Guy Hatchard PhD
Guy Hatchard PhD was formerly a senior manager at Genetic ID, a global food testing and certification company. He is an advocate of natural preventive approaches to health.
D-Day for vaccinating 5-11-year-olds is upon us. If as a parent (or a politician) you do a google search “Is Covid vaccination of 5-11-year-olds safe?” you turn up a host of articles not only assuring you that it is safe and effective but also urging you that it is necessary.
First among these are the official NZ government information web pages. If you have doubts and persist by broadening your search criteria, the same kind of reassuring articles from a great variety of sources appear. This has prompted my son to say to me for example ‘why am I telling people the vaccine is not safe when I am not a medical doctor but a mere researcher?’ I am sure a good many other concerned parents and grandparents are being faced with similar questions.
Google Searches Exaggerate the Influence of Single Studies
If you add the term ‘scholarly articles’ to your search you might be surprised to find that there are just two root studies on which this whole host of reassuring public relations is based. Both of these are conducted by Pfizer itself which certainly has a vested interest in telling you that vaccination is safe. One of the studies cited is not actually conducted on 5-11-year-olds. This means that the apparent confirmation and reassurance that your google search afforded, is actually only the result of google multiplying a single source of information into many, bolstered by a preference to exclude dissenting voices.
In this article, firstly I am going to be reviewing the scientific evidence. Secondly, we will be examining how its amplification has distorted government policy, media coverage, and public opinion in New Zealand and led to the hazard of unacceptable risks.
Criticism of the First Pfizer Trial on Teens Has Been Severe
The first study cited involved the vaccination of the 12-15-year-olds published on 15 July 2021 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107456
This study had 1131 participants receiving the vaccination and a similar number receiving a placebo. The total duration of the trial was extended just two months after the completion of vaccination. The study reported high efficacy in reducing transmission and also reported there were no serious side effects. The reliability of this study has been harshly criticised. A 2021 study in Toxicology Reports says:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221475002100161X
“Clinical trials for these inoculations were very short-term (a few months), had samples not representative of the total population, and for adolescents/children, had poor predictive power because of their small size. Further, the clinical trials did not address changes in biomarkers that could serve as early warning indicators of elevated predisposition to serious diseases. Most importantly, the clinical trials did not address long-term effects that, if serious, would be borne by children/adolescents for potentially decades.”
Moreover, it has since been revealed by an investigative journalist that some of the teenage trial subjects receiving Covid vaccines and experiencing serious adverse effects, as a result, were excluded from the final reports of trials. A fact that first came to light when the parents of an affected recipient realised that their child’s case of permanent disability was not reported in the Pfizer study.
The Effects of COVID Vaccination on 5-11-Year-Olds Are Not Fully Assessed
The second study was published on 6 January 2022 in the New England Journal of Medicine “Evaluation of the BNT162b2 Covid-19 Vaccine in Children 5 to 11 Years of Age”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116298
This study involved the vaccination of around 1500 children while about half that number received a placebo. It also reports that the Pfizer vaccination is safe and effective. Subjects were followed up for just one month after completion of vaccination. This would be insufficient to detect some serious side effects, for example, a November 11 article in the journal Vaccines reports a case of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in a teenager developing 10 weeks after vaccination.
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/11/1353
On 11th November, the Science Media Centre published some expert reactions to the Pfizer 5-11-year-old vaccine trial report. Scientists generally welcomed the pre-publication of the abstract of the study and supported the intention to vaccinate children but typically comments from scientists struck a note of caution for example:
“This trial had only 2268 participants. A trial of this size is unlikely to detect rare vaccine associated adverse reactions (side effects)”
“Questions about the risks and benefits of vaccinating children against COVID-19 are currently weighing heavily on the minds of most parents. Unfortunately, this trial does not provide the answers we seek. The reason for this is that severe outcomes of COVID-19 among children and severe complications from vaccination are too rare to be measured even in this study of over 2000 children.”
