Over 40 health experts have expressed their “grave concerns regarding all proposals to administer Covid vaccines to children” in an open letter sent to the Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The letter was organised by Dr Ros Jones, a member of the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART), and warns against a “repeat of any past tragedies which have occurred especially when vaccines are rushed to market”. The Telegraph has more.
In a joint letter, [the health experts] warned it is “irresponsible, unethical and unnecessary” to jab children and urged the medicines watchdog not to “repeat mistakes from history”.
Their intervention came as Matt Hancock announced that Britain had bought enough Pfizer vaccines to inoculate all children over the age of 12.
The Health Secretary said the Government would be “very, very careful and sensitive” about whether to roll out the vaccination programme to children, but stressed that research showed the jabs were safe.
He told MPs on Monday that a decision was likely to be taken within the next two months while the rollout continued through younger age groups.
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[The letter reads:] “Extreme caution has been exercised over many aspects of the pandemic, but surely now is the most important time to exercise true caution.“We must not be the generation of adults that, through unnecessary haste and fear, risks the health of children.”
The letter has been signed by over 40 medics, scientists and doctors including Professor Karol Sikora, Dean of Medicine at Buckingham University, and Lord Moonie, a former consultant in Public Health Medicine.
It argues that while there are clear benefits of a vaccine for the elderly and vulnerable, the balance of benefit and risk for youngsters is “quite different” since healthy children are at “almost no risk” from Covid.
The letter goes on to say that children do not need the vaccination to support herd immunity, adding that recent modelling suggests the U.K. has now achieved the herd immunity threshold.
“All medical interventions carry a risk of harm, so we have a duty to act with caution and proportionality,” it says.
“This is particularly the case when considering mass intervention in a healthy population, in which situation there must be firm evidence of benefits far greater than harms”.
A new petition, flagged up in today’s News Round Up, says that children should not be given Covid vaccines until Phase Three trials are complete.
The Telegraph report is worth reading in full.
