American Thought Leaders - How a COVID-19 Shot Upended Our Lives: Andre and Christian Cherry

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

Within a few hours of his second shot of the Moderna vaccine, Andre Cherry started having tremors in his left arm, which then spread to his other limbs. Soon he was forced to use a wheelchair. As his symptoms have worsened, he and his family have spent the last two years seeking help—and answers.His brother Christian is now his full-time caregiver, and they have both become advocates for the vaccine-injured.“If people acknowledge that vaccine injuries are real—that they can devastate families, they can devastate individuals, can bring them to the brink or over the precipice of death—and actually be moved to help the people who have been crying for it for years, I’d be satisfied,” Andre says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

I was a college student, a pianist, a composer, an artist, a writer. In this episode, I sit down with Andre Cherry and his brother Christian. After Andre's second Moderna COVID-19 shot, he found his life turned upside down. She didn't offer follow-up. She didn't ask him any questions. She said it was functional neurologic disorder stemming from stress and anxiety. Now, they are both advocates for the vaccine injured. If people acknowledge that vaccine injuries are real, that they can devastate families,

can devastate individuals, and actually be moved to help the people who have been crying for it for years, I'd be satisfied. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Andre and Christian Cherry, such a pleasure to have you both on American Thought Leaders. Thank you for having us. It's a pleasure to be here. Honoured to meet you. Definitely. Well, Andre, why don't we just dive right in and tell me a little bit about yourself.

Okay. So, my name is Andre. I'm 24 years old now. I was a college student, a pianist, a composer, an artist, a writer, published actually. I did a collaborative project with my classmates at Community College of Philadelphia a few years ago, and I was part of the editing team as well. Almost three years ago now, I took my second vaccination from Moderna against the COVID-19 virus and found my life turned upside down very soon after that. Two hours after my injection, I started having tremors in my left arm

where I took the shot. In the coming days, I had tremors in all four of my limbs. Needed to use a wheelchair because it was difficult to walk. Spent the past two years looking for care at various hospitals in my city and across the country. I've been to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as the NIH. I've come alongside organizations such as REACT 19, the Can We Talk About It project, the Children's Health Defense, in order to spread awareness about the adverse effects that people have

been experiencing in this, not just in this country, but across the world with this vaccine. I've been in the documentary Anecdotals and have worked on a couple of others. The Unseen Crisis, I was in that one as well. I'm going to be talking about the vaccine injured, which the federal government and state agencies pretend doesn't exist. Just doing the best that I can with my now very limited capacity to bring awareness and justice to this issue. Andre, you've been, you said you went to many places. I mean, Mayo, one of the top institutes ostensibly in the country, perhaps the world, the NIH. You know, I have actually, I've had people on the show who say they got the golden ticket, for example, by getting treatment at the

NIH. What happened at the NIH for you? A movement specialist at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania diagnosed me with functional neurologic disorder, which is one, what I found, a shared experience with many vaccine injured who experience neurologic issues, movement issues. Neurologists can't seem to pinpoint what exactly we have. There's no structural thing in my brain that can explain my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY And we came out of it and they said that I don't, in fact, have functional neurologic disorder, that I'm not eligible for their study. Which was, in a way, helpful to me because the movement specialist who diagnosed me said that it was caused by stress and anxiety. And she didn't do any testing to see how stressed or anxious I was at the time. I underwent a neuropsychological examination about six months into my injury

and the results came back with only mild anxiety. And this is after dealing with six months of bulismis, flaccid paralysis, dystonia, tremors, vocalizations, lethargy. You know, seven life-changing, debilitating symptoms that can happen at any time that pose a danger to myself and to the people who live with me. And all that the test came out with was mild anxiety. So on the one hand, the NIH saying that I wasn't eligible for an FND study was helpful because we, I had doubts and concerns about that diagnosis to begin with, but it was also, well, what, what do I have? What can be researched about me?

