"I am particularly ashamed, and I'll put it on record, in hindsight, of my own vote to dismiss the care workers who didn't want to take the vaccine. And I very much hope that the 40,000 care workers who lost their jobs can be reinstated and they be compensated." -- UK MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT DANNY KRUGER
E-petition debate relating to the safety of covid-19 vaccines - Monday 24 October 2022 UK Parliament (official YT channel) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfgGCgxGYkk
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Danny Kruger is a Member of Parliament (Conservative) for the Devizes Constituency, in Wiltshire, England. https://www.dannykruger.org.uk
TRANSCRIPT OF EXCERPT
26:11 DANNY KRUGER: Sir Roger*, and it's a pleasure to serve under you and I'm very grateful, grateful to my honorable friend and member Elliot Colburn for Wallington, he gave a very good defense of the vaccine program and of the MHRA** and I respect that. I do regret his response to my honorable friend, member for Christchurch*** I think who raised the point about medical expertise which cast some doubt on the vaccines, and my friend chose to smear all opponents of the vaccine program. There of course are lunatics out there who are making absurd and outrageous claims but I do suggest that there are many reasonable and respectable people who have anxieties about the vaccine program and particularly of course in their own cases, those of themselves and their families who have suffered as a result of the program. And I'm a member of the parliamentary group my friend member from Christchurch chairs looking at vaccine injuries. And we met I think it was the first meeting of the APPG**** last week in committee room in [?] House. And we met there, there was only I'm afraid a tiny handful of colleagues but well over a hundred members of the public attended which isn't the usual story for an APPG. And I felt some of the shame on behalf of parliament, this was the first time that those members of the public, families of the bereaved, themselves injured citizens had had the opportunity to be in a room with members of this house. And I'm very pleased that we are now having this debate and I'm particularly pleased that we have the opportunity for members of the public to hear from the minister about this topic.
And I should say to members of the public watching that we have here a very good minister who is genuinely committed to health and to public health and has shown a real interest in this topic and in the effect of covid policies, as before when she was a backbench MP.* And I would say that the UK as a whole, and while many questions need to be answered about our covid response, is by no means the worst offender. We're not Canada or New Zealand or China, places where they think they can exterminate covid by depriving the population of the most basic civil liberties. But we still do have I'm afraid much to ask, questions to ask ourselves and even much to be ashamed of.
I am particularly ashamed, and I'll put it on record, in hindsight, of my own vote to dismiss the care workers who didn't want to take the vaccine. And I very much hope that the 40,000 care workers who lost their jobs can be reinstated and they be compensated.
Now a group of us including I think the minister held out against compulsory vaccination of health workers when that was proposed by the government last winter and that resistance I think turned the tide to a degree on government policy, and we emerged from the lockdowns, from lockdowns, quicker than we might have otherwise.
And yet we still have this policy of mass vaccination. And I do want to query this on behalf of constituents who have written to me. And my query starts with this simple point. In October 2020 when the vaccine was getting ready for roll-out, Kate Bingham, the head of the vaccines agency said this: There's going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It's an adult only vaccine for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable. Now why was it extended to the whole population? I don't think we've ever had a completely satisfactory answer to that question. And I raise it because my concern is that in extending the vaccination program it became an operation in public persuasion, an operation in which dissent is unhelpful or even immoral justifying suppression, even vilification of those who raise concerns.
MP: [?]
DANNY KRUGER: Happy to give way.
MP: I thank my honorable friend for giving way. Would he also question, unlike any other vaccine, the vaccine was actually given to people who'd got natural immunity because they'd actually contracted, provably contracted, the virus. And so they would have had natural immunity. Why were those people vaccinated?
DANNY KRUGER: My friend is absolutely right. The best vaccine against covid is covid. And many people were indeed naturally immune and I think there are questions to be asked about the effects of vaccination on the immune system.
So now I do understand why, my honorable friend Colburn for Wallington made a very understandable point about the importance of resisting misinformation, and certainly as I mentioned many crazy theories out there which we need to not give credence to. If we're talking about a program of vaccinating the population it is important that the public be persuaded to do what the government wants to do and I understand why the government should have a public health campaign along those lines. But it is an essential principle of medical ethics that people need to be able to give their informed consent before any treatment. And I do worry about how we can say that consent was fully informed in all cases. Throughout there has been, not, I wouldn't say deliberate, but there has been some misinformation, possibly accidental, in favor of the vaccine. We can tell this with hindsight.
