Episode 246: Vaccine Injury Cover-Up Goes to Court

This week on VSRF Live, we welcome physician assistant and whistleblower Deb Conrad, along with her attorney Jeremy Friedman, for the extraordinary story of a legal battle that could have implications far beyond one hospital system.

With nearly two decades of experience as a physician assistant, Deb was working as a hospitalist at United Memorial Medical Center, part of Rochester Regional Health, when the COVID-19 vaccines rolled out in 2021. Her front-line role gave her a broad view of the patients being admitted to the hospital. She says she began seeing a striking number of patients suffering strokes, blood clots, heart problems and other serious conditions in close temporal proximity to vaccination. Concerned by what she was seeing—and believing these cases warranted reporting as suspected adverse events—she began submitting reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

According to Conrad’s lawsuit, she repeatedly raised concerns internally about adverse events she believed were going unreported and ultimately submitted more than 160 VAERS reports herself. In October 2021, Rochester Regional Health fired her.

Conrad fought back. She brought a federal False Claims Act lawsuit alleging that Rochester Regional Health failed to comply with VAERS reporting requirements contained in its CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Program Provider Agreement while continuing to seek federal reimbursement—and that she was fired in retaliation for trying to expose that alleged noncompliance. Rochester Regional Health sought dismissal of the case and has disputed Conrad’s allegations, including the basis for her termination.

In June 2025, U.S. District Judge John Sinatra Jr. allowed key portions of Conrad’s case to move forward. The court held that the Provider Agreement could provide a contractual basis for False Claims Act liability and found that Conrad had sufficiently pleaded certain false-claims allegations and her federal and state retaliation claims. The case has since moved into discovery.

Joining Deb is attorney Jeremy Friedman, one of the lawyers representing her in the litigation. Together, they’ll take us inside the case: what Deb says she witnessed, why she believed the adverse events had to be reported, what happened when she challenged her employer, and what discovery may now reveal.

At its heart, this case raises a much larger question: What happens to vaccine safety surveillance when the healthcare professionals responsible for reporting possible injuries believe they risk their careers by doing so?

⏰ Time: 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT

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