What can be done? So it was kind of a double-edged sword. It helped, but it also just raised more questions. Well, and it's interesting because FND, a number of people have also told me that it's kind of a dead, once you get that diagnosis and it sticks, it's kind of a dead end. They just say, well, we don't know. Well, Christian, you have become your brother's primary caregiver. And you mentioned a whole bunch of symptoms, seven. And I'm wondering, Christian, because you actually, from the outside a bit, you're seeing these things manifest.

So maybe if you could tell me about those symptoms, like what are they? Because not everybody will be familiar with these. Bolismus is, it can present as a variety of explosive muscular movements. They can be disorganized or very organized, where his arm, for example, with me sitting here, it could at random, without him losing consciousness or having some hidden vendetta against me, fly out and smack me in the face. There have been times where he was walking, ambulating like a normal human being, and his symptoms are affected by a variety of things.

There's heat, there's cold, there's pressure, and there's repetitive movement. So with a repetitive movement like walking, he can be under his own volition trying to walk across a room or go and talk to somebody and his body, his symptoms may cause him to continue to walk and not be able to stop and walk into a wall. We were with the Children's Health Defense about two weeks ago and because we were dealing with a lot of other things, we're typically very well prepared but we didn't bring the medicine bag that included his straps that he's wearing here. So I tried my best to keep a close eye on him and of course was managing him in the

wheelchair and after we did the interview at the bus, we were going up the hill to the internal interview. And on our way up the hill, his symptoms caused him to rise up out of the chair and start sprinting. So I had to let go of the wheelchair and sprint after him, grab him and maneuver him into a safe position on the ground. And there was broken glass from like a bottle and we missed it thank god but um that's the kind of random thing that can happen the running isn't even the worst um there are coordinated movements where he can like kick and punch in combinations and we went to Ithaca New York for an exosome and white blood cell treatment and because he had to have preliminary exams done before the medication was administered to make

sure that he was in good health and okay to take it, some of that included things like getting his blood pressure taken and the blood pressure cuff machine as we all know from going to doctors, at least a semi-repetitive compressing machine which would kick off his symptoms. And there were times while we were there that I'd be wrestling him for three hours basically non-stop while he, of course, not intentionally, not under the volition of his consciousness and without him ever losing consciousness, entered into a ballistic and chaotic episode where he was a danger to himself and to basically everyone there. Thankfully, the doctor who was working with us, the practitioner, was very understanding and very patient. And we were eventually able to get the medication administered.

But it was always a very long, stressful, and at times painful process. In Florida, we went to the Mayo Clinic. He was supposed to see, I believe, a movement specialist there. And he was walking down the corridor to the office, and then all of a sudden he just dropped. And they did not have staff on hand who was available or capable of dealing with his symptom presentation. And it ended up becoming my responsibility. And anytime we've gone to a neurologist when they do the neurological exam to see what's working and what isn't, especially when they do the tuning fork on his legs. He ends up in a spastic, violent, ballistic episode

where he ends up on the floor. And I've been hit multiple times. I've been kicked into things. I've put holes in walls. He's punched holes in walls. I've gotten cut, grabbed, the whole nine. And that's only bellismas, but I mentioned that one a lot because it's never, or very rarely, just one thing. They layer on top of each other. He

can be flaccid in one part of his body. His legs might be flaccid, and then you have control over his arms. He can type on a computer or move his chair. And at other times, there might be tremors where his legs are shaking or his arms are shaking, and he is able to still speak. He may have times where, because his symptom presentation affects every muscle in his body, it can affect his diaphragm, where it will stay in a contracted, I guess, position, and he won't be able to inhale. So I have to manually stimulate his diaphragm you won't be able to inhale. So I have to manually stimulate his diaphragm so he's then able to breathe. By that, he means hit me in my solar plexus. Yes. I noticed, you know, that as you're saying some of these things, which to me are, you know, kind of shocking, you know, you're smiling. Yeah. The situation at hand is not funny at all i find it very distressing but um there's a humor in the absurdity of all this because even for someone in the situation it doesn't make any

sense at all and i can't help but laugh not at his expense not at the seriousness of the circumstance but just at the absurdity. And also... I've cracked plenty of jokes myself about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Many at my own expense. Yeah. We make jokes at times about the ridiculous things that can happen, and it helps to keep things manageable and emotionally stable. Also, laughter can be a bit of a coping mechanism for a lot of the frustration that comes along with it because it leaves you in a situation not unlike Sisyphus where you're pushing the

boulder up the hill and it just comes back down on the same side. And there's a lot of mixed feelings, but there's a lot of mixed feelings, but there's also positivity because we're brothers, always have been brothers, always will be brothers, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Andre, I can't help but think to myself that, you know, wow, this to me seems like the definition of family, if I do say so. I appreciate that.

