When Daily Sceptic reader Ian Price experienced an alarming adverse reaction to his first AstraZeneca jab he decided that he did not want to risk a second dose. However, his GP had other ideas and told him he should have Pfizer for his second dose. Despite being presented with worrying safety data from Pfizer’s own trial results, the GP would not agree to an exemption. Ian writes:
I am pro-vaccine but anti-mandate. However, I have recently discovered via correspondence from my GP that the Department of Health is not ‘following the science’ in the guidance it gives to GPs on vaccine safety.
By way of background, I declined the second vaccine following an adverse reaction to the first AstraZeneca vaccine received in March 2021. I remain partially vaccinated which means that I fall into the category of citizens described by Sir Tony Blair as “idiots”. Resenting the increasing stigmatisation of the unvaccinated, I discovered via Google search that there was such a thing as a vaccine exemption. After all, even Blair acknowledges that it is possible to have a “health reason” for not being jabbed. So I called the NHS number and had a form posted to me. I filled it in and dropped it off at my GP’s surgery.
“I’m struggling a bit with the Covid exemption form,” wrote my GP to me in a text on December 1st. “I am not sure I am comfortable with precluding you from the option of a second injection.” He was about to go away but offered a phone consultation on his return. Puzzled by his framing of the issue as being about not limiting my options, I agreed to the follow-up call.
In our long discussion on December 29th, his advice remained that I should take the Pfizer vaccine. I explained that I felt my risk from Covid was negligible and I was not convinced that it was greater than the risk from a second vaccine. He remained reluctant to issue an exemption but agreed to look into it further and come back to me. His subsequent text message read as follows: “I have re-read the guidance extensively on issuing of vaccine exemptions and unfortunately it can only be issued if there is a medical contraindication to receiving an alternate vaccine.”
He was good enough to attach a link to the guidance document from the Department of Health and Social Care. I looked at this document and found a further link to the Green Book Chapter 14a. As outlined in my letter to him below, the paragraph on the safety of the Pfizer vaccine reads as if the scientific evidence is reassuring. The paragraph cites two published papers that describe safety studies of the Pfizer vaccine: Walsh et al, 2020 and Polack et al, 2020. Both studies demonstrated very limited evidence of systemic events – “generally mild and shortlived”. Reading this paragraph, as a layman, I would conclude that there is no cause for concern.
Dated December 21st 2021, the Green Book omits Pfizer’s own trial data from the six-month stage – published on November 4th 2021 – even though it refers to an article published in the same journal in May 2020 by the same authors. While Pfizer has come in for criticism for its trial methodologies, the safety issues at the six-month stage are clear: out of 21,926 subjects in the vaccinated group, 6,617 or 30.2% experienced an adverse event. This compares with 13.9% in the placebo group. Related adverse events which an investigator has assessed as related to the Pfizer injection stood at 23.9% of the vaccinated group against 6.0% of the placebo group. The results also show an increased risk of death with nine from cardiovascular events compared with five from the placebo group. The evidence of risk is plain to see.
But this published paper – with the same authors and in the same journal (the New England Journal of Medicine) as the one of May 2020 – is not referred to in the Green Book. Is this a sin of commission or omission? It’s hard to say. My letter to my GP, attached in full as an appendix below, lays out my reasons for not getting a second vaccination. My GP called me on the phone and explained he still felt unable to award an exemption. When pressed he told me that he could not refute any of the arguments I made in my letter to him.
I respect my GP who I feel is, like his colleagues, under political pressure to vaccinate as many people as possible. I believe in personal autonomy when it comes to decisions such as whether or not to take a vaccine and it appears to me that by omitting the latest published evidence from Pfizer in its guidance to GPs, the Government is not being honest about vaccine safety.
Dear Dr. XXXXX
Happy New Year.
Many thanks for your text message of December 30th 2021 and for forwarding me the link to the Department of Health and Social Care clinical guidance document. Now that I’ve had a chance to take a look at the document, I wanted to come back to you.
Firstly, while I am disappointed in your decision not to issue me a vaccine exemption, I do accept that it is consistent with the guidance you shared with me. It is, I agree, unambiguous in stating: “A caution to one vaccine or vaccine type where safe alternatives are available should not lead to exemption.” On this basis, you have recommended to me that I take a Pfizer vaccine following an adverse reaction in April to AstraZeneca.