Perhaps the most egregious, the doctor that my honorable friend mentioned earlier, presented on this to the APPG last week, Dr. Malhotra, the claim that the vaccine is 95% effective. And what this means is simply the relative risk, not the actual absolute risk. Reduction in risk to an individual, absolute risk reduction, is really less than one percent.
There was the widespread claim that the vaccine stops transmission, so people should take the jab to protect other people. We were all told that, we all believed that for many months. Last month we heard from Pfizer that their vaccine was never tested to see whether it would stop transmission. And yet we had the notorious claim by Professor Chris Whitty that even though the vaccine brought no benefit to children, children should be vaccinated to protect wider society. I'm all for thinking about society not the individual, Sir Roger, but that again, it feels to me a profound break with medical ethics. And a lot of people are asking what the vaccine does to children and young people.
And Dr. Whitty is right that the benefit to healthy children seems to be essentially nil. And yet there are genuine questions to be asked. And I've not verified these questions, I merely ask them on behalf of my constituents.
How do we explain the increase in myocarditis, the increase in heart attacks and excess deaths among young people? And indeed in the general population it is plausible, not definitive, but plausible, that the vaccine is responsible for more harms than we know about. And I mentioned in my intervention earlier that we know from the Yellow Card scheme that up to 1 in 200 vaccinated report an adverse reaction. And that is in itself bad enough, but we also know that Yellow Card reports, that adverse effects are significantly under-reported to the Yellow Card scheme. Based on MHRI's own research there may be as many as 10 times more serious adverse reactions, serious ones, not just any ones. There may be 10 times more serious adverse reactions than the Yellow Card system shows.
APSANA BEGUM: [?]
DANNY KRUGER: Happy to give way.
APSANA BEGUM: Do you agree with me that it's [?] important for the minister to explain how those people who say they've experienced damage from the vaccine can have themselves heard not just by the Yellow Card scheme, not just by the module in the existing public inquiry and not just an application for a vaccine damage compensation, there needs to be more meaningful ways in which people can engage with their experiences of damage.
DANNY KRUGER: I am very grateful to the honorable lady. And I absolutely agree and I think that today is a very important moment for the minister to hear from members here on behalf of residents and I would encourage a far greater engagement with citizens who themselves suffered from vaccine damage or even lost loved ones to it.
Now I mention these rather terrifying facts, and there may be innocent explanations for them and I very much hope there are. If these are conspiracy theories we need them to be comprehensively and courteously debunked.
So I have four questions for the minister, to close, Sir Roger.
First. Will she review the vaccination of children? We know that children have strong naturally acquired immunity and that the chance of death from covid for a healthy child is one in two million. So I believe that we should follow other countries like Denmark and stop vaccinating children altogether. But I invite the minister to consider reviewing that aspect of the policy.
Second. Will she make representations in government and with Baroness Hallett** that the terms of reference for her inquiry should be broadened to explicitly include the efficacy and safety of the vaccines. And I hear what my honorable friend is absolutely right that the inquiry does include reference to the vaccination program and its effects and he may well be right that that is sufficient and that the review will properly consider the topics that we are discussing today. I hope that that is the case, but I think that needs to be made more explicit and I invite the minister to comment.
SIR CHRISTOPHER CHOPE: [?]
DANNY KRUGER: Happy to give way.
SIR CHRISTOPHER CHOPE: I actually wrote to Baroness Hallett asking her to ensure that it was specifically in the terms of reference, that it should cover the issue of safety of vaccines and the impact of vaccines, and as a result of not just of my representations but representation from others, the terms of reference were amended to make it quite clear that vaccines and the impact of vaccines and the potential damage of vaccines is included within the terms of reference.
DANNY KRUGER: For that clarification it concerns me that it took his representations to even get the vaccine, the effect of the vaccines considered by the inquiry and I suggest we need to go further and talk about efficacy and safety not just the impact. I think we need to be quite explicit about what we want answers to. These issues need to be directly covered.
