Vaccinating Young People Is Unethical; Those Vaccines Should Go to Poor Countries

Even discounting side effects, it’s unethical to vaccinate 12–15 year olds when a such small share of the population in poor countries has been offered a vaccine. Britain should donate its leftover vaccines now.

3 min read

On September 3rd, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) – an independent panel of experts – advised against offering COVID-19 vaccines to healthy children aged 12-15.

The panel concluded that, although “the health benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential known harms”, the margin of benefit is “too small to support universal vaccination”. However, it did recommend expanding the list of underlying health conditions that would qualify someone in the relevant age-group for vaccination.

The panel’s recommendation apparently came “as a blow to the Government”, which for some reason really wants to vaccinate healthy children.

Immediately after the announcement, Health Secretary Sajid Javid wrote to the U.K.’s Chief Medical Officers asking them to “consider the matter from a broader perspective” (which reads like bureaucratese for “ignore the recommendation of the JCVI, and find a new justification for the policy”).

And it’s worth asking: if the Government does decide to ignore the JCVI’s recommendation, and offer the vaccine to healthy children anyway, will it adopt the slogan: “Don’t necessarily follow the science.”

I can understand why children with an underlying health condition would be worried about getting COVID-19, and it seems right that they’re being offered a vaccine. However, for the overwhelming majority of healthy children, the disease poses virtually no serious risk.

The main justification for vaccinating young people is to protect older people. But given evidence that natural immunity provides better protection against infection than the Pfizer vaccine (the only vaccine approved for those aged 12-15), this justification looks increasingly weak.

It’s now abundantly clear that vaccinated people can transmit the virus. Hence the only true safeguard – for a child visiting a vulnerable grandparent, say – is a negative COVID-19 test beforehand.

However, even if the vaccines had no side effects and offered the same level of protection as natural immunity, it would be unethical to vaccinate children at the present time. And that’s because it’s a waste of vaccines that could go to people who actually need them.

Rather than offering vaccines to children and young people, rich countries like the U.K. – which have so far been hogging all the vaccines – should donate them to elderly people in poor countries.

Even though a government must always look to the interests of its own citizens first, the benefit/cost ratio of donating vaccines to poor countries is so vast that this principle is hardly relevant. People forget that the risk of death from COVID-19 is not just higher, but orders of magnitude higher, for elderly people.

I said that Britain should donate its remaining vaccines to poor countries in an article back in July. The same argument has been made by several other commentators, including – mostly recently – two scientists writing in the journal Nature.

Zain Chagla and Madhukar Pai argue against vaccine ‘booster’ programs on the grounds that far more lives could be saved by administering vaccines in poor countries. The global vaccine supply is limited, they note, so “this is a zero-sum game”. Every vaccine given to a healthy British 12 year-old is one that can’t go to a 70 year-old in Africa or Latin America.

Even discounting side effects, it’s unethical to vaccinate 12–15 year-olds in Britain when a such small share of the population in poor countries has been offered a vaccine. COVID-19 is a disease that disproportionately targets older people, while posing almost no risk to children. Our vaccination policy should reflect that.

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65 Comments
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lutherkehrt@gmail.com
5 years ago

As it is unethical to jab young people, it is just as unethical to pass these dangerous jabs off onto so-called ‘poor countries’. It would be a mixture of patronising self-serving self-righteousness, and complete disregard for the wishes of the people of those countries, to do so.

Zoomer@14
Zoomer@14
5 years ago

The jabs should be destroyed. Lets not continue insulting genuine vaccines.

marebobowl
marebobowl
5 years ago

These experimental biologicals simply don’t work. So no, don’t give gene altering experimental biologicals to any child. And for goodness sake do not send them to other countries. Flush them down the toilet. They are useless and they are causing serious adverse events and deaths, please read cdc VAERS, MHRA yellow card reporting system. Israel, Gibraltar all vaxxed. Massive numbers of cases and deaths.

bfbf334
bfbf334
5 years ago

“Vaccinating Young People Is Unethical; Those Vaccines Should Go to Poor Countries”
After all we should share the deaths, sterilisations and injuries around the globe!

