2021-11-26
EU regulators have approved the Pfizer vaccines for children down to age 5 (although this doesn't seem to have made the BBC yet - perhaps they are too busy bulling up the "worrying new variant" from South Africa).
I can't begin to imagine how they are justifying this, but those who may be taking this seriously (yes it is serious) might like to view the Tucker Carlson Robert F. Kennedy Jnr conversation.
Apparently this decision still needs to be "rubber-stamped" by the EU Commission, which I have little doubt will oblige with alacrity.
"Studies on Pfizer’s vaccine in children have not been big enough to detect any rare side effects from the second dose, like the chest and heart inflammation seen in mostly male older teenagers and young adults"
The Pfizer study (yes - they are marking their own homework) included 2000 children of which 1305 were given the vaccine. So this study provides absolutely no reassurance that serious adverse effects may not occur in this age group, at an incidence anywhere up to 1 in 1305 injections on average. It's effectively worthless (although we might at least suppose that severe adverse events may be less frequent than 1 in 1305).
See the WHO viewpoint on vaccinating children here.
Now it only remains for our own JCVI MHRA and CHM (Commission on Human Medicines) to fall into line.
Still, given that indications are that the vaccine efficacy expires within a year and doesn't include protection against onward transmission of the virus, and that catching Covid-19 does confer immunity for life, how is the real benefit of vaccinating children (who are at no significant risk) demonstrated?
The answer is that it is not demonstrated. To say that there might be a net benefit (and there might) is not the same as saying that there is.
Given that the down-side risk of complications (such as infertility) arising after some years is still completely unknown, and remembering the thalidomide debacle, I maintain my view that mass vaccination of our kids is reckless in the extreme.