Now this inquiry I think we do need the public inquiry to consider this because the compromised nature of medical regulation in our country. And I mentioned earlier that the MHRA is funded by the pharmaceutical companies who produce the drugs and vaccines that it regulates. And there might be some universe in which this makes sense but I don't this is that universe. I don't think it's right.
And third. We need to do more, a lot more for the injured and bereaved, as the honorable lady mentioned. I agree with all of my friend from Christchurch's recommendations, and we'll hear from him shortly about what needs to be done to raise the threshold for compensation for the injured and the speed of payout. And I also agree with him that we need clinics for people with adverse reactions just as we do for people with long covid.
And finally. Following this, we need to change the power imbalance. I am sorry on behalf of Parliament that this is the first proper debate we've had on this subject. I regret that victims and families have had to struggle so hard to get the engagement of the system. I hope the minister will agree to meet with some of the people who are here today and other representatives of families affected by the vaccines with a proper exchange of information and ideas. And I hope that she will request that Dame June Raine*** of the MHRA meet with them as well, rather than, I'm afraid to say, ignoring them for months.
And I want to end by hoping that with the new government that takes over this week, the current minister herself has only just recently been appointed, will stay in post and that we can start a new chapter in the story of covid. No more remote power telling people what to do. Let's put truth and justice back into our public life and restore trust in the experts we rely on. Thank you, Sir Roger.
37:35 [END OF PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT]
# # #
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
*Sir Roger Gale https://members.parliament.uk/member/87/contact
**MHRA is the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency https://www.gov.uk/government/news/welcome-to-our-new-mhra-website
***Sir Christopher Chope https://members.parliament.uk/member/242/contact
****APPG is an Al-Party Parliamentary Group. According to the UK Parliament webpage: https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/apg/ "All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are informal cross-party groups that have no official status within Parliament. They are run by and for Members of the Commons and Lords, though many choose to involve individuals and organisations from outside Parliament in their administration and activities."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2022-11-12 12:03 am (UTC)-- UK MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT DANNY KRUGER
E-petition debate relating to the safety of covid-19 vaccines - Monday 24 October 2022
UK Parliament (official YT channel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfgGCgxGYkk
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Danny Kruger is a Member of Parliament (Conservative) for the Devizes Constituency, in Wiltshire, England.
https://www.dannykruger.org.uk
TRANSCRIPT OF EXCERPT
26:11
DANNY KRUGER: Sir Roger*, and it's a pleasure to serve under you and I'm very grateful, grateful to my honorable friend and member Elliot Colburn for Wallington, he gave a very good defense of the vaccine program and of the MHRA** and I respect that. I do regret his response to my honorable friend, member for Christchurch*** I think who raised the point about medical expertise which cast some doubt on the vaccines, and my friend chose to smear all opponents of the vaccine program. There of course are lunatics out there who are making absurd and outrageous claims but I do suggest that there are many reasonable and respectable people who have anxieties about the vaccine program and particularly of course in their own cases, those of themselves and their families who have suffered as a result of the program. And I'm a member of the parliamentary group my friend member from Christchurch chairs looking at vaccine injuries. And we met I think it was the first meeting of the APPG**** last week in committee room in [?] House. And we met there, there was only I'm afraid a tiny handful of colleagues but well over a hundred members of the public attended which isn't the usual story for an APPG. And I felt some of the shame on behalf of parliament, this was the first time that those members of the public, families of the bereaved, themselves injured citizens had had the opportunity to be in a room with members of this house. And I'm very pleased that we are now having this debate and I'm particularly pleased that we have the opportunity for members of the public to hear from the minister about this topic.
And I should say to members of the public watching that we have here a very good minister who is genuinely committed to health and to public health and has shown a real interest in this topic and in the effect of covid policies, as before when she was a backbench MP.* And I would say that the UK as a whole, and while many questions need to be answered about our covid response, is by no means the worst offender. We're not Canada or New Zealand or China, places where they think they can exterminate covid by depriving the population of the most basic civil liberties. But we still do have I'm afraid much to ask, questions to ask ourselves and even much to be ashamed of.