My issue is with the question of safety with regard to the Pfizer vaccine, particularly when, as I explained on the phone last week, set against the possible risks I face from COVID-19.
Risks from Covid
To get an objective sense of my risk from COVID-19, I used the QCovid risk assessment tool. Led by the University of Oxford, the development of this tool involved the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. Research published in the BMJ shows that the model performed well in predicting severe outcomes due to COVID-19 i.e., death and hospitalisation.
My absolute risk of catching and dying from COVID-19 – based on my age, BMI and all the other personal data entered – is 0.0018%.
Since the data used in the model is only as recent as June 2021, I assume that this risk is, if anything, now significantly lower since the milder Omicron variant is now prevalent. The risk figure does not, furthermore, account for the fact that I have had one vaccine.
Safety of Pfizer Vaccines as Presented in Department of Health & Social Care Guidance
- The Guidance document links to the Green Book Chapter 14a for more information on vaccines and their cautions.
- The Green Book has a paragraph citing two published papers that describe safety studies of the Pfizer vaccine: Walsh et al, 2020 and Polack et al, 2020. Both studies demonstrated very limited evidence of systemic events – “generally mild and shortlived”. Reading this paragraph, as a layman, I would conclude that there is no cause for concern.
- However, my understanding of the Walsh et al, 2020 paper is that it covered data concerning the first seven days after vaccination only. The Polack et al paper, which I now understand to be derived Pfizer’s own trial data, has two months’ worth of study and efficacy data. The same authors published a six-month study dated November 4th 2021. The Green Book is dated December 21st 2021 and yet makes no mention of the follow-up study.
- The Polack et al paper of 2021 reports adverse events among 30.2% of the vaccinated trial subjects as against 13.9% of the placebo group.
My evaluation of the risks confronting me
- As I mentioned when we spoke on the phone, having experienced an adverse reaction to the first vaccine – something that caused me and my wife considerable distress – I have to trade off the risk of taking another vaccine against the combined risk of a) catching COVID-19 in the first place and b) falling ill as a result.
- Pfizer’s own trial data published in the Pollack et al paper referenced in the Green Book shows an absolute risk reduction of 0.84% seven days after the second dose.
- So, were I to take the vaccine as advised, I would be reducing my risk of dying by 0.84% – from 0.0018% to 0.0015%.
- However, the risk of an adverse reaction to the vaccine at more than twice the rate experienced by the placebo group in Pfizer’s own trial strikes me as a considerably poorer option.
Summary
- I am educated to Masters level in social science and can read an academic journal article. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that I am not a clinician and may have misinterpreted something. If so, please tell me what is the statistical likelihood of my serious injury, illness or death from the Pfizer vaccine? Also, please tell me what is the statistical likelihood of my serious injury, illness or death from COVID-19 if I were to remain only partially vaccinated?
- On the principle of “first, do no harm” I urge you to reconsider your decision based on up-to-date clinical trial data that has not been included in Department of Health and Social Care Guidance.
Yours sincerely
Ian Price
Discussion
Comments
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You should not respect your GP. His version of medicine is bullying and coercive. He’s abandoned basic principles of medical ethics – free, informed consent, and patient dignity and autonomy.
He doesn’t care about your health, or your dignity, or your right to choose. Why would you respect this state enforcer?
I have an exemption, but it is ONLY valid domestically ie: England, so ZERO freedom to travel to many places where vaccination is legally mandatory or de facto mandatory.
I think your assessment of the Pfizer paper is a bit misleading.
Your ratio of adverse events seems to come from table S3 in the supplementary material. This is for the period from Dose 1 to 1 Month after Dose 2 – not the full six months.
As I read the paper this table includes reactogenic events i.e. thing like feeling tired the day after the vaccination. There were more severe events in the vaccinated group than the placebo (262 to 150) but less life threatening events (21 to 26) and less deaths (3 to 5).
Table S4 deals with deaths over the full six months. There were 15 in the vaccinated group and 14 in the placebo group. I can’t see were you got 9 to 5 cardiovascular events. I included cardiac arrest, cardiac failure congestive, cardio respiratory arrest, hypertensive heart disease and myocardial infarction with a ratio of 7 to 4. In either case these numbers are too small to be statistically significant. (It is interesting to note that there were two cases of myocardial infarction in the placebo and none in the vaccinated group.)
I think that’s been said before on the sceptical side – that it’s statistically insignificant in this trial. He would do better to look at the many analyses of VAERS cardio events.
