Tears would well up in the 5-year-old kindergartner’s eyes whenever he saw other children snacking—a luxury to the boy ever since he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in late January. The diagnosis came 1 1/2 months after he got his second dose of a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine.
Puncture marks are filling up every finger of both of the boy’s hands due to the constant finger pricking needed to monitor his blood sugar level, according to his father. He gets four doses of insulin every day, and every meal is weighed and measured for carbs.
The boy belongs to a group of between 600 and 1,000 Chinese children diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes between last October and May, according to an open letter signed by parents in this cohort. Beijing ushered a nationwide campaign in late October to inoculate children aged 3 to 11—the age group covering most of the diabetic patients.
On May 31, the eve of International Children’s Day, their parents wrote an open letter pleading for public attention.
“We initially didn’t link it with vaccines, but thinking back and forth, our children didn’t have any change in lifestyle or diet, the only change was getting the vaccine, and they got symptoms after the vaccination,” they wrote in the letter that was first published on a site managed by Wei Boxing, a Chinese health care activist.
A boy looks at a nurse preparing a jab at a health center in Qingdao in east China’s Shandong province on Nov. 04, 2021. (Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
The letter had over 300,000 views and 800 comments as of June 11. Many commenters were anxious parents saying they were in the same boat. They left their phone numbers and asked to be added to a group on Chinese social media WeChat containing people who said they or a family member had experienced severe side effects after taking Chinese COVID-19 vaccines.
Type 1 diabetes occurs when the immune system attacks itself and destroys beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels. Its telltale signs include excessive thirst, frequent urination, unintended weight loss, irritability, hunger, fatigue, and blurred vision. It usually develops in children and young adults, especially among those around 13 and 14 years old, although it can appear at any age, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Genes and exposure to viruses and other environmental factors could both cause the disease.
The parents’ letter came months after hundreds of parents alleged that the COVID-19 vaccines caused their children to contract leukemia. Many of those diagnosed with leukemia are between the age of 3 and 11.
In China, around 86.4 percent of those aged between 3 and 11 years old, and all of those aged between 12 and 17, have been fully vaccinated as of mid-February.
The parents of newly-diagnosed diabetic children said that they initially started a group on WeChat to share treatment tips. They started two more groups after the membership of the first group grew to 500 members, the maximum size allowed for a WeChat group. About 600 of them have registered their real names with the group, according to the open letter.
Lost Childhood…
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