Ruth Learner
Ruth Learner
5 years ago

’I can understand why children with an underlying health condition would be worried about getting COVID-19, and it seems right that they’re being offered a vaccine. However, for the overwhelming majority of healthy children, the disease poses virtually no serious risk.’ Hold up a minute there… who does the govt defines as vulnerable? I know it includes children with learning difficulties and with Downs Syndrome – how are these conditions conducive to taking a useless jab with potential dangers? The most these jabs do is prevent serious symptoms in 1.2 % of the population- yes- for every 100 people who get C 19 – 1.2 will be less severe – well blow me down – maybe if early interventions (ivermectin, zinc, D,C etc.) were used there’d be 100% less severe symptoms because you would probably prevent the fucking illness from entering your lungs. Is everyone insane? Five words: We Do Not Need These Jabs.

Pavlov Bellwether
Pavlov Bellwether
5 years ago

Why? Do we hate poor countries even more than our young people? Not sure if ethics are considered any more to be honest. Not a single person on the planet has had a ‘Covid Vaccine‘ – Lots of people have been subjected to experimental mRNA injections. Loving the Radio 4 Nuremberg Series. Interesting how the Beeb are trying to warn us in other ways: Updated information, resources and useful links: https://www.LCAHub.org/

Manjushri
Manjushri
5 years ago

Dont we normally trial experimental pharmaceutical products in the poorest countries first before making modifications to get approval here?
The only humans that should be injected with an experimenral sequenced gene therapy are those that have volunteered, signed informed consent documentation, are paid to take part in an experimental trial and knowing exactly what the contents are plus the risks involved.

JayBee
JayBee
5 years ago
Reply to  Manjushri

The CRT and BLM guys made sure it’s the other way around this time….

A Y M
A Y M
5 years ago

If you think it is “ethical” to give a dangerous experimental, known to cause clotting, medical procedure to poorer countries, whose citizens have likely even less scope to resist government tyranny over their bodies, when you know from Israel that they will be permanently addicted to and reliant upon these Russian Roulette kill shots for the rest of their attenuated lives….well, you really are deluded.

Go back to the analytical drawing board and try again.

And then, when you realize we are better off not touching these useless profit-in-a-bottle government pushed snake oils, then ask yourself:

“Why are these governments, media, big tech billionaires all jamming this sheite down our throats?”

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
5 years ago

If the UK Government really cared about children they would give them free school meals, and proper homes. and decent wages for their parents so that they could afford good food for their kids.

“Boris Johnson moans about £160k salary as he cut benefits for UK’s poorest”
“Boris Johnson’s Daily Telegraph salary revealed to be £275,000
Johnson spends 10 hours a month writing column, giving him an hourly rate of £2,291″

RW
RW
5 years ago

A negative COVID test is no safeguard: It determines a fact about the past and – despite all statisticologists on the planet keep asserting otherwise – this doesn’t enable predicting the future.

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
5 years ago
Reply to  RW

No results from tests that don’t work mean anything scientifically, but they are useful for controlling people and telling them what they can and can’t do.

All that oil used in producing these shitty test kits Made in China – and people are being encouraged to buy electric cars to Save The Planet. Just look at the face masks thrown on the ground everywhere – all with The Virus lingering inside them.

divoc origi 19
divoc origi 19
5 years ago

For this site to have true credibilty, they need to get to the real issue at hand; Noah, Toby, Will and co – WHY are the government wanting to vaccinate healthy children so damn badly?

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
5 years ago
Reply to  divoc origi 19

Absolute control over the population for ever and ever.
Guaranteed profits for Big Pharma for ever and ever.
Gradually handing the country over to China – why should Boris and pals care about the UK once they’re dead and buried? As long as they have plenty of money and luxury before their time comes, that’s all that matters.
Now shut up and give us your children.

Susan
Susan
5 years ago
Reply to  divoc origi 19

Just such a loss of credibility, the authors afraid? to take a moral stand, might explain why the number of daily postings here seems to be diminishing.