I have been very fortunate to be blessed with a brother like the one sitting next to me and the family that I live with. They've all been very supportive of me doing their best to make sure that I'm comfortable, well taken care of, and always ready to do the things that I can't anymore, even if that means having to feed me, like spoon feed me, or bathe me when I can't wash myself. We are very close. Our faith and our love in God and for each other has made us very close and is very strong and I believe has been strengthened by us all experiencing this circumstance. We're in this situation, as you know, because you've watched The Unseen Crisis and you've lived it, frankly. Oh yeah. A lot of people

just don't understand that this is a thing. Let's talk a little bit more about, you mentioned one in an incredible deal. I didn't even know that that existed until this moment, frankly, what you just described. But you can also, I mean, I think in the unseen crisis, we have a moment where you just kind of lose uh you get paralyzed for a moment so uh he spoke at length about bullismas one of my that i think is one of my most prevalent symptoms the other is well the other two would be the tremors and the uh well four tremors dystonia and flaccid paralysis uh they all like as christian said a lot of my symptoms can occur simultaneously uh the flaccid paralysis is what i'm mainly

dealing with now along with some spasms you can see you know the kind of fidgeting movement of my calves my my arms but i can't move my legs if i wanted to right now can't move my arms right now there were around this time last year i was dealing with flaccid paralysis episodes that lasted up to 15 hours so i was just in my bed day in day out for days and you'd think oh laying in bed for all that time that's it was so tiring it it takes a lot out of me to experience all these because and on the one hand i experience a lot of involuntary muscular activity and then on the other hand the flaccid paralysis many most times either in my bed or in my chair it's just it puts your brain into that kind of rest and digest state where you're just feeling very lethargic yeah and it's, either way, it's a draining experience.

And also, sometimes like the flaccid paralysis can happen just spontaneously, like Christian said, I'll be walking and sometimes my legs will give out and I fall and I cry out, man down so that Christian and my mom and whoever else is on hand can help me get to my wheelchair or to a chair or to my bed. She can give my bed. It's a hospital bed situated in the dining room of our house on the first floor. Christian sleeps in a bed in the living room of our house, also on the first floor. Our mom used to sleep down there with him as well, but we, because,

you know, we want her to be able to sleep in her own bed, we're like, hey, go upstairs. Christian and I, we got this. So he's been basically on watch and on hand, just a room over in case anything goes down at night. Fortunately, when I'm asleep, my symptoms abate. But, you know, you can't be too careful with a situation like this. You know, my hands shake. Sometimes it turns to an all-out flailing of my limbs, you know, which include them swinging out and sometimes hitting things. And I made the observation about two years ago

that if I were to ever break a bone with the condition I'm in, it would never heal right because I can't rely on my body to stay still. Or if I'm in a cast, I could still swing out my arm and hit something, the bone would never set, and if I ever did get better, they'd have to break it again in order for it to set properly, you know, so that's why we have things like this strap, there's a book bag that we carry around with me when we go out on the rare times, I do go out with a bunch of stuff to make sure that I'm safe. I have a helmet at home. Uh, we've bought gym mats. Uh, the bed is a hospital bed that I sleep in with, uh, rails with rails on the side, uh, with pillows, uh, um, put up on the rail so that if I ever

thrash around, I don't hurt myself on the metal. Um, so it's just, it's a very involved thing managing, uh, my symptoms and making sure they aren't triggered. Even this morning, um, as I was getting ready to head out and make the drive up here, uh, my mom was going to wash my hair, but her hands were cold and my body just slumped over because it's now just very sensitive to the touch of cold, the touch of heat, pressure, like all the things Christian mentioned. As you mentioned at the beginning, it's completely changed your life. And these symptoms, they can come and go,

