Q&A: Sakamoto Family Toll and Failed Compensation¶
Day 1 · 5:02:24 · Dean Allison · Shawn Buckley · Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · Chris Lewis
- 🏠 The family sold the forever farm, homeschooled a migraine-suffering son, and lost her mother to post-booster turbo cancer.
- 🧾 Partial VISP payout still denies meds, therapies, aids, and psych care after many case managers and appeals.
- 👨👩👧 Husband describes prayer, refinancing, mixed-shot advice, lost businesses, and survival while she cannot get full help.
Panel questions on trajectory, program failures, out-of-pocket costs, and family devastation.
← Carrie Lynn Sakamoto: First Vaccine-Injured Witness | Catherine Christensen: CAF Members Cannot Safely Speak →
Transcript¶
Dean Allison · 5:02:24
I just, uh, I'm going to ask a question, but I'm going to let my colleague Mike ask one first. I just want to thank you again, Carrie, for coming and, uh, sharing with us your story. I mean, You know, I understand, uh, as vaccine-injured people need to relive and re-traumatize, but we appreciate you sharing so that the rest of the world can understand. And I'll ask a question after, after Mike, uh, Mike goes.
Shawn Buckley · 5:02:46
Thanks, Dean.
Speaker D · 5:02:51
Thanks for being here, uh, telling your story. Um, I can kind of relate a little to the—.
Speaker L · 5:02:57
When you first started telling your story, what you got the vaccine, you started— your lymph nodes started swelling up.
Speaker D · 5:03:03
I got 3 vaccines. Um, if I could go back, I wouldn't have got any. Uh, but when I got the second one, I got a lump under my arm the size of a softball. And when I went to the pharmacist that gave me the vaccine, they told me that there was nothing wrong, it'd go away. And luckily Luckily it did, it did go away in 2 or 3 days, and I had no other symptoms. I did have a high temperature, and—.
Dean Allison · 5:03:33
But that was it.
Speaker D · 5:03:36
Uh, how's your health been? Has it been steadily the same, or has it been— since you got out of the hospital, has it gone up or down, or does it periodically change?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:03:48
I've gotten stronger, um, but the symptoms are the same as Day 1. The memory loss is the, the hardest one right now, um, for me.
Speaker L · 5:04:02
And is—.
Speaker D · 5:04:02
Are the doctors saying that there's anything they can do?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:04:06
No. And the vertigo, um, they've also tried everything. There's no more medications for me to try.
Speaker I · 5:04:13
Okay.
Speaker D · 5:04:15
Um, have you gotten any access from the support program at all?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:04:18
Yes, I'm one of the 0.01% people, but not because I got a vaccine injury, but because I received a partial payout from the vaccine injury program. Okay, there's not many of us.
Speaker D · 5:04:36
Are there any restrictions with the payout from—.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:04:40
So I'm still in appeals. They approved my vaccine injuries, but they denied all my medications, all my therapies, my hearing aid, my glasses. So that's all been out of pocket. I also see I have to see a psychologist, and that's also out of pocket. I started a GiveSendGo, and that has been a real blessing. The kindness of strangers managers, I've been able to, um, at least keep my medicine going. There are pieces of stock.
Speaker D · 5:05:20
How long has the appeal process been going?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:05:23
Pardon?
Speaker D · 5:05:24
How long has the appeal process been ongoing?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:05:26
So now I've had— I had 9 case managers from 2001 to 2023 when I received a partial payout. Um, because they didn't approve my medications and therapies, um, and they also didn't evaluate my brain, um, they put me in appeals, and now it's under a new program. I've been told that there's nothing else I need to do, that, um, they're at the end of it. Um, I don't have a lot of faith in them. They denied my therapies, saying that I had Botox done with great success. I sent in letters to the contrary. Um, I was advised not to get Botox. The program has been awful for people who are injured.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:06:29
They can't get the help they need. And we're just looking for medical help. We just want help with our health.
Speaker D · 5:06:38
How have the doctors been in the whole process?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:06:41
My doctors have been excellent.
