damaged her nervous system in some way leading to her current symptoms.
‘I explained that this could not be an explanation for the type of weakness and test results that she has because if damage had occurred to the nervous system by any cause, it would not be the case that muscle activation could occur with different examination manoeuvres, nor that her test results would be normal as they are.
‘We discussed that historically functional symptoms have been viewed, perhaps rather simplistically, as reactions to psychological stress and difficulty.’