you know, within minutes, almost, right? Seconds. Absolutely incredible. How has this affected the family, Christian? It's affected everything for like the first, I think, several months. My mom and I were sleeping on couches in the living room. We were going back and forth between a variety of hospitals and specialists, many of whom were not very positively engaged. When it came to the diagnosis, the first instance of functional logic disorder, they were very disrespectful to both Andre and my mother. At the time, he was in a wheelchair, and that was like his first time ever being in a wheelchair in his life at, what, 20 years old? 21. 21. Same difference. Just a young guy in a wheelchair. But they were raising questions because the only thing that had changed in regards to his life was the fact that he was injected with the Moderna COVID vaccination product. And they became very defensive. And they stormed out of the room

saying that maybe we'll know more when you're your mother's age, right? Which is one, an implication that our mother is old. And secondly, you're not giving much hope to a patient who's going through one of the worst things someone can go through. She didn't offer follow-up. She didn't do any kind of psychological testing. She didn't ask him any questions. She said it was functional neurologic disorder stemming from stress and anxiety. And after that, most of the comments we received from other neurologists were, my esteemed colleague said X, functional neurologic disorder, therefore it has to be.

And he would be having, during this time, it was still during the pandemic. And as a result, I wasn't allowed to be in the doctor's office directly most of the time. It was mostly my mom and my brother because of COVID restrictions. But then if he had an issue, like he fell out of his chair or was having bulismas, they would call me in and I would go in, of course, to help my brother. And they would be fiddling with nothing, just turn their backs, not look, not acknowledge, and find any way possible, it seemed to me, to not acknowledge the very thing that was in their face, which makes it extremely frustrating because my brother needs help. The longer, the more time that is used trying to find help or just people who are amenable to being interested costs us money and emotional stress, which is corrosive on the body. He's a young man who can't start his career and because admittedly I'm making a decision to help but in my view it'd be dishonorable not to but that creates a situation where I can't make much of an income for myself either and it places

all of the financial stress on our single mom. The entire time, not only are you dealing with a health crisis, a family crisis where everyone's been displaced, we're chronically stressed out. I can't, I don't feel comfortable leaving the house. I don't feel comfortable going upstairs for prolonged periods of time. Even when I'm having conversations with people, I'm only partly present because I have to be concerned about whether or not he's going to injure himself, myself, or someone else,

or just damage property. It is just a very burdensome, heavy thing that is only made worse by the fact that people, one, don't have awareness that these things can happen, two, that some people who do know don't act the way that they should, and thirdly, that the people who do know who do care or would care are so dispersed across the United States you can only really feel like a real person when like a million dollar bus project comes through and you have to travel 45 minutes and then you're

still dealing with issues and you have to go back to your life of absolute insanity. So I think that it has not decimated because we refuse to allow this to be the determining factor in our lives. But it has done a massive number on our emotional welfare. I would say our health, because being stressed this much, having to focus this much all of the time is not positive. It certainly has done economic damage because the money that we're losing or spending in regards to hospitals and medical gear and travel is a loss, at least initially. Hopefully things like this, and I believe that they will, will be a return on investment culturally and immediately for our family. But in the time being, we're not quite in the black yet. I think that's how you would say that. Well, I want to mention, I was speaking with your mom the other day, and she mentioned that never once did she suggest that you should do this. This was, you know, you immediately, you said you do this this was you know they you

immediately you said you have if you I don't know if you said duty I can't remember the word but you said you this is of course you have to do this and I thought that was it was good to hear that I appreciate it yeah I do the same for him 100% he's one of the best men He's one of the best men I know. Same here. It takes a lot to suffer with grace and put up with the amount of stuff that he's had to put up with and continue to try and help people. Anytime he has the chance, he's trying to write a message to somebody. He's trying to encourage people, trying to get the word out.

