Coroner rules out Covid-19 vaccination as factor in 14-year-old boy’s death

A coroner has ruled out any connection between the death of a 14-year-old Co Mayo schoolboy and the Covid-19 vaccine.

Joseph McGinty, The Valley, Achill Island, collapsed and died at his family home on September 13th, 2021, 24 days after getting his first vaccination for Covid at the Breaffy Resort Vaccination Centre, Castlebar.

He was due to get a second jab on September 14th, the day after he died.

The coroner for Mayo, Patrick O’Connor, directed that an inquest should be held into the young student’s passing on the grounds that the circumstances of his death were “of significant public interest”.

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At a hearing lasting three days last month, evidence was taken from a large number of medical and other witnesses including Gillian Ellsbury, senior medical director vaccines and antivirals at Pfizer, who testified via video link.

Statements were furnished to the coroner by the Health Products Regulatory Authority, the National Immunisation Advisory Committee and the chief medical officer of the Department of Health.

Eighteen witnesses, including medical staff at Mayo University Hospital, where Joseph McGinty was treated on a number of dates in September 2021, testified. Depositions and statements ran to approximately 3,500 pages.

Delivering his decision and verdict at Swinford Courthouse on Monday, Mr O’Connor returned an open verdict – a decision that means the evidence does not fully or clearly explain the cause and circumstances of death.

The coroner said that based on the considerable medical evidence furnished to him and the research papers referred to him there was no connection whatsoever between Joseph McGinty getting the Covid vaccine and his subsequent death.

The coroner reiterated there was no evidence whatsoever that the schoolboy had contracted Covid nor was there any evidence that he died with Covid.

Mr O’Connor said that having considered the medical reports of Dr Fadel Bennani, consultant pathologist at Mayo University Hospital, and Dr Michael McDermott, consultant pathologist at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Dublin, he found that the medical cause of death was “profound adrenal pathology consistent with Addison’s disease”.

This condition, disorder of the adrenal glands, was described by the coroner as “extremely rare in Ireland and the United Kingdom”.

The coroner said that while the medical staff at Mayo University Hospital did what they thought was best in the circumstances for the teenager it might, in hindsight, have been appropriate and better not to have discharged him on September 8th so that further tests, examinations and records could be obtained to get to the root of his deteriorating medical condition.

Following the delivery of his verdict, the coroner commented that the death of any person, particularly a young person as in Joseph McGinty’s case, “is extremely difficult for the immediate family, friends and also the medical staff who have treated that person”.

Stating that lessons should be learned from the boy’s death, Mr O’Connor went on to make a number of recommendations including the provision of such resources are necessary to provide the full diagnosis, management, treatment and care of persons in the paediatric department of Mayo hospital.

He also urged that the hospital appoint a bereavement officer in light of the “unfortunate manner” in which Patricia and Paul McGinty, Joseph’s parents, had been advised by an undertaker that some of their son’s organs had been retained for examination following his passing and were to be returned to them.

Joseph McGinty’s family were represented at the inquest hearings by Michael O’Connor SC, and Rita Kilroy, instructed by Jarlath Bourke of Lavelle Bourke Solicitors, Achill.

Mayo University Hospital and the Health Service Executive, its staff and clinicians, were represented by Padraic Brennan, RDJ Solicitors, and Eoin McCullough SC.

Pfizer Healthcare Ireland was represented by Roddy Bourke and Daniel Lucey of McCann Fitzgerald Solicitors, and David Boughton.