Myocarditis Risks Are Known to Be Serious
Incidence of clinical myopericarditis (heart inflammation) for example in the 12-19 age group receiving the vaccine is estimated at around 1 in 1800 so the Pfizer 5-11 trial could hardly be expected to generate any confidence about vaccine safety for 5-11-year-olds as the number receiving the vaccine was less than 1800. Moreover, a study published by MedRxiv on December 27 2021
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.21.21268209v1
found that myopericarditis has been typically under reported in a large integrated health system. Medsafe also admits this is the case in NZ.
Other studies show that as age decreases from 30 down there is an increasing myopericarditis adverse effect risk—the younger you are the greater the risk. This points to the need for greater caution with 5-11-year-olds. One of the most concerning processes in NZ has been the rejection of individuals reporting vaccine side effects by GPs, hospital staff and attending vaccination staff. These cases are numerous and have been very widely commented upon. One recent example among a great many: a lady suffered a stroke during the 15 minutes rest period after vaccination. She was subsequently told she was too fat and the attending physicians refused to make a report to CARM.
The risk that serious symptoms may be ignored and the condition aggravated due to delay in treatment is especially high for young children aged 5-11 who cannot adequately articulate their symptoms.
In the current scientific publishing climate, from experience, I and colleagues know that it is hard to get an article published in a timely manner as a preprint unless it endorses vaccination, but some authors are mixing and matching their concerns with a positive tone to bypass these reservations. For example, a generally pro-vaccine article published on 6 January 2022 MedRxiv preprint says “vaccinating children to benefit adults should be considered from an ethical as well as a public health perspective.” In other words, any potential benefits resulting from vaccinating children are at best related to preventing children from bringing covid home from school, although even this has been disputed.
The Risks to Young Children from COVID Itself Are Minuscule.
Data from the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) shows the risk of death from Covid in the 5-11 age cohort is just 2 per million (lower than the mortality risk in this age bracket from influenza and pneumonia), but also reports that 86% of the 2 covid deaths per million in this age bracket had comorbidities. In other words, they were already seriously ill children at severe risk due to other significant causes and events unrelated to Covid.
Click to access 03-COVID-Jefferson-508.pdf
The Risks of Vaccination for 5-11 Ages Are Higher than All-Cause Risks
When you compare the risks from child Covid vaccination to the risks of death from all other causes in this age bracket you brush against some very worrying figures. The CDC reports the risk of death from all other causes in the 5-11 age group in any given year is 86 per million. It is too early in the 5-11 vaccine rollout process for meaningful data to be available, but in the 5 months prior to 22 October 2021, there were 128 reports to VAERS of fatalities proximate to vaccination among the approximately 750,000 vaccinated in the 12-16 age range.
It is immediately apparent from these figures that if the known mortality incidence for 12-16-year-olds is repeated among 5-11-year-olds, the rate of deaths proximate to vaccination will be much higher than the mortality risk from Covid, and possibly even higher than the all cause mortality in this age group. The population in NZ of 5-11-year-olds is 570,000, there is no doubt that if this scale of adverse effects were to occur here in NZ, it would be regarded as a catastrophe.
These considerations should be raising serious doubts, if they don’t I suggest you reread the above or get someone with a scientific background to consider it with you. The conclusion is that any benefit of vaccination in this age group is wildly outweighed by the risks, and significantly the long term risk to health is unknown. For comparison, the historical 3 to 5-year mortality rate following serious cases of myocarditis (the most common serious side effect of the Pfizer vaccine) is variously estimated somewhere between 50-80%. I certainly wouldn’t advise any parents or grandparents to trust the reassurances of a google search or a government public relations bulletin, but rather rely upon the source science and reasonable commentary upon it.
Does the Lack of Adequate Information about the Risk of Adverse Effects Following Vaccination Constitute a Crime?