He's a very positive person in the house. He's laughing all the time. Like that definitely makes things a lot nicer because he's in a position where it would be absolutely understandable if he were very, very And everyone putting in their time and putting in their emotional energy has just, it pays everybody back and we're able to keep it going. Andre, yeah, I've heard that you like to help people. Maybe tell me about some of those other people that you've been in touch with. Well, I had the supreme honor of meeting Bree Dressen face-to-face about two weeks ago here in D.C. in contact with local representatives to try and push legislation that would aid compensation for those who have been injured by the COVID vaccines. I met a ton of wonderful people there. Their stories are very near and dear to my heart. And the supreme kindness and compassion that they have shown me is just incredible. I met a woman there whose son graduated high school and died a week afterwards

because of the vaccine. She was there and she was in D.C. with us. She showed me her picture of her son. I was alarmed by how alike we looked, but I just got in the mail. My birthday just passed. She got me a bunch of stuff by C.S. Lewis because I mentioned in passing that, you know, I enjoy his work. His work means a lot. So she got me his final novel, Till We Have Faces, a T-shirt with a quote of his on it, and a journal with another quote of his on it. It's just, I just met you, and you're giving me birthday gifts. It's incredible and humbling, and it helps me. I do my best to reach out and to spread awareness, to participate in things like this interview, things like the Children's Health Defense interview, doing what I can with React 19, with the Can We Talk About It campaign. I used to be very active on social media. I'm in the place where I need to take a break from that just because of the climate

of it. It's very unpleasant, but I do my best to share what information I can with as many people as I can, no matter what the fact checkers say about it. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. I don't know if, you know, Andre or Christian, you can jump in. But, you know, why would this be, you know, why would this be hostile? It's not so much the hostility that affects me. I'm fortunate that I haven't experienced as much hostility as many others have. There have been some people who have accused me of faking my symptoms when I've

posted video documentation of my own symptoms, trying to share my story. I acknowledge that some of the things that I that that I experienced may look ridiculous you know I took martial arts and boxing lessons before I was injured so a lot of the ballismus looks like I'm shadow boxing even when I'm lying down or going through some martial arts form you know people like oh that can't be right because it a normal medical stuff it doesn't look like that you know i admit it does look ridiculous but it doesn't make it any less real and if i can just interject i've laughed i'm not gonna lie like a few times i've laughed at like that's what i mean by the absurdity of the situation it's just like it it's like it comes straight out of a comic book you

know some strange comedy art film that was like shoved into the back of like Blockbuster. But continue. Yeah, it's not the hostility that affects me. It's just the negativity of just all of the things of what's going on, how many people have been affected, and just the more information that I've become privy to, the more sad it is to see what's going on. And then, of course, just the heartbreaking sadness of the situation itself. You know, people dying, people wanting to die, people losing loved ones, people whose lives have been turned upside down, who don't have the luxury and the blessing of a support system like I do. You know, I count myself very, very, very fortunate. And I thank God that I do have the support system that I have, because I know for a fact that many people who are vaccine injured do not have that support. They have to

seek support from others who are sick and ailing and suffering like them. I ran into a person on Facebook whose all of his family, his colleagues, his students dismissed him and have abandoned him, and his body is tearing itself apart. He wants death because he can see no other way out. It's a terrible and heartbreaking thing to see. You know, and he he saw one of he saw one of my videos of me going through an episode. He called me. He said that I was his hero for being brave enough to share my experience and speak out against this. And it's just so sad to see people who stood up and did what our country asked of us to be treated so poorly. About a year ago, I wrote an open letter to Marvel Entertainment. released a comic uh as kind of like a psa thing in combination with pfizer about you know the

importance of getting the vaccine you know how the avengers have to adapt in order to face ultron and we have to adapt by taking this vaccine to defeat covid you know and i spoke in my letter, I spoke at length about my admiration for superheroes, for heroics, how that has formed and founded a lot of, if not all of my conceptions about how to treat others, making sure that you're looking out for the little guy, standing up for what matters, even at personal expense, great power and great responsibility, all of that. You know, I'm like, why aren't you, Marvel Industries,

