20 May 2021 – Dodsworth has conducted the investigative journalism that her mainstream media counterparts manifestly failed to do.
News
COVID-19 child vaccination: safety and ethical concerns
20 May 2021 – Recently leaked Government documents suggested that a COVID-19 vaccine rollout in children over 12 years old is already planned for September 2021, and the possibility of children as young as 5 years old being vaccinated in the summer in a worst-case scenario.
Petition to end the mask mandate
13 May 2021 – The petition from HART member Dr Gary Sidley calling for the immediate lifting of the mask mandate has now received over 65,000 signatures.
Vaccine developments
13 May 2021 – While the UK government continues to move towards some sort of vaccine passport (renamed “Covid certification”), this is being ruled out in many places.
The mental health costs of coronavirus restrictions
13 May 2021 – The most effective way to aid recovery would be to lift all coronavirus restrictions and change the fear narrative surrounding those affected.
Welcome to ‘Zero Covid’
13 May 2021 – It is not possible to carry out over 6 million tests a week and return no positive results. Every test has an error rate and will return false positive results at a constant low percentage of tests.
You said we could go on holiday if we got the jab…
13 May 2021 – The continued restrictions on freedom of movement are as baffling as they are outrageous. HART has outlined in briefing papers how flawed the thinking around closed borders and the appearance of variants is, scientifically speaking.
To hug, or not to hug
13 May 2021 – This week, Boris Johnson stated that hugging friends and relatives will be ‘allowed’ as long as people use their common sense. Quite what this ‘common sense’ algorithm might look like is anyone’s guess.
London lockdown protest: two weeks on
13 May 2021 – When huge crowds marched through London on Saturday 24 April, some celebrities and NHS staff were quick to take to Twitter to express their horror and contempt. But here we are, just over two weeks on, and there’s still no sign of any increase in cases.
Natural vs vaccine immunity: which is safer or more protective?
By Dr Gerry Quinn Post-doctoral Researcher in Microbiology and Immunology The long-term implications of COVID-19 vaccines for both safety and long-term protective immunity are currently completely unknown. It would be irresponsible to make premature claims The NHS advert seen below states that:‘It’s much safer for your immune system to learn how to protect itself through […]
6 May 2021
It is a profound blessing that children are barely affected by COVID-19 — we have not seen deaths in previously healthy children in Britain. There have sadly been a very small number of children with serious life-limiting conditions who have died with COVID-19, but paediatricians can already organise vaccination for very high risk children under compassionate grounds, once the risk and benefits have been carefully weighed up. We don’t need to vaccinate healthy children for the sake of vulnerable ones. We also do NOT need to vaccinate healthy children to provide herd immunity for adults.
29 April 2021
Decades of evidence on viral seasonality, acquired immunity, prior immunity are being ignored, with those in charge claiming that the virus will wreak havoc if we go about our normal lives. Most people agree that, on some level, the rules don’t make any sense. And yet still they remain.
Vaccination certificates – impact on the high street
By Professor Marilyn James Professor of Health Economics The road to recovery will be hard, our hospitality and retail sectors do not deserve for this road to be even harder with more bureaucracy. This briefing was published on 28 April 2021 and did not feature in the original COVID-19 Evidence review document. The economic picture […]
22 April 2021
Mortality risk from COVID-19
The constant portrayal of COVID-19 as a threat has caused distortion in people’s perception of their risk of dying from it, if they are unlucky enough to catch it. This data will be an overestimate as it comes from table 1 of this study published in August 2020. The study estimated an overall infection fatality rate in Western Europe to be over 1% and even Professor Neil Ferguson agrees that it is more like 0.8% with WHO estimates now substantially lower than that.
16 April 2021
Restrictions pose more of a threat than COVID-19
After several weeks of minimal cases being found in the community and weekly deaths below normal levels we are still locked down. Lockdown costs us about £500m a day and every day brings more businesses to the brink. Over 4.7 million people are now waiting for NHS operations. Between March 2020 and January 2021 there were 350,000 fewer cancer referrals to hospitals than expected, a shortfall which is still growing. Education is still being interrupted with universities not returning to face-to-face teaching until 17 May. ..
8 April 2021
Child vaccine trials paused
The trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine in children has been paused while a possible link with blood clots in adults is investigated. Given that the phase 3 adult vaccine trials to establish long-term safety data are on-going and are not due to conclude until late 2022/early 2023, the question remains why were trials in children ever started? The risks to children from COVID-19 remain extremely low and any suggestion that children should be vaccinated to protect adults is ethically highly questionable.
HART’s position remains that it is unnecessary, unethical and should be strongly discouraged until long-term safety data in adults are complete. HART would also remind regulators, the media and politicians that these are experimental vaccines, without full regulatory approval but issued under emergency waivers. It is vital that data is collected and rigorous scrutiny of vaccine effects is completed and letters such as this one in The BMJ must surely be followed up as a matter of urgency…
31 March 2021
HART vs SAGE
HART Pathology Lead Dr John Lee appeared on Good Morning Britain this week alongside Professor Susan Michie who sits on SAGE and the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B).
Dr Lee noted the lack of evidence for asymptomatic spread of SARS-CoV-2 and also pointed out the absence of diverse scientific discussion in the media. Susanna Reid denied this, stating that the other side was being heard on social media and in the papers. However, these avenues are not the same as trusted mainstream TV programmes and the void of diverse thinking here has no doubt hampered the public’s understanding of ‘the science’…
Ethical considerations of the COVID-19 response
By Professor David Seedhouse Professor of Deliberative Practice There has been a stark lack of ethical reflection used in the COVID-19 response. There is an urgent need to restore balance in decision-making and to ensure this can never happen again. Public health is a branch of medicine mostly run by doctors with medical degrees. Whilst […]
