12-15 year olds now offered COVID-19 vaccines ‘to avoid educational disruptions’ and ‘for their mental health’
Last week HART published an article entitled COVID-19 vaccines: unnecessary for healthy 12 to 15-year-olds, which included an open letter to the four UK CMOs (Professor Whitty, Dr McBride, Dr Smith and Dr Atherton).
Eighteen months ago, the UK was seen as a country where evidence-based medicine was a well-established norm. Something has gone deeply wrong. We now have the situation where politics is playing medicine. This is a very dangerous game, particularly for the patient, or should we say ‘end user’ in the context of potential life-long subscriptions to annual vaccination programmes? If this were a piece of software we would at least get to review the End User Licence Agreement.
Regulatory bodies are there for a reason. The JCVI is the regulatory body in charge of decisions on vaccination and immunisation. When they specifically do not recommend COVID-19 vaccinations for children — in fact twice over fail to recommend them — why is this being completely ignored?
In spite of the JCVI decision that the balance of risk versus reward simply does not add up for children, the CMOs have decided to plough ahead. Chris Whitty’s reasons border on the incomprehensible. He cites ‘mental health’ and ‘avoiding educational disruption’ as good reasons for administering an experimental vaccine to children. He is seemingly unaware of the irony that he himself was responsible for shutting schools, which other countries’ experience has shown was totally unnecessary. Vaccinations are not a mental health intervention, neither are they an educational tool. On recent evidence, these particular injections do not even show the benefit of stopping you catching or spreading COVID-19. The total departure from fact and reason is extremely alarming.
The modelling used to support the Government decision estimated that 15 minutes of education could be protected with each child vaccinated, in the next 6 months. No-one seems to have pointed out that the very process of vaccination negates that benefit from the outset before accounting for children who are already immune from infection nor time lost from side effects of vaccination. Nor does this take into account that the vaccinated have a materially equal viral load to the unvaccinated. With the same level of virus present it is odd to suggest transmission would be lower.
This is an issue so critical that the decision cannot remain unchallenged. Children do not need this vaccine. It is all risk and no reward. Many people around the world have already died or been permanently harmed as a result of COVID-19 vaccines [1]. To sanction this, whilst knowing these facts, is unforgivable. There were calls by a Tory MP for Chris Whitty’s resignation over his decision. In the interest of public health, this seems like a very reasonable request.
After 18 months of relentless government infantilisation and diminished self-sovereignty, parents may have forgotten that it is in fact not the CMOs who are in charge of their children, nor will they be there to care for them should they be unfortunate enough to suffer adverse events. The buck stops with the parent or guardian. In a world where scientific truth seems to be melting before our eyes, we urge parents to wait. There is no rewind button should you change your mind.
Endnotes
1. Link to US ADR Data; EUdraVigilance covers EEA countries and also some non EEA countries; Link to the UK ADR’s by the MHRA.