I am particularly ashamed, and I'll put it on record, in hindsight, of my own vote to dismiss the care workers who didn't want to take the vaccine. And I very much hope that the 40,000 care workers who lost their jobs can be reinstated and they be compensated.
Now a group of us including I think the minister held out against compulsory vaccination of health workers when that was proposed by the government last winter and that resistance I think turned the tide to a degree on government policy, and we emerged from the lockdowns, from lockdowns, quicker than we might have otherwise.
And yet we still have this policy of mass vaccination. And I do want to query this on behalf of constituents who have written to me. And my query starts with this simple point. In October 2020 when the vaccine was getting ready for roll-out, Kate Bingham, the head of the vaccines agency said this: There's going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It's an adult only vaccine for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable. Now why was it extended to the whole population? I don't think we've ever had a completely satisfactory answer to that question. And I raise it because my concern is that in extending the vaccination program it became an operation in public persuasion, an operation in which dissent is unhelpful or even immoral justifying suppression, even vilification of those who raise concerns.
MP: [?]
DANNY KRUGER: Happy to give way.
MP: I thank my honorable friend for giving way. Would he also question, unlike any other vaccine, the vaccine was actually given to people who'd got natural immunity because they'd actually contracted, provably contracted, the virus. And so they would have had natural immunity. Why were those people vaccinated?
DANNY KRUGER: My friend is absolutely right. The best vaccine against covid is covid. And many people were indeed naturally immune and I think there are questions to be asked about the effects of vaccination on the immune system.
So now I do understand why, my honorable friend Colburn for Wallington made a very understandable point about the importance of resisting misinformation, and certainly as I mentioned many crazy theories out there which we need to not give credence to. If we're talking about a program of vaccinating the population it is important that the public be persuaded to do what the government wants to do and I understand why the government should have a public health campaign along those lines. But it is an essential principle of medical ethics that people need to be able to give their informed consent before any treatment. And I do worry about how we can say that consent was fully informed in all cases. Throughout there has been, not, I wouldn't say deliberate, but there has been some misinformation, possibly accidental, in favor of the vaccine. We can tell this with hindsight.
Perhaps the most egregious, the doctor that my honorable friend mentioned earlier, presented on this to the APPG last week, Dr. Malhotra, the claim that the vaccine is 95% effective. And what this means is simply the relative risk, not the actual absolute risk. Reduction in risk to an individual, absolute risk reduction, is really less than one percent.
There was the widespread claim that the vaccine stops transmission, so people should take the jab to protect other people. We were all told that, we all believed that for many months. Last month we heard from Pfizer that their vaccine was never tested to see whether it would stop transmission. And yet we had the notorious claim by Professor Chris Whitty that even though the vaccine brought no benefit to children, children should be vaccinated to protect wider society. I'm all for thinking about society not the individual, Sir Roger, but that again, it feels to me a profound break with medical ethics. And a lot of people are asking what the vaccine does to children and young people.
And Dr. Whitty is right that the benefit to healthy children seems to be essentially nil. And yet there are genuine questions to be asked. And I've not verified these questions, I merely ask them on behalf of my constituents.
How do we explain the increase in myocarditis, the increase in heart attacks and excess deaths among young people? And indeed in the general population
it is plausible, not definitive, but plausible, that the vaccine is responsible for more harms than we know about. And I mentioned in my intervention earlier that we know from the Yellow Card scheme that up to 1 in 200 vaccinated report an adverse reaction. And that is in itself bad enough, but we also know that Yellow Card reports, that adverse effects are significantly under-reported to the Yellow Card scheme. Based on MHRI's own research there may be as many as 10 times more serious adverse reactions, serious ones, not just any ones. There may be 10 times more serious adverse reactions than the Yellow Card system shows.
APSANA BEGUM: [?]
DANNY KRUGER: Happy to give way.
APSANA BEGUM: Do you agree with me that it's [?] important for the minister to explain how those people who say they've experienced damage from the vaccine can have themselves heard not just by the Yellow Card scheme, not just by the module in the existing public inquiry and not just an application for a vaccine damage compensation, there needs to be more meaningful ways in which people can engage with their experiences of damage.