I think that’s been said before on the sceptical side – that it’s statistically insignificant in this trial.
Sorry about that – I didn’t read all comments.
He would do better to look at the many analyses of VAERS cardio events.
Of course that opens up the dispute about the validity of using self-reported data. If RCTs don’t reveal any statistically significant problem then that supports the argument that the VAERS data is heavily biased.
GPs stopped being independent many moons ago. They only prescribe what their local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) tells them they can and this can often be going against NICE guidance. Generally the decision is solely on cost grounds which is wonderfully hypocritical. The ‘Directors’ of a CCG are all on six figure salaries, paid for by taxpayers, and they believe they have the right to restrict taxpayers’ medication. WTF 😡
I enjoy winding up my GP by asking him if this was what he anticipated as a career when he spent 7 years slogging away at medical school!!
Our trust in our gp’s has hit an all time low. They obviously are powerless in this sick institution known as the NHS. It must be very frustrating for a highly educated person, trained as a doctor, to be unable to do what they think is best for their patient.
They should be speaking out, risking their jobs.
Putting the specifics to one side, I am amazed at how is he able to get such personal attention from his Doctor. Mine are still hiding away and one is lucky to speak to reception, let alone see a Doctor. Personal texts from the Doctor, mind-blowing!
Unless and until all media, politicians and commentators stop asserting they are fully vaccinated as a badge of their validity and their right to comment we never emerge from this dystopia.
Pfizer specifically excluded previously infected in their original safety data and the adverse reactions on USA VAERS data are now very concerning. The doctor decision however was correct in his instruction by the directions that have been given .
I have marked sympathy with this author but it should not be an aim to “get around “ being vaccinated but stop vaccination being regarded as a badge of safety and virtue.
I despair when I listen to the voices of colleagues who I have respected for many years advocating masks,lockdowns and the blaming of the unvaccinated for transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to those are triple vaccinated.
Yes colleagues this is an indication of vaccination failure.
as Robert Malone said.
It is first time in history that the In effectiveness of a medicine is being blamed on those who haven’t taken it.
How can you respect a man whose primary role is to look after your health and do no harm, who because of cowardice and job protection is willing to knowingly cause harm to Men, women and children, when if he had any integrity at all he would have given you the exemption you require, this is the very least he could do to protect his patients.
Such people as GP’s who are made aware of these risks are collaborators in putting their own jobs over the lives of the very people they are meant to protect.
https://rumble.com/vqx3kb-the-pfizer-inoculations-do-more-harm-than-good.html
Looks a wise decision on his part, but why is he granting someone else the right to decide? Can he not declare exemption on his own, in line with the Human Rights Act 1998? In particular, he appears to be reasonably competent to make a choice – better than many who just believe in the propaganda etc.
Good work by Mr Price. Bad from Government but no surprise there but the GP comes out the worse. I wonder why he can’t issue exemptions in the way that some GPS dispense prescriptions for antibiotics? Is there a penalty for GPS who award exemptions?
Some social events restarting, one of which is a book club I was in before all this started.
We’re down to 4 attending, from a previous 6-8 average.
In the pub tonight, inevitably the others started discussing Djokovic, which led to their own jab experiences.
One described having hers outside the surgery; (she has some sort of condition requiring regular blood tests and is used to being stabbed) this one was done by the GP and she said it bloody HURT! She realised she had blood running down her arm, and the doc said: oops – you’re a bleeder! Stuck a plaster on and that was it.
She had no qualms or curiosity about what happened – just that it hurt. I mentioned aspiration, and how it sounded as though GP had hit a blood vessel; she looked blankly at me (they all did). I asked if she got a metallic taste after it: apparently not.
In the current hostile environment for the un-jabbed I didn’t want to prolong the discussion so changed the subject. Maybe I’m a coward: I’ve had a taste of someone’s disgust with me and can’t face it too often – I’ll save it for when… Read more »
From personal experience and assuming the GP had the decency to read the letter from Ian Price I can safely make the following conclusions of the GP’s current situation:
1. Oh shit, I’ve fucked up here, Big Time.
2. How do I get out of this mess?
3. How much will this cost me?
4. Nobody told me these “safe and effective” ‘vaccines’ were so dangerous.
5.It’s not my fault gov.