living by those same principles? You have written stories and sold stories to us for almost 60, almost 70 years but now you're in bed with this big wig company and telling people to side with oscorp basically to uh take a to take a treatment that they haven't been rightfully informed of, that they can't give proper informed consent to. I quoted Captain America at the very end. I said, well, Captain America said,

it's not about, regardless of what the politicians say or the world leaders say or the celebrities say i'm paraphrasing here um if they're if they're telling you to do something that is against what you believe is right it is your job to stand to stand firm and planted like a tree by the river of truth and say no you move yeah that's been my attitude towards this that's been my driving motivation that we are the free people of the united states of america we have rights endowed onto us by our creator among which our life liberty in the pursuit of happiness and that the power that is uh in the power of this capital in this that is centered in this city is derived from the

from the consent of the governed you know and it is their job to secure and to make our and to make our rights able to be practiced and not to infringe upon us not to abridge our rights to medical freedom our rights to be inquisitive our rights to research our rights to say maybe i don't want this maybe this isn't good for me helping others and seeing the efforts of organizations like react 19 uh the children's health defense can we uh can We Talk About It campaign just are very moving to me and they help keep me going. My belief in Christ helps me keep going. The Bible says that God is very near to those who are sick and downtrodden and that he will never turn away a voice that calls to him in sincerity. You know, I've called out to him audibly, sometimes angrily, but always sincerely because I know that he will have his way and that he sees and that he hears.

If I know this isn't right, he knows this isn't right. And a day will come when it will all be set right. You were asking us about why we think there's so much hostility online and in the public discourse on the lived reality of millions of people and I think a massive aspect of it is that it is embarrassing and scary to be wrong. The narrative that we have been taught this entire time, pedantically called in song to parade in, is that you can reflexively trust any institution because they said so and because they have authority, whatever that's supposed to mean, and that the product that they are administering and mandating and contrasting with your goodness as a person, with your ability to employ yourself and protect your children, with your rights and freedoms, is safe and effective, that the adverse reactions are rare and a non-concern for the average citizen.

And that it is necessary, absolutely, that everyone participate and not ask questions and not be authentic and not be human. And because this country has provided for us so much, because I do believe America has to be the greatest country in the world, it's very hard to look at it objectively. There are certainly populations that we recognize that have struggled from all walks of life, from all ethnicities, and there are issues in society that have yet to be dealt with. But it is still true that in contrast to many places in the world and in contrast to much of history, we are extremely wealthy, very well fed, and very entertained. And when the people that we ascribe the glory of providing such things to us tell us a thing, we want to believe them. And beyond wanting to believe them, we do. Because for most people, you feel very comfortable calling on the government. And many aspects of our government

are very useful in work. We have the fire department. We have the police. We have ambulances. Politicians do do positive things for the community there's solidarity we're the melting pot of the world where culture in many ways can be expressed most freely even if there's a lot of friction and um contrast but when something so starkly against your worldview asserts itself, unless you have had previous experience with dealing with that kind of a thing, or you have been invited into a space where that is okay, you feel very, very, very unsafe. And I think that that goes for the average citizen and for many politicians. And I also believe that there was sufficient foreknowledge about the potential dangers of the administration of this medical product into the world population indiscriminately that some people don't want us to know that they messed up, that they made a mistake, that they chose whatever it is that they chose

for whatever reason that they chose it. That has now led to serious life-altering, terrible things, and many, many, many deaths, and not pretty ones that you want to talk about, like, oh, my grandfather passed away peacefully in his sleep after having a nice life. Nah, some kid who was like 19 years old died a week after he graduated. Some guy shot himself. Some guy hung himself. Not happy material. And because of justifications about the greater good, loving grandma, and feeling beholden to people that are in positions of authority, there is not the impetus to shake that up. There has been some talk about misinformation, but a lot of it has been vaccine hesitancy. We don't want people to hesitate, which is very different than saying that we don't want people to do things that are bad for their health, like smoking and drinking too much or abusing and hurting themselves, or committing suicide.