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
5 years ago

Newsflash, most of those Third World countries don’t want them either. Strangely, most of them don’t have the virus, they’re too busy figuring out how to get something to eat now that the lockdown of the global economy will starve them to death.

Rowan
Rowan
5 years ago

Injecting the old and sick with these with these “vaccines” is euthanasia and injecting everyone else is a genocide.

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
5 years ago
Reply to  Rowan

Yet all that has happened is a couple of girls pulled Matt Hancock’s baseball hat off in a tube train, and a couple of lads gave Chris Whitty a hug in St James’ Park.

A lot of people have said “Over my dead body!” when it comes to injecting school kids, so I expect this September we’ll be stepping over the dead bodies. Or not.

PhantomOfLiberty
PhantomOfLiberty
5 years ago

We should not pretend that these products were ever bona fide – barely tested, new technologies, lunatic contractual terms – and now we have politicians commanding the clinicians to administer them. Daily Sceptic has only ever really skated the surface of this scandal which will in the end dwarf all previous medical scandals – even being polite the ground work has been laid out for carnage, with global financiers and corrupt politicians literally calling the shots, with air-headed journalists pushing them. Frankly, this is the recipe for hell on earth. What we have here is malfeasance at every institutional level and Sceptic needs to get after it.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago

“Even discounting side effects, it’s unethical to vaccinate 12–15 year-olds in Britain when a such small share of the population in poor countries has been offered a vaccine.”

What an odd rationale. For a start, the threat of Covid in ‘poor’ countries is (as here) a minor health threat – there are far more significant issues to address – some as simple as clean water if you’re throwing money around. That’s even assuming a doubtful benefit.

But ethical considerations require no alternative distribution. They exist sui generis.

iane
iane
5 years ago

Quite so – I mean, why poison our population when we can poison the poor and under-privileged instead?

GlassHalfFull
GlassHalfFull
5 years ago

Some experts who influence the government say vaccines for 12 to 15 year olds is the best way to stop infections spreading.
No it’s not.
The best way is for young people to catch the virus which in many cases will be symptomless and have natural immunity which is preferable to an experimental jab with known side effects.

peyrole
peyrole
5 years ago

Which ‘poor’ countries are showing an increase in deaths attributed to covid?
Stop this nonsense. They are merely a potentially dangerous short term medicine to alleviate symptoms. No-one should get them, including the old and infirm in the wealthy west. There are safe alternatives that do the job better.
Its the continuation of measly mouthed conciliatory statements that add to the problem.

PatrickF
PatrickF
5 years ago

Send them to poorer countries, so they too can have side effects? Brilliant!

PhantomOfLiberty
PhantomOfLiberty
5 years ago

The goal posts had already been moved from safe and effective to net benefit and we have arrived at net harm with clinical decisions being called by dodgy politicians.

milesahead
milesahead
5 years ago

People forget that the risk of death from COVID-19 is not just higher, but orders of magnitude higher, for elderly people.’

Orders of magnitude higher compared to young people – and only because the risk of young people dying is vanishingly small.

As per the video posted yesterday, Johnson and Whitty have repeatedly stated that the ‘vast majority’ of people (even those in their 80s), will not die if they catch the virus!

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  milesahead

A crushingly obvious anti-hysteria point. Thanks for that.

Practically any disease will have a similar age-skewed effect, ffs.

Susan
Susan
5 years ago

I see what you did with that semi colon, Mr.Carl.

steve_z
steve_z
5 years ago

JCVI says “the health benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential known harms,”

of course, that is known harms. How do you account for unknown harms? By comparing with other vaccines historically? What about the RSV vaccine that caused a lot of harm after 2 years? What proportion of trial vaccines are rejected after 1 month, 6 months, 2 years? What has caused the mRNA vaccines to never have got a license after 20 years of trying? Why have we never had a coronavirus vaccine before and now we have 15? What’s the likelihood they would have failed a proper testing program?

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
5 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

that long-term 6 months of testing eh?
You’re going to risk kids lives on a “marginally” for zero benefit to them….

These people have a wall to protect from bullets impacts.

186NO
186NO
5 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

Dr David Martin has some answers for you…..