6. Can I have my pension now?
This absolutely confirms the laziness and cowardliness of many GP’s. A new ‘vaccine’ appears on the market from nowhere and the vast majority cannot be bothered to do any research and those that have researched refuse to challenge.
What a disreputable industry GP’s have become.
‘First do no harm,’ – to me and my wallet.
found this..Cureus | Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis Post COVID-19 Vaccination – First Reported Case
note in the case presentation “”The patient was seen in the primary health care center and was given paracetamol and did not notice any improvement.””.. wtf.. paracetamol ..my guess, they were fobbing her off with pandemic anxiety, or, it’s all in your head..
a big argument broke out in the comments, worth a read..
it’s heartbreaking how people are facing this sort of nightmare, and worse ! especially when most have had the jab. not through fear of covid.. but fear of losing their job, not being able to visit family, not being able to go on holiday, not being allowed to go out to eat, dance, laugh, live, love.. there are so many people suffering and dying from these vaccines..it may seem like a drop in the ocean compared to how many have had it.. but like they say.. there is no long term safety data on any of these vaccines….
If science can’t be questioned it’s not science anymore. It’s propaganda. They want to rip on people for taking Ivermectin. I researched and saw the evidence on the internet. Research papers are on the internet for those who wants to see. Top respected world doctors are being under defamation by MSM and vaccine manufacturers. I won’t back down recommeding IVM. You can get yours by visiting https://ivmpharmacy.com
https://www.sidesmc.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2021/11/Clinical_guidance_to_trusts_final_2.pdf
Examples for potential exemption from vaccination and testing could include individuals:
• Receiving end of life care where vaccination is not in the individual’s interests.
• With learning disabilities or autistic individuals, or with a combination of impairments which result in the same distress, who find vaccination and testing distressing because of their condition and cannot be achieved through reasonable adjustments such as provision of an accessible environment.
• Those with medical contraindications to the vaccines such as:
• severe allergy to all Covid-19 vaccines or their constituents (e.g. PEG).
• those who have had adverse reactions to the first dose (e.g. myocarditis)
Consideration should be given to the special warnings and precautions for use found in section 4.4 of the Summary of Product Characteristics for each product,
only where an appropriate vaccine cannot be found or sourced for vaccination should an exemption be considered.
A caution to one vaccine or vaccine type where safe alternatives are available should not lead to exemption.
Further information on vaccines and their cautions can be found in the COVID 19: The Green Book, Chapter 14a
Anticoagulation and clotting disorders would only be viewed as need for exemption in exceptional circumstances.
GP’s are paid for every Covid jab they give.
They are not paid for anyone who refuses it.
Hence the barrage of phone calls and texts persuading people to have them.
Many GP’s put business before health.
Never give a surgery your mobile number.
I have looked into this for myself and have concluded that the current “guidance” issued to GPs is malfeasance, as the GPs must, legally put their patients health and best interests first.
The government has no right to intervene in the doctor patient relationship. The doctor should ignore this guidance.
I have heard that doctors exemptions are scrutinised and the GPs are afraid of getting into trouble if they do not adhere to these “guidelines” My consultant certainly was afraid, and I understood that he had been asked many times by other patients and yet was too intimidated to give exemptions out.
There is another kind of exemption letter –
https://www.promic.info/exemption-forms
You may be able to find a doctor who will fill in the Health professional declared form.
Extract from my letter discussing this with a GP who is resisting these mandates
I am wondering whether I should apply for the covid medical exemption, even though legally it should be unnecessary to do this, as a simple refusal of consent should be an adequate reason for a medical exemption.
Do you see people to assess them for this? Are you able to write an exemption?
I have read the Pfizer risk… Read more »
0.0063%, checking my “danger quotient”. More chance of falling down the stairs, I’d reckon. Why would I have a jab known to cause issues at a higher rate, especially when they’ve no research on how it would interact with my medication (confirmed by the NHS).
Just today my partner was told by our GP that her exemption application failed. As someone who does not work on front line NHS, will never interact with patients and has been forced to work from home without problem for the last two years, demanding she gets jabbed to keep her job is inexplicable and obscene.
Furthermore, she has extremely good medical reason to not want the damned thing, but the doctor has disregarded the dangers this fake vaccine will cause her. Unlike most cases for exemption, it is absolute certain the jab would cause her massive, potentially irreparable harm – the doctor KNOWS THIS.
She absolutely loves her job, the enthusiasm she has and the energy she puts into the job would be very difficult to replace. Not a single day off sick either.
