The Questions I Want the Chief Medical Officer to Answer About Why We Are Vaccinating Babies Against Covid

In December, after the U.K. approved the Covid vaccine for infants, I asked the Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland, Dr. Michael McBride, why we were vaccinating babies against COVID-19. The question was the title of an article in the Daily Sceptic in which I also asked him to address other related issues.

I have now received a reply. He writes:

The Department of Health, along with the equivalent Departments across the rest of the U.K., has been guided by the expert advice provided by the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regarding vaccine safety and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), an independent expert advisory committee, on vaccine strategy.

In early December 2022 the MHRA approved a new age appropriate formulation of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) for use in infants and young children aged from six months to four years after the vaccine met the required safety, quality and effectiveness standards. This approval was given following a thorough review of safety data specific to the vaccine. The vaccine has already been approved by the EMA in Europe and the FDA in the USA.

The response goes on to say that “they will now await advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation as to whether or not they will recommend the offer of vaccination is extended to all or some children within this age cohort”.

In my reply to the Chief Medical Officer I pointed out that the response did not address my question or the other issues raised in my letter and asked him to address them.

First, I asked him why children with a 99.9987% survival chance need a vaccine. I asked him to reveal how many babies have actually died from Covid as the underlying cause of death.

Next, I asked if he accepted the multiple analyses, confirmed by the European CDC in August 2020, indicating that children have little capacity to transmit the virus and which showed that reopening schools in 2020 had not been associated with significant increases in community transmission. And if so, to confirm that he will not recommend that course of action again. Or alternatively, to send me evidence that children and schools are in fact a centre for transmission.

I went on to ask him to confirm that the vaccine was never actually tested for its capacity to prevent transmission, as stated by Pfizer executive Ms. Small at the European Parliament, and therefore confirm that as the vaccine has not been shown to prevent transmission, his advice to vaccinate children and babies is solely to reduce the risk to the children themselves.

And that furthermore this position would presuppose that children are actually at risk, whereas the evidence is that they are not at risk. Analysis shows persons 0-19 have a 0.0003% risk of death. For children zero to 10 years of age the risk of severe outcome and death from Covid is basically zero.

In the U.S., analysis of the FDA’s data shows the risk of any child dying of COVID-19 is 0.000015% and a study by the universities of Leeds and Leicester found that there had been no deaths of healthy children in the U.S.

In Canada, the Canadian Health Alliance states: “Without a serious pre-existing medical condition, the risk of death is statistically zero.”

Furthermore, no healthy child has died of Covid in Scotland, Northern Ireland, USA, Iceland or Ireland. Nor in the U.K. in 2020, according to Professor Norman Fenton.

As the children are not at risk and are not a risk to anyone else, why would you vaccinate them, I asked.

I then asked for an explanation as to how the vaccine could have undergone safety trials on children and babies sufficient to give anyone confidence in its long term safety. I further inquired why the advice to vaccinate children had been given before the completion of the new trials investigating vaccine myocarditis by Pfizer and Moderna which recent press reports indicate are underway. The FDA has mandated both companies to conduct clinical trials tracking vaccine myocarditis months and years beyond diagnosis for children aged five to 15.

I went on to ask him how his analysis of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which has been found to show 96 safety signals for 12-17 year-olds and 66 safety signals for five to 11 year-olds (including myocarditis, pericarditis, Bell’s Palsy, high blood pressure and heart rate, and menstrual irregularities) informed his decision.

I also pointed out that a major reason given for the vaccine programme is that vaccinations reduce hospitalisations and reduce stress on the NHS, yet studies from around the world continue to suggest that the vaccines actually increase the risk of Covid infection.

Finally, I asked him if citizen’s rights with respect to informed consent as set out on the NHS website are clearly available at vaccination centres and surgeries?

I went on to highlight the widespread public concern, with polls showing 48% of Americans are concerned about vaccine injuries.

I asked him if he felt that the practice of health care meets the ethical standards of public health principles, such as that public health:

is about comparative risk evaluations;

requires public trust. Public health recommendations should present facts as the basis for guidance, and never employ fear or shame to sway or manipulate the public;

requires open civilised debate. It is unacceptable for public health professionals to censor, silence or intimidate members of the public or other public health scientists or practitioners and that

medical interventions should not be forced or coerced upon a population, but rather should be voluntary and based on informed consent.

I highlighted some of the many medical groups and medics calling for a halt to the vaccination programme, for example Doctors for Patients, World Council for Health and renowned cardiologists such as Dr. Aseem Malhotra and Dr. Peter Mccullough.

Is such substantial doubt enough for you to halt the programme, I asked.

I went on to add that there is also an important democratic principle involved here.

In a democracy, when there has been a mandating of public health measures and limitations put on public freedoms as a result of health advice, it is right that those recommending the most draconian measures in our history should fully present the evidence to the public showing unequivocally that the measures were necessary and that they work.

I await a response.

Hugh McCarthy is a retired headteacher in Northern Ireland who until recently served as a director on two of the province’s main education councils and who remains a ministerial appointment on one.