Witnesses
EN
Allison Inquiry | Patricia Leidl | Day 3 September 10th, 2026
A 64-year-old former World Health Organization communications director, an avid hiker, describes collapsing a week after her second Pfizer dose with a racing heart, swelling, migraine, hearing loss and POTS. She describes emergency-room dismissal, boils, post-menopausal bleeding, about $250,000 in care, and losing friends.
Patricia Leidl, 64, of Vancouver Island, is a former director of communications with the World Health Organization's HIV department, worked for USAID and the UN Population Fund, and wrote the first draft of the WHO book The State of the World's Vaccines. She had just completed a 26-kilometre hike and was very fit. She says she was sceptical of the COVID narrative but needed vaccination to take a job in Europe. The first Pfizer dose was uneventful, and about a week after the second she says she collapsed getting out of bed on June 17, 2021 with a racing heart, swelling, nerve pain, a migraine and hearing loss in her right ear. She says emergency doctors diagnosed POTS, told her she had long COVID although she had not had COVID, and at one point suggested a mental health episode. She describes swelling from 130 to about 200 pounds in two months, confluent boils from her neck to her knees for six months, a physician who dismissed her with a cortisone cream, and post-menopausal bleeding and breast swelling that a women's health doctor said was happening to everyone. Leidl also describes bilateral Achilles tendon damage, brain fog and hearing loss, roughly $250,000 spent on care, a life that has become very small, and friends and colleagues who withdrew. She gives her understanding of a BC law penalizing health professionals for misinformation. MPs ask about costs, speaking out and her WHO background.
Patricia Leidl, 64, of Vancouver Island, is a former director of communications with the World Health Organization's HIV department, worked for USAID and the UN Population Fund, and wrote the first draft of the WHO book The State of the World's Vaccines. She had just completed a 26-kilometre hike and was very fit. She says she was sceptical of the COVID narrative but needed vaccination to take a job in Europe. The first Pfizer dose was uneventful, and about a week after the second she says she collapsed getting out of bed on June 17, 2021 with a racing heart, swelling, nerve pain, a migraine and hearing loss in her right ear. She says emergency doctors diagnosed POTS, told her she had long COVID although she had not had COVID, and at one point suggested a mental health episode. She describes swelling from 130 to about 200 pounds in two months, confluent boils from her neck to her knees for six months, a physician who dismissed her with a cortisone cream, and post-menopausal bleeding and breast swelling that a women's health doctor said was happening to everyone. Leidl also describes bilateral Achilles tendon damage, brain fog and hearing loss, roughly $250,000 spent on care, a life that has become very small, and friends and colleagues who withdrew. She gives her understanding of a BC law penalizing health professionals for misinformation. MPs ask about costs, speaking out and her WHO background.