Dean Allison · 5:06:43
Fully supportive?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:06:45
Yes, but that's because I was diagnosed in the hospital. I didn't realize how important that would be, that my doctor reported my injury as a vaccine injury to in Ottawa. But even with that, I sit here 5 years later and I'm still in the program for no reason. They've wasted millions of dollars when they could have been helping people like me.
Speaker D · 5:07:08
What does your doctor say about—.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:07:11
My doctors are very disappointed in the program. My pharmacists are very disappointed in the program. They see me coming in and getting the medications every week. It's been the same medications for 5 years that I wasn't taking before I was in the hospital. Um, they see how frustrated I am, and they're equally as frustrated.
Speaker D · 5:07:36
Well, I think everybody sitting here is frustrated, and I personally think it's a travesty that you're not getting—.
Speaker I · 5:07:43
Thank you for being here and listening.
Speaker A · 5:07:44
No problem.
Speaker L · 5:07:46
Thanks, Carrie.
Dean Allison · 5:07:47
I, I got a couple questions here. You have a young family. So you talked about your personal injuries. How has it affected your family?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:07:55
It's been devastating. Not only did we have to sell everything, uproot my family in a home that we always called our forever home, and had to explain to the kids that we just can't stay here anymore was really difficult. We had to uproot them and move them to— into town. My youngest never went back to school. We still do homeschool. He's in grade 11 now. He suffers with severe migraines. He also had Pfizer. My mother got a booster. She developed turbo cancer and died a year into my injury. She was diagnosed with cancer shortly after she got shingles from her booster, and she died before she saw her first on- oncologist.
Dean Allison · 5:08:52
Um, you talked about additional costs, and you know, we understand we have OHIP in Ontario and you've got BC, but I'm, I'm going to guess that there's a lot of cost in medicine that just are not covered by the province. Would you, would you care to share, you know, what you're out of pocket or what you got to deal with or what you got to try and figure out in terms of additional, uh, drugs that may not be covered?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:09:17
You know, we just kind of hope and pray every month that it's going to happen, that it'll— we'll have enough to cover everything. And so far it's happened. Again, the gifts and goes have been amazing. Um, I did go to social media, um, to tell my story. In the beginning, I went to social media because I wanted the doctors to know what was happening. I wanted them to be able to diagnose people when they walked into the hospital instead of being sent home 3 times like I was. I wanted better care for people because I understood how scary and life-changing that these injuries can be. I did a little bit of research. I hear people talking all the time about us being anti- vax when it couldn't be further than the truth, from the truth. Not only did we take a vaccine, but we're relying on science to help us heal.
Dean Allison · 5:10:21
So is it fair to say then that your— the cost of your, of healing or trying to get help are not, not covered solely by the province, that there's a financial burden on your family?
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:10:33
None of the are covered. Um, it would be if the program would do what they say they're going to do and take care of the injured. That's why it was created in 2021, but they failed. And the Global News report that I was able to be a part of exposed them. It brought up a lot of concerning things. These are people now that have read our medical files that have said that they are not qualified to be doing that. And now when you call, they've told us they've misplaced over 300,000 documents and that they're trying to get them into the files where they belong. So for people that have been in this program for the last 5 years, a lot of people are having to start again.
Dean Allison · 5:11:26
So, and I'll just, I'll finish with this question, is, is that, so is your experience, even though he did receive a small stipend or small payment, has done nothing to cover your ongoing cost of medicine, does nothing, nothing to cover your ongoing cost for replacing any type of income you may have had that you can't do. And not only that, the program has really had you run around, I mean, I mean, you've had a runaround, the program has had other people run around in terms of loss of documentation, changing, you know, what they're thinking or what they're asking for. So you may be lucky to receive a small amount, but really the reality is you would say that the program doesn't even come close to trying to help compensate for what you've had to give up.
Chris Lewis · 5:12:19
Correct.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:12:19
There's more I wanted to say, but I can't remember. I'm sorry.
