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Q&A: Did Infant Deaths Rise Pre-Vaccine or Only After?

Day 3 · 8:01:42 · Shawn Buckley · Cst. Helen Grus

  • 📉 Grus saw no unusual infant-death pattern when COVID hit pre-vaccine.
  • 📈 A SACCA colleague flagged a doubling or tripling of baby deaths in January 2022 after mRNA shots were recommended for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.
  • 🔍 Before a town-hall with Chief Sloly she queried RMS and confirmed six unexplained cases versus the historic two-to-three per year.

Grus describes first noticing the infant-death spike and verifying the data herself.

← Cst. Cst. Helen Grus Sworn: Ottawa Police Detective Career | Q&A: Incomplete SUDI Probes and Babies Dying in Parents’ Arms →

Transcript

Shawn Buckley · 8:01:42

What happens?

Cst. Helen Grus · 8:01:44

So COVID hits and—.

Shawn Buckley · 8:01:47

Let me ask you this question. Did you see any unusual pattern of infant death when COVID hit pre-vaccine?

Cst. Helen Grus · 8:01:58

No. So the first time that my I was alerted to anything out of ordinary was in January 2022. So it was— COVID hit March 2020, the pandemic was called. Moving forward, December 2020 is when the vaccines were approved in the world. If I get some dates off, but I know in May 2021, NASI actually recommended the mRNA vaccinations to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. Stating they're safe and effective for mothers who are either pregnant or breastfeeding. And it was January 2022 when a colleague of mine in the SACCA unit came to me with concerns saying, Helen, I don't know what's going on, but there's been a doubling or tripling of baby deaths in the last year. And so we were concerned, not just I but other officers, detectives in our unit. And a couple days later, I had a town hall meeting with then Police Chief Peter Sloly.

Cst. Helen Grus · 8:03:00

There were pending mandates at the Ottawa Police Service because they had implemented a vaccination policy that if you were not fully vaccinated by the end of January or declared your status, you would be sent home on leave without pay February 1st, 2022. So we had a meeting a couple days after this colleague came to me And that day, before going into this town hall meeting with the Chief, I actually went into our records management system to query the data to see if in fact we had a doubling or tripling of baby deaths, unexpected lane baby deaths, because that was resting on my shoulders.

Speaker D · 8:03:37

That worried me.

Cst. Helen Grus · 8:03:38

It's a huge concern. Even one loss of a baby is tragic. So when I went into the system, we went normally from 2 to 3 unexplained baby deaths. There's a difference between unexplained and the ones that end up being explained as a choking or unexpected smothering when a parent is co-sleeping and they lay down on the baby accidentally. So unexplained baby deaths are the unexplained medical conditions where you put the baby to sleep in bed, doesn't wake up. So going into this meeting, I queried the data. In fact, I had seen that there had been 7 cases came up. I was able to look into 6 of them. One of them was privatized. And so again, that number, I went in there, made sure I was not counting a choking or a smothering or a drowning. And so I end up with this number of 6 confirmed cases. I thought, well, it is a doubling, tripling, depending if you're looking at 2 a year or 3 a year in the past. And I brought that up to the chief of police, and there were a couple other executives, our health and safety was there as well.

Cst. Helen Grus · 8:04:41

And I explained, just, I said, I'm not here to make conclusions because I don't know what causes babies to die at this time. But we have had an increase. There's one thing that has changed. It's the vaccination that came out last year. But again, I was very clear to say, I don't know if that's what it is, but we need to flag this and keep track of it.