The implication is that one shouldn't hesitate, and if you aren't hesitating, you're complying. And if you don't have the right to think for yourself, if you don't have the right to ask questions and you're being demanded to obey by other people, what is obviously being asked for is reflexive compliance, which is the thing that our schools are supposed to be teaching us not to do. We do book reports from the time you're in first grade. You have to have material that you did not produce, analyze the material in context, and be able to organize that into a systematic

that you can then present to other people. And it can be judged not on how you feel, not on how convenient it is for you, but on how accurate it is to the text. And even though many of our government schools are doing their best to teach everyday people, students young and old, of living a curious life, it doesn't seem that that same moral lesson, that same ethic is being held to when things are uncomfortable. And that ends up leading to people like us who are very much being left high and dry. There's also the aspect to where because people have been given a narrative that they don't have sufficient evidence to challenge, they see ridiculous things like what comprises so much of our lives and they immediately assume or conclude

based off of the information that they have that this has to be false because this other thing is so clearly true. So it's not all that people are terrible or that, you know, the government is just one big evil mess. There's a lot of complicated things going on. There is evil, there is neglect, but also there is a lack of shared information. And the more dialogue and the more free dialogue that we're allowed to have without having to be afraid of being wrong without having to be afraid of losing our jobs or having different legal things levied at you because you're not complying the better of a world we'll be able to live in.

And the more reason we will actually have to trust, to be amenable to one another, because there's not coercion. Andre, what would it mean to you to just have society, and Frank, this is a question for you, Christian, as well, to have society just accept that COVID vaccine injury is a thing, and it comes in a variety of presentations, which in people's lives are sometimes irrevocably altered through it. I care much more for the benefit of people who are suffering worse than I am than for myself, if for no other reason than I have my family and I have my God, and I know that they watch over me. But reparation for me is only really tangible through action. You know, it's one thing to say, oh, this happened.

It's another thing to say, oh, this is a problem. How do we go about fixing it? That's, to me, the crux of the issue. People either not acknowledging or ignoring the fact that there's a problem, and then because of that that not searching for solutions. If people acknowledge that vaccine injuries are real, that they can devastate families, they can devastate individuals, can bring them to the brink or over the precipice of death and actually be moved to help the people who have been crying for it for years,

I'd be satisfied. Until then, I'm going to keep on fighting for awareness, going to keep on fighting for freedom and truth and justice, and for decency. Because the people who experienced this are no different than the people who haven't. It's a humanitarian crisis. It is an issue being faced by humans. Whether we vote red or we vote blue, we all bleed red.

We all breathe the same air. We all come from the same earth. And we all turn into ash when our life is over the less we're fixated on the things that contrast us what our political stances are what our medical stances are what our religious stances are and focus on the fact that we're all human beings, we're all one big extended family, then we should act like a family acts. My family acts like a family acts. We stick together. We travel in a pack. You know, I was in Annapolis, Maryland a few months ago in order to help support a bill that would prevent students

and other government employees from being mandated to take the COVID vaccine. And we were getting turned around from our car to the office by Google Maps. So like what should have been a 15 minute walk, it's like a 40-minute walk, and my mom was having a hard time keeping up because of her knees, and she was apologizing for all the breaks she had taken. I was like, no, mom, either we traveled together or not at all. That's family. For anybody who's seen Lilo and Stitch, you know, here's a quote, ohana means family, which means no one is left behind or forgotten, you know, here's a quote, Ohana means family, which means no one is left behind or forgotten, you know. And a lot of people have been left behind. A lot of people feel left behind.

