Worries about the impact on children’s health from the side-effects of the novel, gene-based COVID-19 vaccines have escalated with the recent unanimous vote by the U.S. FDA vaccine committee to recommend that the FDA grant an Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for Pfizer vaccines in babies and children aged six months to four years. The committee has also recommended the extension of the use of Moderna vaccines to children aged six to 14 years, a jab suspended in Norway for those under 31 years due to serious safety concerns around heart inflammation (myocarditis). If the FDA accepts the recommendation, the rollout could begin in these babies as early as Tuesday August 21st. From the experience of the last 18 months, these regulatory decisions are highly likely to be repeated here in the U.K. in the not-too-distant future.
Closer to home, we have been made aware of a disturbing NHS COVID-19 vaccine advertising campaign that appears to be aimed directly at children aged five to 11 years.
This targeting of young children seriously compromises the fundamental principles of medical ethics and undermines the process of full and informed consent. The adverts, which have been sent to parents of children in a number of primary schools, are promoting COVID-19 vaccine pop-up clinics for primary school-age children. The poster is designed in the style of a children’s party invitation, with cartoon superhero branding, large writing and bright, eye-catching colours. Disturbingly, the invitation is addressed directly to children: “Calling All Superhero Kids.”
For the NHS to be directly targeting young children under 12 to encourage them to take a novel medical treatment and in such a superficial and coercive way is completely unethical and abhorrent. To comply with the laws and ethical codes for informed consent, all medical decisions require a full disclosure of risks, benefits and alternatives to treatment, and an individualised risk-benefit analysis, in a sober discussion between a qualified healthcare professional and the patient, or parent/guardian of a child under 16 (the legal age of consent). ‘Gillick Competence’, where an individual child is deemed intellectually and emotionally mature enough to make a medical decision for him- or herself, is occasionally used for children under 16, although almost never for those under 13, and can only be ascertained after full psychological assessment by a trained professional.
In addition to the laws and professional codes of practice around informed consent, these adverts appear to breach well established Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) rules relating to advertising to children. ASA Advertising Codes contain strict rules to protect children (under 16 year-olds) from potentially misleading, harmful or offensive material. This is because children are less likely than adults to be able to understand or process commercial messages in advertisements and are more susceptible to being subtly manipulated. In general, the younger the child, the more susceptible he or she is. In addition, the Government’s own guidance around advertising medicines states: “You must not… direct your advertising at children (under-16s).”
Potential Breaches of ASA Rules 5.1 and 5.2
5.1 Marketing communications addressed to, targeted directly at or featuring children must contain nothing that is likely to result in physical, mental or moral harm.
In the poster, the use of cartoon action figures, the graphics and the typeface/language chosen are clearly aimed directly at children and not their parents.
The advert is for a medical intervention, yet it does not include any mention of potential risks associated with the COVID-19 injection, which may lead to an inappropriate and harmful medical intervention being accepted without fully informed consent. Although there is a link on the poster to an NHS page for parents of five to 11 year-olds, with more details about COVID-19 vaccine risks and benefits, this is unlikely to be accessed or understood by young children and will not be easily accessible if the poster has been printed out.
5.2 Marketing communications addressed to, targeted directly at or featuring children must not exploit their credulity, loyalty, vulnerability or lack of experience.
The headline “Calling All Superheroes”, with cartoon images of children dressed as superheroes, implies that children who don’t get the vaccine are not superheroes. This messaging is highly coercive and manipulative, exploiting children’s credulity, as they may not have the life-experience and maturity to understand this as a marketing technique and not to be taken literally.
5.2.1 Children must not be made to feel inferior or unpopular for not buying the advertised product.
5.2.2 Children must not be made to feel that they are lacking in courage, duty or loyalty if they do not buy or do not encourage others to buy a product.
The use of cartoon action figures and the reference to “Superheroes” is divisive and may lead to children who don’t get the vaccine feeling inferior or unpopular and to believe that they are lacking in courage, duty and loyalty. It may create peer group pressure on an individual child to accept a medical intervention and may lead to stigmatisation and bullying of unvaccinated children by vaccinated children.
5.2.3 It must be made easy for children to judge the size, characteristics and performance of advertised products and to distinguish between real-life situations and fantasy.
A COVID-19 vaccination is a medical intervention which comes with real and acknowledged risks that are not disclosed on the poster. The characterisation of people who have a COVID-19 vaccine as “Superheroes” undermines the process of making an informed choice to accept a medical treatment by encouraging a child to believe he or she is taking part in superhero game. Younger children may even believe they will become a superhero by having a COVID-19 vaccine because they cannot yet fully distinguish between real-life situations and fantasy.
The way in which the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been conducted in the U.K. and around the world has been shocking in its failure to adhere to normal ethical practices and by the widespread use of glib marketing, coercion and even bribes. The fact that these unethical psychological and marketing techniques are now being extended in an attempt to influence and persuade our youngest children to take this vaccine shows how far we have strayed as a society from responsible and sober medical practice and from the Hippocratic Oath to “First do no Harm”. It is particularly disappointing to see this kind of material endorsed by the NHS. As a society, we have a duty of care to protect the youngest and most vulnerable in our society from predatory marketing campaigns whatever the product, but particularly for medical treatments and interventions with acknowledged risks.