JayBee
JayBee
5 years ago

“Hence the only true safeguard – for a child visiting a vulnerable grandparent, say – is a negative COVID test beforehand.”

Surely, you must be taking the pi** out of us with that one.
You are far too intelligent to really believe that still.

steve_z
steve_z
5 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

children have always got colds. all colds can kill the vulnerable – its why we have an excess winter mortality of 50,000 year in year out.

what can you do? I wonder how many grandparents die due to something they’ve picked up from their grandkids in a normal year? Is it something to worry about? Seems like its up to the grandparent to me. But looking at the big picture, if you can’t survive a cold its probably time to give up and move on. No-one lives forever

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

we have an excess winter mortality of 50,000 year in year out”

No we don’t! WE have a normal winter mortality that is higher than that of summer. I’m sick of this misleading term :’excess mortality’. Let’s get the language right – the inaccurate term has been used too often to boost the propaganda.

steve_z
steve_z
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

it is normal to have an excess in winter. It is well known and due to colds and flu and it is about 50,000 per year. its not particularly controversial except in that academics like to pretend its because people are cold or cant put on their heating or its due to poverty etc. but its not – its just that winter is a shitty time to be at deaths door and any cold will push you over.

and that doesn’t mean that just 50,000 die of colds in the winter – they are dying all year round – and recognising a completely normal ‘excess winter mortality’ further puts the ‘excess’ from covid into context.

of course these people aren’t really dying of colds, they are dying of old age – just as 95% of people who died ‘with’ covid just died of old age. the remaining 5% were dying of something else or very unlucky

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
5 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

The best way to stop the transmission of Covid from children to their grannies is to stop having children.

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
5 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

That part of the plan is under way, or will be as the children are injected.

Rogerborg
Rogerborg
5 years ago

It’s a clever argument that plays to the global citizen narrative.

However the flaw is that the survivors or the relatives of the deceased will come after the UK taxpayer for compensation.

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
5 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

And no-one will go after Zahawi with a pitchfork. I bet he has lots of bodyguards.

Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
5 years ago

The government’s position is that injecting the kids will prevent school closures – the closures only being because of government policy of sending “bubbles” home when one person tests positive. Since vaccines do not prevent spread, they will keep testing, keep finding positives, and keep closing schools.

The only difference will be that a very few kids will die or get serious illness because of the vaccine – which is ironic because the only child-centred reason for closing schools for the last 18 months has been to prevent a very few kids dying or getting seriously ill from COVID. The illogic is irrefutable.

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
5 years ago

I fail to understand where the moral decency lies in exporting dangerous, experimental gene altering, chemical ‘brews’ to third world countries. There is nothing humanitarian about exporting death and misery.

So please drop the crap about “vaccines ” – they are no such thing – and ditch the sanctimonious, holier than thou approach to what are simply kill shots.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
5 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

People are dying in these countries in far greater numbers because of the economic effects of lockdown….
10-100 times more dying in this country of non-COVID blamed causes.

BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
5 years ago

It’s not a vaccine, it’s a subscription to a treatment programme with no defined methods or end point.

And you sign a healthy child up because?

Susan
Susan
5 years ago

Did you not catch? It’s the children who may be worried and would want these injections. No need for anything as old fashioned as a parent to make the judgment call.

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
5 years ago
Reply to  Susan

“We are all in this together. If you disagree with me I will report you to the government so they can put you in a quarantine camp for COVID dissenters.”

“Australia is doing everything right to stop COVID. Closing playgrounds, killing dogs, placing people in quarantine camps, forcing people to tell the government where they are via facial recognition apps–if we had done that here we would have beaten COVID in 2 days.”

lutherkehrt@gmail.com
5 years ago
Reply to  Susan

We need to teach the children the truth, so they stop being worried. We don’t let them euthanase themselves because they’re worried they might not get a job. Oh, hang on, pretty much that in mainland Europe……

kate
kate
5 years ago

It is not medically ethical to give these injurious injections to anyone, least of all to populations that are already poor and oppressed.

stewart
stewart
5 years ago

I’m not sure sending them to poorer countries is all that ethical.

We still don’t know how harmful they are.

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