“The benefits of the vaccines in preventing COVID-19 and serious complications associated with COVID-19 far outweigh any currently known side effects in the vast majority of patients.”
Dr Ros Jones, retired paediatrician and HART member
One hundred and thirty health professionals and scientists wrote on 12th August to Wes Streeting, the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to express our serious concerns about the poor safety profile of the mRNA covid vaccines. Apart form an automated acknowledgement, there was then a stony silence, during which many other countries have been raising concerns and demanding the suspension of these gene-based products. In September in Australia, MP Russell Broadbent wrote to Premier Albanese, specifically highlighting the problems with DNA contamination in the mRNA vaccines, receiving a dismissive reply which prompted a further letter in October. By November, the NORTH group had been formed and 10 countries including the UK sent letters on 25th November to our respective prime ministers and health ministers, with the same safety concerns. Indeed another 6 countries have joined up since and with several more in the process of doing translations and obtaining signatures.
Maybe prompted by another letter from me and my contrarian colleagues, and only 15 weeks from our original letter, Mr Streeting’s nameless ‘Correspondence Officer’ has sent the response below. The similarities between all the responses are striking:
- Australian Health Minister’s Chief of Staff, Nick Martin, states: “The TGA has released a media statement to assure the Australian public that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe and do not contain excessive amounts of DNA.”
Similar answers were given by the Swedish Health Minister to questions from independent MP Elsa Widding – effectively saying that the European Medicines Agency had looked thoroughly and deemed the vaccines to be (yes you’ve guessed right) “SAFE & EFFECTIVE” (though he does qualify this as ‘safe and effective against serious illness and death‘). The Health Minister called the process of checking the vaccine “rigorous and comprehensive“, saying
“– I have good faith in the process related to the control and monitoring of medicines and vaccines”. It would perhaps be more reassuring if he had knowledge of the process rather than faith in it. If he has any detailed knowledge of the testing, he certainly wasn’t keen to share it.
Meanwhile the UK response published below, certainly takes no account of the belatedly published minutes from the Vaccine Benefit Risk Expert Working Group which mysteriously appeared on 9th December covering the period from August 2020 to May 2021, and which make it very clear they were aware of potential problems even before the rollout began!
Our ref: DE-1523897
Dear Dr Jones,
Thank you for your correspondence of 12 August about mRNA vaccines. I have been asked to reply, and I apologise for the delay in doing so.
I appreciate your concerns.
All vaccines and medicines have some side effects although not everybody gets them. These side effects need to be continuously balanced against the expected benefits in preventing illness. The benefits of the vaccines in preventing COVID-19 and serious complications associated with COVID-19 far outweigh any currently known side effects in the vast majority of patients.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring that the COVID-19 vaccines deployed in the United Kingdom are effective and acceptably safe. The MHRA approved the COVID-19 vaccines based on a rigorous assessment of their safety, quality and efficacy. Throughout the assessment process the MHRA sought the expert advice of the independent Commission on Human Medicines and their expert committees. Every batch of the vaccines is independently tested by the MHRA for quality before it is released onto the UK market.
As part of its statutory functions, the MHRA is responsible for continuously monitoring all vaccines post-authorisation to ensure their benefits continue to outweigh any risks. This monitoring strategy is continuous, proactive and based on a wide range of information sources, with a dedicated team of scientists reviewing information daily to look for safety issues or unexpected, rare events. As part of the MHRA’s responsibility to ensure that the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines used in the UK continue to outweigh the risks, the MHRA continues to closely monitor the safety of the vaccines through its robust COVID-19 vaccine surveillance strategy.
The MHRA works closely with its public health partners in reviewing the effectiveness and impact of the vaccines. Furthermore, the MHRA did provide guidance to healthcare professionals with regards to the COVID-19 vaccines to ensure that the Yellow Card scheme provided sufficient data as part of the MHRA’s surveillance activities. This guidance on Yellow Card reporting was embedded into healthcare professionals’ training materials to ensure that patients reporting adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines would be directed to submit a report.
In addition to this signposting of the Yellow Card scheme, the MHRA also ensured that information was included in each vaccine’s Summary of Product Characteristics and Patient Information Leaflet advising healthcare professionals’ and the public respectively on what to do if a serious suspected adverse reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine were to occur. The UK Health Security Agency has published information and guidance for healthcare professionals on very rare conditions reported after COVID-19 vaccination, which can be found at www.gov.uk/government/collections/covid-19-vaccination-and-rare-side-effects.
I hope this reply is helpful, and I would be grateful if you could share this reply with your co-signatories.
Yours sincerely,
Correspondence Officer
Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries
Department of Health and Social Care
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