Witness Testimony

Kathy Howland, an education assistant in New Brunswick working primarily with special education students, testified that she received two doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in late 2021 due to a provincial employment mandate. She stated that shortly after her second dose, she developed severe tinnitus, ear fullness, and progressive hearing loss, leading to emergency care and specialist referrals. Subsequent audiology testing documented bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, with greater loss in the left ear. An ENT specialist noted the temporal association with vaccination and indicated that the condition may represent a vaccine side effect, though she testified that physicians were reluctant to formally attribute causation in writing. Howland described ongoing tinnitus, social withdrawal, depression, and difficulty performing literacy instruction in her classroom due to reduced auditory discrimination, particularly in noisy environments. She also described strain within family relationships related to differing views on vaccine safety.