Who is Dr Erik Christensen? Utah medical examiner claims Moderna vaccine did not kill 39-year-old Kassidi Kurill
The death of Utah-based surgical technician Kassidi Kurill recently sparked an uproar over her family's claims that the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine was responsible for her sudden demise. Now, Dr Erik Christensen, Chief Medical Examiner for the Utah Department of Health, has urged people not to draw such conclusions, stating that Kurill's death was only "temporally related" to the vaccine.
39-year-old Kassidi Lyn Kurill, a mother who hailed from Ogden, Utah, passed away suddenly on February 5, 2021, four days after receiving the second dosage of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. As per her stepfather Alfred Hawley, Kurill was reportedly 'healthy as a horse' before she received the second dosage on February 1. Although the family is still awaiting her autopsy results, they are of the belief that her death was the result of an untoward reaction from the vaccine.
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How did Kassidi Kurill die?
The day after receiving the vaccination, Kurill experienced a headache and nausea and could not urinate properly despite sufficient fluid intake. On February 4, she started to run a fever when she went to the emergency room at a hospital in Ogden. A blood test diagnosed her in urgent need of a liver transplant. At that time she revealed that her heart was racing and she also started throwing up.
Soon she was airlifted to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray for the transplant, but she could not be stabilized for the procedure. She breathed her last on February 5 at the hospital. “She was healthy, happy, active until she took the shot, she went shopping with her mom, that afternoon when she took the shot,” said her stepfather Hawley, adding, “I believe that she was one of those bad reactions.”
After the news of her death surfaced on social media, there was visible panic among Internet users, who started expressing concerns about the safety of the Covid vaccine.
"To people who keep trying to convince me I should get the vaccine even though I'm healthy, almost never sick, and haven't had the flu (that I noticed) in 20 years: there's simply no reason to risk this rather nasty side effect, even if the odds are small," wrote one user.
Another reminded, "Exactly. Nurse Kristi Simmonds and professional hospital worker Kassidi Kurill both thought they were in the "most people" group. I have lists and lists of others, including family members of elderly people in good health who "mysteriously" died within 2 weeks of the "shot".
To people who keep trying to convince me I should get the vaccine even though I'm healthy, almost never sick, and haven't had the flu (that I noticed) in 20 years: there's simply no reason to risk this rather nasty side effect, even if the odds are small.https://t.co/7eJFJsSzTA
— Tom Naughton (@TomDNaughton) March 12, 2021
Exactly.
— KimGrayNoHumour - sarcasm is not beneath me 🌍 (@HumourKim) March 12, 2021
Nurse Kristi Simmonds and professional hospital worker Kassidi Kurill both thought they were in the "most people" group.
I have lists and lists of others, including family members of elderly people in good health who "mysteriously" died within 2 weeks of the "shot".
Amid public concerns about the dangers associated with the Covid vaccine, Dr Erik Christensen has assured his office has not certified any vaccine-related deaths in Utah so far. He added that there does not appear to be an established link between the death of four Utah residents including Kurill, and the Covid vaccines.
"We don't have any evidence that there are connections between the vaccines and deaths at this point. We don't have any indication of that," Christensen told Fox News.
Christensen joined the examiner's office in 2008 and the agency was handling 1,900 autopsy cases then. "I have multiple homicide files sitting in my desk," he had said at the time. "I just need time to finish the reports."
Who is Dr Erik Christensen?
A veteran pathologist from Utah, Dr Erik D Christensen has over 21 years of medical experience. Presently, he heads the Office of the Medical Examiner in Salt Lake City, Utah. His LinkedIn profile reveals that he earned his MD degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1990. Prior to medical school, Christensen attended Brigham Young University, where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy in 1980.
He has been associated with the Utah Department of Health for the past 13 years, joining as an Assistant Medical Examiner in August 2008. In July 2016, he was promoted to the position of Chief Medical Examiner.
In September 2020, Dr Erik Christensen had addressed the 'conspiracy theory' around the Covid-19 deaths and cleared the air about the Health Department procedure for listing the deaths. He stated that if the office believes there is a COVID-19 death, they probe into the patient's pre-existing conditions, history of events, positive test results, medical history, etc to determine the exact cause of death and whether the virus played a role, according to KUTV.
Following the uproar around Kassidi Kurill's death, Dr Christensen asserted that while side-effects from vaccines are common, each person's physical response to the vaccine depends on their biology.
"Certainly, there are side effects of a vaccine that are directly linkable to the vaccine and what's going on in your body. You know, the pain in the arm... the fever-like symptoms related to your immune response to what was put into you. Those kinds of things clearly happen," he said. He then added that a vaccine being the cause of death is a highly rare circumstance, and does not usually occur unless there was immediate anaphylaxis, which, however, would cause instant death.
Christensen has insisted that the autopsy results of Kurill might reveal an undiagnosed condition that led to her tragic death.