Marine Disabled by Vaccine Battles VA for Benefits/ FoxNews

From FOX: a story about a young marine who nearly died after receiving smallpox vaccine. But when deploying soldiers get so many vaccines at once, including anthrax vaccine, how did the military manage to identify smallpox vaccine as the single cause?

Lance Cpl. Josef Lopez still suffers from injuries he began experiencing in Iraq three years ago — injuries caused not by bombs or guns but by a military-administered smallpox vaccine he got before he left the United States.

The shot, which the military strongly encourages troops to get, triggered a rare bad reaction in the Marine from Missouri — leaving the then-20-year-old Lopez in a coma, paralyzed for several weeks and unable to breathe, McClatchy Newspapers reported.

Lopez hasn't been the same since. He's regained the ability to walk, but he limps. His loss of bladder control means he has to wear a urine bag. He takes about 15 pills a day to treat leg spasms and other conditions.

Now, Lopez and his family are upset because the government says he isn't eligible for a special benefit of up to $100,000 for members of the military who have suffered traumatic injuries.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, which has covered the cost of his regular medical expenses, says that because his health problems were caused by the vaccine, he can't collect the additional benefits that would provide funds to build him a wheelchair lift or help defray money lost while his mother has stopped working to tend for him.

"It's for traumatic injury, not disease; not illness; not preventive medicine," Stephen Wurtz, the deputy assistant director for insurance at the VA, told McClatchy Newspapers. "It has nothing to do with not believing these people deserve some compensation for their losses."

Lopez and his mother, Barbara Lopez — who flew to her son's aid in 2006 when the mysterious illness took over and the chance of recovery seemed grim — have appealed to Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri for help.

McCaskill has drafted a bill that would extend benefits to include those adversely affected by vaccines, KOMU.com reported.

"It would give him the same coverage, and frankly, I really think we need to take care of this young man and his family," McCaskill said in an interview with KOMU TV. "He was willing to take care of us."

Lopez said he feels as though the government has let him and others in a similar situation down by "twisting the rules around to deny people who actually deserve the money."

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