Desiree Jennings on Inside Edition + Dr Rashid Buttar

Video Transcript:

Next, in some addition. It is one of the most talked about stories we've ever had on Inside Edition, a young woman who claims she was suffering excruciating symptoms after having a seasonal flu shot. Well we have an update today on Desiree Jennings, an update that raises just as many questions as before. Her story created a national firestorm. Desiree Jennings is the pretty ambassador for the Washington Redskins cheerleading squad who claimed she developed a rare neurological disorder called Dastonia after receiving a seasonal flu shot, causing dramatic spasms and slurred speech. Like this feel was so sideways the last thing going on now too. So you used to be able to go sideways. What made the story so startling is that her symptoms seem to disappear when she walked backwards or ran. Yeah, I can talk now. Back in October, Desiree and her husband told me they worried they'd never find a cure. But look at Desiree now. We found her walking normally, playing with her dogs, going shopping, even getting behind the wheel of a car and driving. Hard to believe the woman we've been discreetly observing over the last few weeks is the same woman we met during the height of the flu shot scare. So we wanted to ask her about her remarkable improvement. We've been trying to reach you and you have not been reaching our phone calls. What's going on? It looks like you've made a complete recovery. Well, I'm going to take complete recovery. I still have a lot of cognitive issues. So what happened? Did Desiree Jennings really suffer a 1 in a million reaction to the seasonal flu shot as she says? Or is it all some kind of elaborate hoax? Or is it something else entirely? Take a look at this. It's an official report on Desiree's case by the Centers for Disease Control. It states the admitting neurologist felt that there was a strong psychogenic component to her symptoms. Psychogenic means that there is a mental or psychological cause for her spasms. The dramatic symptoms of movement and speech that Ms. Jennings is displaying is certainly not a reaction to the vaccine. Dr. Stephen Novella is an assistant professor of neurology at Yale who treats patients with dystonia, which is what Desiree claims she suffered from after the seasonal flu shot. She hasn't examined Desiree but is convinced after viewing our video that her affliction is not dystonia. Just from looking at the video, a trained and experienced neurologist could say this is not dystonia. Desiree finds the idea that her illness is all in her head ridiculous. Some people think it was psychogenic. Some people might even think it's a hoax. I mean, people are free for it to believe whatever they want, but you know, I mean, clearly what I've been going through. I know it's not psychogenic and it's not a hoax. By now, you may have noticed something that surprised us. Desiree is now speaking with a foreign accent she never had before. I'm from Ohio. I should not be talking like this. That's a key here for an Australian accent. It's, yeah, I've heard Australian British, but you know, it just essentially comes out to the inability to pronounce what? There's no way a flu shot can cause someone's accent to change. Absolutely not. So how did Desiree go from this to this? He credited this doctor, an alternative practitioner named Rashid Batar. He claims he reversed many of her symptoms in less than 48 hours using controversial therapies, including a hyperbaric chamber and intravenous injections of nutrients and synthetic amino acids. She is well on a way to being fully recovered. But Batar has come under fire for his practices. The North Carolina Medical Board claims he engaged in unprofessional conduct for charging cancer patients, exorbitant fees for unproven and ineffective treatments. Some of the very same treatments Desiree received. He denies any wrongdoing. Are you concerned that your case has generated so much interest and in particular it has politicized the whole issue of vaccines? No, not really. This is what happens to me. We need to point out one other thing. When we first saw Desiree in this shopping center parking lot, she seemed to be walking normally. But as she left to get into her car, she was walking sideways. She says it was because of the dystonia. All right, don't catch me driving because I don't think I was supposed to be driving. As Jennings is no longer seeing the controversial Dr. Batar, but she did show us a report from her current doctor who believes her symptoms were vaccination induced. And we come back on inside edition.