A policy ‘offering’ harm with no potential benefit
This is the heading of a crowdjustice appeal looking to challenge the government’s decision on vaccinating healthy primary school children. But given this is only an ‘offer’, is a legal challenge required?
The Children’s Covid Vaccines Advisory Council (CCVAC) is a group of one hundred health professionals and scientists who have worked together over the last year, writing a number of open letters to the various regulatory bodies. Some are HART members, but many are not, having been brought together by a shared concern over the government policy on vaccination of healthy children. Letters have been detailed in their references and the breadth of concerns raised, particularly balanced against the low impact of covid for children. Replies have been infrequent and have not given fully referenced answers to any of the safety issues raised. It is against this background, that CCVAC members have reached the conclusion that a legal challenge is the only way to hold the government and the JCVI to account for the decisions they have taken.
A case brought last September regarding vaccination of 12-15-year-olds is still progressing through the courts and has at least resulted in an acknowledgement by ONS that there has been a statistically significant rise on deaths for young men aged 15-19 above 5-year averages. This new challenge to the 5-11s age group involves the same legal team. Six months on, and acknowledged by the JCVI in their announcement, the omicron variant is significantly milder than previous strains and 85% of children are estimated to have had covid. Moreover, for the 5-11s being vaccinated in the US, vaccine efficacy against omicron is estimated to wane within 4-5 weeks, so hardly likely to protect children against some potential future wave, as outlined by JCVI, nor to prevent school disruption as suggested for the 12-15s. Meanwhile, balanced against this negligible benefit, comes the real risk of harm. The latest VAERS summary for children gives no comfort and a follow-up study of children suffering post-vaccination myocarditis shows 69% still with abnormalities on cardiac MRI scans 3-8 months post injury. The serious possibility of immune dysregulation has also been totally ignored.
It is on this basis that parents will be ‘offered’ a choice of vaccination for their children. But will anyone explain to them the small print behind ‘Safe & Effective’ and will anyone point out that for these vaccines, still in the trial phase, Pfizer has no legal liability and the government compensation scheme is not fit for purpose?
