An Ontario man in his late 40s with a history of mental illness died by euthanasia after his assisted death assessors decided that the most reasonable explanation for his physical decline was a post COVID-19 “vaccination syndrome.”

The term is controversial — Canada’s current vaccine reporting system for adverse events doesn’t include “post-vaccine syndrome” — and multiple specialists consulted before his death couldn’t agree on a diagnosis, raising questions as to whether the man’s condition met the criteria for an “irremediable,” meaning a hopeless, incurable condition.

The anonymized case is one of several highlighted in a series of reports issued by a 16-member MAID death review committee struck by Ontario’s chief coroner’s office in January.

Identified as “Mr. A,” the man experienced “suffering and functional decline” following three vaccinations for SARS-CoV-2. He also suffered from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and personality disorders, and, “while navigating his physical symptoms,” was twice admitted to hospital, once involuntarily, with thoughts of suicide.

“Amongst his multiple specialists, no unifying diagnosis was confirmed,” according to the report. However, his MAID assessors “opined that the most reasonable diagnosis for Mr. A’s clinical presentation (severe functional decline) was a post-vaccine syndrome, in keeping with chronic fatigue syndrome.”

There were no “pathological findings” at a post-mortem that could identify any underlying physiological diagnosis, though people’s experiences can’t be discounted just because medicine can’t find what’s wrong with them.

However, Canada’s assisted dying law requires people to have a grievous and irremediable physical condition. Psychiatric experts raised concerns about whether the man’s mental illnesses would or should have rendered him ineligible for MAID.

Some members of the MAID death review panel also questioned whether a condition “previously unrecognized in medicine” — namely, a possible “post-vaccine somatic (meaning affecting the body) syndrome” — could be considered incurable.

The case highlights the challenges and uncertainties of granting euthanasia for people who aren’t terminally ill and whose natural deaths are not reasonably foreseeable — so-called “Track 2” cases....

Dr. Sonu Gaind, who is not a conscientious objector to MAID, said he’s troubled “by almost everything in this report.”

“I think we have gone so far over the line with Track 2 that people cannot even see the line that we’ve crossed,” said Gaind, a psychiatrist and professor of medicine at the University of Toronto.

“It’s pretty clear that some providers are going up to that line, and maybe beyond it,” Gaind said. “This is actually suicide facilitation in some cases.”

In the case of the man whose doctor picked him up, “this poor guy could not get access to medical treatment for his addictions but he could be chauffeured by our medical practitioner to receive death,” Gaind said. “I think there is something deeply wrong with that.”...

Rare conditions can occur after vaccination that can have “life-altering consequences,” said McMaster University immunologist Dawn Bowdish. With transverse myelitis, the immune system attacks the nerves of the spinal cord, leading to a condition resembling multiple sclerosis. Guillain-Barre syndrome occurs when the person’s immune system attacks the nerves, causing muscle weakness and, in rare cases, paralysis. Both conditions are diagnosable, she said.

Serious vaccine side effects generally appear within two weeks after the first, and more rarely, second dose of a vaccine, she said....