The NZ Bill of Rights provides that “Everyone has the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment.” However, the High Court has upheld a preliminary judgement that vaccination mandates are not unlawful. Curiously Justice Palmer ruled they do not fall within the scope of the NZ Bill of Rights. Nor since Parliament is supreme and has passed new laws, does it carry weight with NZ Courts that Covid vaccination does not reduce transmission (the stated basis of mandates).
Children and teens are not being mandated per se to undergo vaccination, they are being offered a form of Hobson’s choice—damned if you don’t and damned if you do.
Teens are being pressured to vaccinate through the removal of their opportunity to participate in certain school-based activities. For a child, this amounts to very strong coercion. The consequent peer pressure has been very effective in ensuring that teens wish to vaccinate in order to continue to participate in very popular and socially beneficial extra-curricular activities.
The prospect of social isolation that an unvaxxed status imposes on teens can bring about mental instability and suicidal thoughts. There is no doubt the government is aware of how this works.
Many parents have been unsuccessfully trying to cope with the dilemma posed by insistent children who are distraught in the face of their parent’s informed hesitation and reluctance. They just want to join in or have a haircut, go to camp, or learn a musical instrument. The government has settled this matter unequivocally, by allowing 12-year-olds and above to vaccinate without their parent’s permission. No stretch of the imagination can hold that this process is informed consent on a teen’s part.
The position of 5-11-year-olds is somewhat different, their parents or caregivers must accompany them and give consent, but this is insufficient to ensure informed consent. Information provided to parents is critical to establish this. In the present case, there can be little doubt that the repeated assurances of absolute safety in government advertising during 2021 undermine any contention of parental informed consent and teen informed consent, even if the wording of printed pamphlets and official websites offer hints of minor and transitory side effects.
But this doesn’t amount to a crime until you add in the import of recent research findings reviewed briefly above and argued at length by others, which very strongly support the notion that the risk of death following vaccination for the under twenties is greater than any risk posed by Covid infection. Under sections 160 and 171 of the Crimes Act 1961 and clarification offered by Common Law, the Crown can prove Manslaughter if the unlawful alleged act meets specific conditions and can be proved beyond reasonable doubt:
1. The unlawful alleged act must be dangerous. The test of dangerousness is objective and does not even require that the defendant was aware of the risk of harm.
2. The alleged “substantial and operative cause” does not have to be the main or the only cause of death. But, it must have played a part which was not insubstantial or insignificant.
It appears that these criteria could be met in the case of Covid vaccinations for the under twenties.
Who Would Be Liable for Prosecution?
Blame must fall severally on the medical profession, workers in government departments administering and evaluating the vaccination programme including for example Medsafe, mainstream media, school authorities designing punitive sanctions, and on politicians from all parties naively supporting vaccination mandates and guidelines.
There has been a continuous spate of scientific publications, especially during the last quarter of 2021 which should have led to revised government policy. It appears that politicians, medical professionals, and the media may have ignored these.
The whole machinery of government, mainstream media, and the medical establishment has remained bent upon universal vaccination of children based upon a single inadequate study, repeatedly called into question, that tells us nothing about the serious long term risks revealed by other studies.
Whilst the Pfizer CEO Albert Boula in an interview with CNBC this week struck a very cautious note about very low vaccine and booster effectiveness, and hoped to develop a new more effective product in the future, our government and officials are ploughing on regardless.
Does their ignorance of scientific caution amount to criminal negligence?
It is up to the Crown prosecution service to take this matter very seriously. This is assuming critical importance as the all cause excess death rates not associated with Covid infection in many countries including NZ are rising above historical rates. For example, the alarming 40% increase in claims for deaths at the OneAmerica insurance company in Indiana during the third quarter of 2021. Many will feel such figures cannot continue to be ignored without shouldering criminal responsibility.
At this point in time, given the volume of correspondence on the matter, the ignorance of new scientific findings on the part of decision-makers can only be either pretended or the result of deliberately looking the other way. The public would be appalled if they knew that the whole edifice of child vaccination is built on a single flawed study contradicted by other studies.