Dean Allison · 5:12:24
Well, I thank you. I just say it again, thank you for, for sharing your story.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:12:28
Thank you for giving this place, Mr. Allison and Mr. Buckley. When you told me this was going to happen, I kind of didn't believe it. And then, um, as I saw it coming together and I saw the reaction from the public which has been mixed. Um, but what I'm taking from this is the people that I've met online for 5 years that we've had to meet in back rooms online and talk secretively just to try and get healthcare, sharing doctor names so that people can try and get help. I'm sorry, I don't remember what I was saying. It's gone.
Shawn Buckley · 5:13:15
Can I—.
Dean Allison · 5:13:16
Sure, go ahead.
Speaker D · 5:13:17
Yeah, um, it's obviously been incredibly difficult with our family, and when my wife was in the hospital, they sent her home 3 days, and I took her in the fourth. 2:30 At night, I was on my knees and I prayed to the Lord. I said, take everything we have, but my sons need their mother. I should have said take the boat, but in the end, I can live. And we've— I can't do what I used to do. I have to be home every day for my wife life.
Speaker G · 5:14:00
Life has kept going on.
Speaker D · 5:14:03
We've had to refinance. We've, we've sold, we've sold, we've sold, we refi— a banking institution wouldn't touch us. Nowhere in the world did they mix vaccinations, and every single manufacturer that we've talked to said they are implicitly told do not mix. We were told you'd get a better reaction if you mixed. We were told no one would get left behind. We've been run over, backed up, run over again, backed up, run over again. We've lost our farm, 4 businesses, my son. This migraines, they're all from these vaccines. I had blood clots I had to go get ultrasound for, and I couldn't report it to work or a doctor or go— we had less than one income. We lost the farm. We couldn't get a bank to sign a loan or give us— I had to go buy a house cash.
Speaker D · 5:15:07
I don't know if anyone understands how hard that is when you have to leave one house and you have nowhere to go until you can get banks to get the money to enough. What our family's gone through, well while she's suffering and can't get help. But I, I don't believe that you're given more than you can handle. But I'll tell you, it's tried us. And she's so tough, and we come from tough stock. But she had 14 caseworkers she's on, and they still can't help her. And the first one, they lost all the tapes on. He was so awful to her, she was crying. He was accusing— like, this whole thing has just been a nightmare. And I hope that this inquiry, or what you're doing here today, is a step in the right direction, because we're the lucky ones.
Speaker D · 5:16:08
There are so many people and doctors that we know there was a doctor in Lytton. He's here today. He had a lady who had exactly the same thing as my wife. 6 Weeks ahead, she got the shots because she's First Nations. So we were able to contact him and find out— I could find out if my wife was going to be alive in 6 weeks. Every week I'd call to see if that lady had gone downhill more, and my wife's getting worse, not better. Her free, as you can see. Try letting the dogs out and when it's -40, or leaving the stove on and almost having your house burned down a couple dozen times, and then see how your wife cries because she's almost burnt the house down a couple hundred times. Our lives have turned into survival. We're still trying to survive and make it through this.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:17:03
It's never ended for us.
Speaker D · 5:17:05
It's been 5 years since the day I woke up like this, and we're here, and we've gone broke and sold and retooled, and just when you think you're above it, something else happens. So, you know, we're here. There's nothing left to take. We're here on visa. That's who's sponsoring us.
Dean Allison · 5:17:24
Well, listen, thank— we, we want to thank you. I'll say it once again. We appreciate you, uh, opening up your hearts and, and sharing your stories with us.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:17:34
I just also wanted to share that I've been able to start a class action for the vaccine injuries.
Shawn Buckley · 5:17:40
So, Kerry, we're going to have to tell other witnesses not to testify unless we cut you off because we've got a tight schedule. So can we— and we really don't want to do that.
Speaker I · 5:17:48
That's fine.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:17:49
So thank you so much, everybody.
Shawn Buckley · 5:17:52
And, and we apologize to all the witnesses. You know, we could have you on for hours, and your story deserves that. And we just made a decision early on, we want to have more people have a chance to speak even if they have less time.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:18:05
There's so much to say when someone's been injured for 5 years or, you know, it's— yeah, there's a lot.
Shawn Buckley · 5:18:12
I need to end.
Carrie Lynn Sakamoto · 5:18:12
Thank you so much.
Shawn Buckley · 5:18:14
Thank you.