And until people start looking back and picking each other up, the problem isn't going to be solved. So that's what people acknowledging this would mean to me, that we act like we ought to act. I don't think there's too much I can add to that, kinds, religious, political, racial, that has been permeating the entire situation, that things being the way they are, it's very hard to feel like an actual person. Because personhood, of course, as an individual identity, I have a decent sense of an internal locus of control. I have values. I try to do things that I like and do things that I care about. But there is the mirroring effect that is necessary for a healthy psyche that is lacking in a very fractured society. You mean people are not seeing themselves in the other, that kind of thing? Yeah, and also like the lack of empathy because um there's a

reason that children die faster without affection than without food and without water um and my mom has had a thing that she said ever since we were little kids that adults are just big kids and i've thought about that and it's like we all like our sandwiches cut a certain way. We like the temperature at a certain, at the perfect Goldilocks zone. We appreciate good humor and drawings and we still want to play even when it's business time. I don't think any of that stuff is bad,

but when challenges in life show up, which is the project that societies and countries set out to solve, they're meant to insulate us from death and from the sense of death, which can very much be one of isolation, of abandonment, of being dearly discarded, and all that other stuff. And we end up being very focused on symbols and signals, flags and particular motions or kinds of clothing or whether or not you carry certain cards in your wallet to prove that you did the right thing and you just end up losing the point. You don't see yourself or other people as persons. You see them as extensions of Gnostic, Asian concepts that just float around. And people come before concepts.

You know, I do believe that good and evil are real. I believe that there are ontological solids that we draw upon when we make decisions and when we craft and interact with symbols or discover them for the first time. But when it comes to the ordering of a society for the organization of a person, of a soul, it's like good can only be understood in relationship to people, in relationship to the willing observer, and to have it be that some arbitrary gesture that one movement, that one action comprises goodness is like a total misunderstanding of what it is. Because as Jesus himself said, love your Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Against such things there is

no law and nobody lives up to that. I sure as heck don't and I'm okay with saying that because it's not about me having to live up to it. It's about a recognition of the facts, about myself, about God and other people, and the pursuit toward the better. And that pursuit toward the better can't be one of, if we just do the right symbols, if we look like this, if we refer back to some bygone time or to some chromium-laden perception of the future, we'll be okay. The future is now, and as much as I love everyone in the room right now, I really wish that we didn't have to meet under these circumstances. Like we could have been working on some other creative project, met each other in the street or never met at all. And things would have been like 10,000 times better. So for me, really acknowledging the situation is doing the work that humanity has always been supposed to be doing, which is learning how to be human. And part of that is taking accountability and responsibility when you're wrong

and actually meaning it, not just trying to pay people off, not trying to just say words, because there has been a level of recognition. Like people talk about myocarditis, but it's just a symbol. They're like, oh, myocarditis, but it's just a symbol. They're like, oh, myocarditis happens, but, you know, still safe and effective. Everything's great. And just listen. Don't

research. Don't think we were wrong that time, but don't, don't think about that. Do what we say. And it's not just hypocritical, it's abusive and it's manipulative. We have to treat each other like people and not just use humanitarianism or anything else as a proxy for actual empathy and love. Either you love people or you don't. Either you care about them or you don't. And that doesn't mean you have to do it perfectly. But it does mean, as the Bible puts it, the righteous man falls seven times and rises again. You know, you have to get back on the horse and try to make better decisions. You have to acknowledge that you've fallen. And until that happens, no signal, no button press, no election, no amount of money is going to undo

the fact that any of this happened. Andre, final thoughts as we finish? He's a really tough act to follow. He said he didn't have much to add. He just wrote a whole book. I'm dead.

Jokes aside, final thoughts. One, I appreciate you in the Epoch Times for being a shining beacon of actual journalism in an age where journalism has very much become just government PR. So I thank you for having me here, for allowing me and my brother the space to share our story, and for allowing the space for others like me to share their stories. This is, like Christian said, going to be hard. You know, I wish, many people I've met have wished that this would just stop.

But it won't. But if we keep on doing this work, and if we try more and more to honor each other as the glorious God-made human beings that we are, then every day is a step closer to victory. Every video recording, every comment, every like, share, every conversation is one step in the right direction. And you get enough one steps, before you know it, you're at the finish line. So I'm going to keep persevering.

My family is going to keep persevering. I just ask that whoever sees this would hear me, hear my brother, hear my family, look into the facts for yourself yourself and hopefully join this fight. Well, Andre and Christian Cherry, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you very much, Jan. Thank you. Moderna did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Thank you all for joining Andre and Christian Cherry and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.