Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty should resign for approving the vaccination of all healthy teenagers against Covid “without good clinical reason”, according to Marcus Fysh MP. The Independent has the story.
A row broke out on Monday after the government announced 12 to 15 year-olds will be offered one Pfizer jab from next week, following a decision made by the chief medical officers (CMO) of each of the U.K.’s four nations…
Responding to the move in a tweet on Monday night Marcus Fysh, the Conservative MP for Yeovil, claimed Prof Whitty “does not deserve the confidence of the country” as he called for him to step down.
Speaking in the House of Commons earlier, Mr. Fysh said he had “grave concerns about this policy and the fact that the CMOs have made their decision on the basis of the educational impact rather than the health of the children at clinical level”.
In a previous ruling the JCVI, which looks at vaccinations from a purely clinical perspective, concluded that the virus presents a very low risk for children and therefore an inoculation programme would offer only minor benefits.
The CMOs, who had come under significant political and media pressure to approve the roll-out, told a Downing Street press conference on Monday that there were other benefits, including reducing the disruption to the school term.
Professor Whitty told the news conference it had been a “difficult decision” but CMOs would not be recommending the jabs “unless we felt that benefit exceeded risk”.
Three million eligible teenagers will be offered a first dose as early as next week as part of in-school vaccination services.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Appearing on talkRADIO later on Tuesday, Marcus said the vaccination of healthy children is “an appalling decision [that’s] not based on medical need or clinical need”.
They’ve come up with the idea, because the JCVI didn’t think it was warranted, that somehow children’s mental health is a clinical need for this vaccination. Well, I’m sorry [but] we need to lead children to a better place of understanding they are not at risk if they are worried about getting Covid. It just is not something that is going to be dangerous for them. I just don’t buy that for a second and I think it’s an outrageous way that the medical advice has been manipulated.
