Tara Levasseur was faced with a choice in July of 2020 that she hopes medical professionals will not be faced with again. Then Governor Gina Raimondo mandated that all medical professions be vaccinated for Covid 19.

A dental hygienist, Levasseur loves her job. She knows her body and, while she takes an annual flu shot and other vaccines, she did not want to expose herself to vaccinations that had been rapidly developed in an effort to quell the pandemic. The choice went beyond losing her certification and her job. Losing her good paying job would likely mean working two less paid jobs to cover the mortgage and meet household expenses, assuming she could find those jobs.

Levasseur told her story to Children’s Health Defense -TV Director of Programming Polly Tommey as she sat in a leather seat in front of a camera from the interior of a 42-foot RV parked at the Governor Francis Shopping Plaza on Warwick Avenue Friday afternoon. The CHD RV left Olathe, Kansas Aug. 24 to travel the country and video document stories from parents and children of how vaccinations have failed them and caused irreparable harm. CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker, Ph.D, co-author with Robert Kennedy Jr. of the book Vax-Unvax Let the Science Speak joined the tour Friday. Hooker sat through many of the interviews and stayed on to answer questions and talk about reactions to vaccinations. He even took a look at Levasseur’s tongue, which swells up with a white patch almost monthy. She had a biopsy performed on her tongue but physicians can’t come up with a diagnosis.

“No one can figure it out,” she said.

Hooker took a break at the nearby Newport Creamery where he had his first Awful Awful and got a bite to eat and talk with the Beacon.

“We’re in a chronic illness epidemic in this country,” he said. Hooker accompanied the RV that carries the names of those interviewed written in white across the black metal of the vehicle to answer questions from the media and talk about his book. The book covers research on a number of vaccinations and their components including Thimerosal in vaccinations, HPV vaccines, flu vaccines, Hepatitis B vaccines, DTP vaccines and vaccines in pregnancy. The book contains numerous charts comparing measurements such as inflammatory markers before and after vaccination, risk of Myocarditis after the Pfizer Covid 19 vaccination, all directed at measuring the effects between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Throughout there are comparisons between those vaccinated and those not.

“Today,” reads the first chapter, “children following the CDC recommended vaccination schedule receive a minimum of 73 shots for 17 different diseases, with a whopping 28 injections by their first birthday.” It goes on to say researchers “have done very little to study the health of these children, either in the short or long term.”

Hooker has had personal experience with autism although he can’t link it directly to a vaccination. His son, Steven who is now 25, developed an ear infection at 15 months old. He ceased talking. He was diagnosed as autistic and underwent therapy that continues today. He has learned to communicate and takes pride in spelling words. Hooker said he wants to go to college. “He has a bright future.”

Aimee Gardiner, director of Rhode Islanders Against Mandated HPV vaccinations coordinated the Rhode Island visit and arranged for many of the interviews.

Her tongue is the least of the side effects Levasseur experienced after taking the vaccine. Feeling she had noo other choice, Levasseur chose Johnson & Johnson/Janssen because it is not mRNA based as the Moderna and Pfizer vaccinations are.

“Either I lose my job or work two jobs and never see my family, or bite the bullet and take the vaccine,” she said. The injection was painful, she said, but what followed was worse. She was hit with a 102 degree fever and vomiting for two weeks. Physicians told her she had had “an anti-body storm” and put her on 200 milligrams of topiramate, a drug used primarily to treat seizures. She is still taking the drug – a 50 milligram dosage – for the migraines that she also attributes to the vaccination.

Levasseur is no stranger to those who follow Warwick schools. She objected to the use of a program that she feared would be used to have students evaluate their home life and invade privacy. She ran for District 1 School Committee in 2020, losing in the primary. Shawn Galligan went on to win the seat.

Reflecting on her reaction to the vaccination, Levasseur says she fells lucky compared to others. She called her reaction “minor” although she remains on medication. Her goal in speaking out is “get the story out there” and to prompt others who are afraid to speak to come forward. She believes government should not mandate vaccinations.

This is not to say she is cavalier about the health of others. She wears a mask while working on patients, “to protect them from bacteria” and does not report for work if sick. She takes a flu shot every year

Her story and those of countless others will be aired on CHD (Children’s Health Defense) TV.