She will now be sacked off the c*nts in Westminster, no thanks to our paid-per-jab GP who has done nothing but look out for herself.
Retribution is due. Communism must not prevail in the UK.
If forced jabs happen and your partner is harmed…
make sure the GP gets inoculated against further medical malpractice.
Hi there, Lord R here.
I thought about doing the same as you due to a blood condition I have (Factor 5 Leidens)
I even applied for the exemption form. Then I thought ‘No!’ I’m just playing their game. Plus I felt I’d be letting others around me who have lost so much freedom through not having the jab down.
Therefore I’ll continue to not be jabbed. And not with their criminal ‘exemption’.
6 of the world’s most vaxxed countries. Gibraltar, Iceland & Ireland are at 100% or close to, vaxxed.
There will be problems there for a long time, then.
And no end to the jabbology.
Now I know i’m revealing my anti-post-modernism, but…
Shouldn’t a vaccine STOP you getting the disease rather than encourage you catch it?
It’s like the jab doesn’t do what it says it does.
NickR , how do you get to the FT analysis charts and graphs, please? Ive looked Ft.com without success
Extract from page 40 of last week’s HSA vaccine surveillance report. The vaccinated are, overall, 89% more likely to test positive.
This is the advice I received from the NHS. Since I’m not in the “should” group, I’ve not had a problem with it. YMMV.
Should meaning…?
Then it says ‘offering…’? I must take the jab yet I have a choice?
Destroy your smartphone. I read a study where American children were asked which invention they hated the most and they said smartphones because it meant their parents paid less attention to them. Just throw it in the fucking bin.
Stigmatisation? Pathetic. Really. Why should the prejudice or morons unbalance you?
These are the people who piss away the short hours of their lives so they can compete for status with meaningless material wealth, compete against people they don’t like, and certainly don’t respect. And all the while saddling themselves with ever more debt ensuring their continued slavery. For baubles! To impress idiots!
The others, who unthinkingly swallow lie after lie from institutions, ‘leaders’, never once questioning, trusting as farm animals off to the slaughterhouse.
Those others, who have access to the greatest collection of knowledge our species has ever seen, all from a tiny device in their pockets, yet instead they use it to keep up with vacuous celebrities, and even more vacuous trends in mass produced shit that creates even more debt slavery?!
Those are the people from whom you fear shame, and ridicule? You should be laughing your head off at their miserable predicament, not joining them in their misery!
I stand in total opposition to the insanity of the masses, the cupidity of politicians, and the criminality of the pharmaceutical industry. Come what may. Now is not the time to be wishy-washy and queasy-spirited.
“The object… Read more »
The media will just casually switch to an anti-narrative overnight. My biggest feeling throughout all of this is why isn’t there more anger? There will be and yet very few will even examine the media. The pint is that it isn’t just about the Covid narrative the whole of our situation is FUBAR. We need to take it by the balls and make it better.
What is the benefit of being ‘exempt’ rather simply unjabbed by choice?
Exemption is compliance, refusal is defiance.
Keeping a job in care or health – visiting elderly/sick relatives abroad. These are not small issues. Being pureblood is easier for some of us.
Trusting Government, big pharma, or even your Doctor, is a choice.
How do you get an MS in anything without understanding “Nullius in verba”?
The idea that heart tissue is beyond repair is very suspect, I speak as someone who has addressed these issues. You hear similar terminal prognostications about the brain.You don’t have to be particularly perspicacious to see that the truths that we have been told over the last hundred years in regard to our health and how we should live just happen to be the truths most amenable to a pharmaceutical approach.
Tell us more – I’ve just been skimming the surface of modes of addressing athlete’s heart caused by hypertension and the first port of call was Cummins/Gerber: “Eat Rich Live Long” (2018) which opened up a line of earlier research on causes of cardiac disease but without a clear program of rectifying it beyond mainly nutritional and supplements-based generalities. Then I came across but have not yet had time to digest “The Great Tao” (1985) by Dr Stephen T. Chang which has a section on the heart and certain herbs plus internal exercises. Any thoughts? Chang’s book certainly has some pretty far-out content, though perhaps not excelling his “Complete System of Self-Healing” (1986) wherein: “If the heart really stops, use the fingers to pinch a point above the middle of the upper lip. … very hard. Doing so has revived even those who have died from heart attacks. …”