DANNY KRUGER: I am very grateful to the honorable lady. And I absolutely agree and I think that today is a very important moment for the minister to hear from members here on behalf of residents and I would encourage a far greater engagement with citizens who themselves suffered from vaccine damage or even lost loved ones to it.
Now I mention these rather terrifying facts, and there may be innocent explanations for them and I very much hope there are.
If these are conspiracy theories we need them to be comprehensively and courteously debunked.
So I have four questions for the minister, to close, Sir Roger.
First. Will she review the vaccination of children? We know that children have strong naturally acquired immunity and that the chance of death from covid for a healthy child is one in two million. So I believe that we should follow other countries like Denmark and stop vaccinating children altogether. But I invite the minister to consider reviewing that aspect of the policy.
Second. Will she make representations in government and with Baroness Hallett** that the terms of reference for her inquiry should be broadened to explicitly include the efficacy and safety of the vaccines. And I hear what my honorable friend is
absolutely right that the inquiry
does include reference to the vaccination program and its effects and he may well be right that that is sufficient and that the review will properly consider the topics that we are discussing today. I hope that that is the case, but I think that needs to be made more explicit and I invite the minister to comment.
SIR CHRISTOPHER CHOPE: [?]
DANNY KRUGER: Happy to give way.
SIR CHRISTOPHER CHOPE: I actually wrote to Baroness Hallett asking her to ensure that it was specifically in the terms of reference, that it should cover the issue of safety of vaccines and the impact of vaccines, and as a result of not just of my representations but representation from others, the terms of reference were amended to make it quite clear that vaccines and the impact of vaccines and the potential damage of vaccines is included within the terms of reference.
DANNY KRUGER: For that clarification it concerns me that it took his representations to even get the vaccine, the effect of the vaccines considered by the inquiry and I suggest we need to go further and talk about efficacy and safety not just the impact. I think we need to be quite explicit about what we want answers to. These issues need to be directly covered.
Now this inquiry I think we do need the public inquiry to consider this because the compromised nature of medical regulation in our country. And I mentioned earlier that the MHRA is funded by the pharmaceutical companies who produce the drugs and vaccines that it regulates. And there might be some universe in which this makes sense but I don't this is that universe. I don't think it's right.
And third. We need to do more, a lot more for the injured and bereaved, as the honorable lady mentioned. I agree with all of my friend from Christchurch's recommendations, and we'll hear from him shortly about what needs to be done to raise the threshold for compensation for the injured and the speed of payout. And I also agree with him that we need clinics for people with adverse reactions just as we do for people with long covid.
And finally. Following this, we need to change the power imbalance. I am sorry on behalf of Parliament that this is the first proper debate we've had on this subject. I regret that victims and families have had to struggle so hard to get the engagement of the system. I hope the minister will agree to meet with some of the people who are here today and other representatives of families affected by the vaccines with a proper exchange of information and ideas. And I hope that she will request that Dame June Raine*** of the MHRA meet with them as well, rather than, I'm afraid to say, ignoring them for months.
And I want to end by hoping that with the new government that takes over this week, the current minister herself has only just recently been appointed, will stay in post and that we can start a new chapter in the story of covid. No more remote power telling people what to do. Let's put truth and justice back into our public life and restore trust in the experts we rely on. Thank you, Sir Roger.
37:35
[END OF PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT]
# # #
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
*Sir Roger Gale
https://members.parliament.uk/member/87/contact
**MHRA is the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/welcome-to-our-new-mhra-website
***Sir Christopher Chope
https://members.parliament.uk/member/242/contact
****APPG is an Al-Party Parliamentary Group. According to the UK Parliament webpage:
https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/apg/
"All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are informal cross-party groups that have no official status within Parliament. They are run by and for Members of the Commons and Lords, though many choose to involve individuals and organisations from outside Parliament in their administration and activities."
*Helen Whately
https://www.helenwhately.org.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/people/helen-whately
**Baroness Heather Hallett is chair of the Covid-19 Inquiry
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-announces-covid-19-inquiry-chair
***https://www.gov.uk/government/people/june-raine