If you’d like to complain to the Advertising Standards Agency about the adverts you can do so here.
Dr. Elizabeth Evans is Director of the U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance.
Stop Press: The CDC panel has now voted unanimously to start the rollout of Covid jabs to babies and children six months to four years following the FDA vaccine panel recommendation last week and the rollout is expected to start this week across the U.S.
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So far I like the cut of Milei’s jib. A breath of fresh air and common sense.
Billing the head of JSO would certainly be appreciated. A pay up or porridge deal should do the trick.
I strongly disagree.
“Security” is an imposition by the state. Its the state that wants to deploy police officers to provide “security” so it should foot the bill itself.
Although, of course, the state has no income. It’s income cones from shaking down the public.
It didn’t take Milei long to act like a hypocrite.
You are total granite Stewart always totally consistent.
JSO can protest and I would not charge them for security, but I would certainly charge them or jail them for damaging art works, buildings etc.—- Damaging things is not legitimate protest. ———I would expect no leniency if I had a JUST START OIL T short on and threw paint at my bank window, and I don’t think I would get any.
Its that thing that the left don’t do terribly well. Consequences for their actions…
I strongly disagree.
“Security” is an imposition by the state. Its the state that wants to deploy police officers to provide “security” so it should foot the bill itself.
That’s not really true. In 2017, there was a G20 meeting in Hamburg. These are traditionally also gathering points of the (so-called) anticapitalist/ anarchist hard left who’ll stage ‘protests’ against them. The city was essentially stripped of police in order to ensure the safety of all the meeting politicians. Because of this, the protestors went rioting in several city districts, smashing up and looting shops, torching cars etc.
Milei’s argument still doesn’t hold water, though: The largest parts of these costs will have been paying all the security-related government employees who would have needed to be paid come rain or shine, ie, regardless of the demonstration. And the actual numbers deployed were chosen by the government for some reason only known to it. People have freedom of assembly, however, should they actually assemble, fines in the order of thenthousands of dollars will be issued to people not guilty of any criminal conduct effectively means There’s no freedom of assembly.
I tend to agree
My starting point would be that the right to peaceful public mass protest is sacrosanct and charging people for it isn’t appropriate. If people are engaging in deliberate obstruction then they should be moved on or arrested. The greyer area is when the obstruction is a natural result of a lot of people being in the same place at the same time. I think it’s reasonable to encourage protestors to choose where they go in order to minimise inconvenience to others without losing the impact of the protest but I don’t feel that coercion is warranted
I like the idea of charging JSO for any damage done, then passing that on to donors. Never happen though
What a Christmas gift, that headline really did make me laugh out loud
Good for Milei, if I’m not mistaken a similar principle applies to football matches and pop concerts, so why not.
If you truly believe in what you’re protesting, you’ll be happy to foot the bill, in the knowledge that you will be safe while protesting and as a taxpayer you will not get further burdened.
Merry Christmas everyone, have a good one.
Yep, we are on the same page Jane.
Have a lovely Christmas
There’s a very real danger that this could end up being the thin end of the wedge. Once a government charges protesters blocking roads during a protest it’s a very small step to charging other protests for the policing costs involved and before we know it protest is the preserve of the well off.
The best solution would be to massively increase the fines given to people who have been found guilty of breaking the law during a protest to help cover the cost of dealing with their law breaking rather than simply charging groups who organise a protest.
“massively increase the fines given to people who have been found guilty of breaking the law”
I largely agree with your comments but the problem is that the legal system is now largely corrupted. JSO routinely break the law with their pathetic vandalism and deliberate road closures. Bill the tw#t funding this crap and things might change. If he doesn’t pay send him down.
Looking forward to the day when Extinction Rebellion are charged for the disruptions they cause. 10,000 motorists on the M25 x £10.42 an hour…. A few days of that will soon drain ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ the George Soros funded twats of funds.
Damn right.
“a heavy deployment of police, paramilitary officers and anti-riot forces, cost 60 million pesos, or about £57,500, at the official exchange rate.”
We should employ Argentinian police. At those prices we could fly them over here to deal with protests and riots and fly them back and it’d still cost less than using ours.
Yes that’s 1,043 pesos to the pound if my calculator is correct.
They will also strip protestors of Welfare. That’s going to hurt.
No. Just those protesters who block streets – if I understood that correctly.
Mind you that also means they expect to be able to identify these people.
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Have a peaceful Christmas everyone.
In order to do this they must be closely surveilling the event and have the technology to trace the protesters they have identified. Its easy to applaud the concept of charging the protesters but the mechanics involved in that process are part of the apparatus of the surveillance state which, I think, most here would be against.
Correct. Trudeau tried it against the Canadian trucker protest during Covid. Not just cutting off welfare payments but freezing their bank accounts. I don’t think many on here would have supported that action.