Michigan Mother Says She Believes COVID Vaccine Played Role in 17-Year-Old Daughter’s Death, Reacts to Findings from U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson

Lawmakers question officials on COVID safety as emotions rise

MICHIGAN — A Michigan mother who lost her teenage daughter Aubrynn Grundy in 2022 says new information tied to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is renewing her call for transparency and raising questions she believes were never fully answered.

Shanna Carroll said recent findings highlighted by the Wisconsin senator, which question how COVID-19 vaccine safety risks were communicated, struck a personal chord.

“It makes me think, how could they have wanted to hide something like that from the public?” Carroll said.

Carroll’s 17-year-old daughter received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in June 2022 before leaving on a school trip that required vaccination for travel.

During the trip, her daughter began feeling ill.

“She just said she wasn’t feeling well,” Carroll said.

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After returning home, her condition worsened rapidly.

“Then everything happened so fast,” she said.

Carroll said her daughter was taken to the hospital, where she went into cardiac arrest. She was later airlifted to a children’s hospital and suffered additional cardiac arrests.

Her daughter remained hospitalized for weeks before dying in early August.

Carroll said doctors told her the cause of death was “multi-organ failure and COVID-19,” and said no autopsy was performed.

While no physician has formally linked the death to the vaccine, Carroll said she believes it played a role.

“I believe the vaccine played a huge role in what happened to her,” she said.

Carroll said her daughter had no known underlying health conditions prior to becoming ill.

“She was so healthy,” she said.

Johnson’s findings focus on whether federal officials failed to promptly warn the public about potential adverse events tied to COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

For Carroll, the issue is deeply personal.

“I want the truth,” she said. “I don’t want money… I want to spread awareness.”

She said her goal is to ensure other families have access to information she believes was not fully communicated at the time.

“If they would have known, maybe things would have been different,” Carroll said.

Carroll said she continues to speak out in hopes that what happened to her daughter leads to greater transparency in the future.

“I just couldn’t imagine this happening again,” she said.