Government Refuses to Release Minutes of Meeting in Which JVCI Decided Not to Recommend Jabbing Healthy Teens

[Sagaaaats]

^The government has refused to release the minutes of the meeting in which its vaccine advisory committee decided not to recommend vaccinating all 12-15 year olds against covid-19.1

The UK Health Security Agency, which replaced Public Health England, rejected a freedom of information request for the document on the grounds that it intended to publish the minutes “in due course.”

The agency argued that it was in the public interest to withhold the information until it could be released in a “simultaneous, coordinated manner” and that disclosing the minutes before they were finalised could “result in a false impression of the contents of the meeting.” The decision is being appealed.

On 3 September the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said that it would not be recommending universal vaccination for 12-15 year olds because although the health benefits of vaccination were “marginally greater than the potential known harms,” the margin of benefit was considered too small.2 The committee did not explain what factors its conclusion was based on, and neither the minutes nor the data behind the decision have been made public.3

The JCVI asked ministers to seek further advice from the UK’s chief medical officers on the wider potential benefits of vaccination. The government later (13 September) accepted the chief medical officers’ recommendation to vaccinate all 12-15 year olds on the basis of an assessment that included transmission in schools and the effect on children’s education.4

In a letter dated 5 October academics from Independent SAGE wrote to the JCVI highlighting the fact that, despite the committee’s own policy stating that draft minutes would be published within six weeks of each meeting, the last publicly available minutes were from February 2021.5

They urged the JCVI to “abide by its code of practice and be open and transparent through rapid publishing of all agendas, supporting papers and minutes,” arguing that “public confidence in vaccination programmes is assisted by clear and consistent processes and messaging.”

They added, “In that spirit, we wish to have a public assurance from JCVI that all future considerations of covid-19 vaccines, including the extension of vaccination to children under 12 years of age, will be conducted openly and transparently.”^

www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2452?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_term=hootsuite&utm_content=sme&utm_campaign=usage

Recent figures show that we seem to have reached the peak in the 0-19 range and there wasn’t a significant rise in the older groups so perhaps they are actually right in that transmission from children isn’t as high as some people think.

transmission from children isn’t as high as some people think.

So who is giving it to all kids?

I mean, Bumbley if loads of kids are getting it and adults aren't, that suggests that kids do transmit, but vaccines are effective, doesn't it?

Well the concern was that children would be passing it up to older age groups who were more likely to be seriously ill/hospitalised. And that doesn’t seem to be happening thankfully :)

The factors that they considered were in line with other experts in the field, and the reason the different decision was made was because they only considered direct medical benefits to teens rather than indirect benefits.

Which leads us back to why it was approved for the 12-15 year old age group by the MHRA, who also only look at direct medical benefits, and why people see the JCVI’s decision as carrying more weight than the MHRA’s.

I mean, the MHRA is hardly going to be more lax than the JCVI when it comes to children’s health, putting their reputation at risk.

So again, there needs to be much more clarity on why each group made their decision.

And as @noblegiraffe says, when you have JCVI members still publicly promoting the (wildly incorrect) idea that children don’t spread covid, you have to wonder what their motivations are.

[quote noblegiraffe]Just seen this retweeted from 26th September

"Chap on the radio this week said - unchallenged - that kids don't spread Covid, and there's not too much pressure on the NHS. This would seem to be untrue. To put it politely. And the chap is on the JCVI. This would seem to be unfortunate. To put it politely."

If people on the JCVI think that kids don't spread covid then they have severely miscalculated the impact of covid v vaccines. That we haven't been allowed to see their working/thinking while being told that it's a parent's responsibility to make the decision re vaccinating their child is shocking.

twitter.com/dminghella/status/1442198871531143174?s=21[/quote]
Maybe they need to rethink the membership of the JCVI and remove dangerous fools?

Yes, clarity and transparency are an absolutely basic requirement here.

“The minutes haven’t been finalised.”

Translation : “We haven’t finished fiddling with them yet; we don’t want anyone to know what was really said.”

I remember when they u-turned on the 16 and 17 year olds.

If you remember the chairman of the jcvi Prof Wei Shen Lim ( who runs a Thoracic department funded by.... Pfizer!) When asked why they had changed their minds said they didn't have the evidence to hand, but would be published

They never did

It came out in an interview that it was partly down to political pressure

Link to Prof Wei Shen Lim Web page (point 2 ) showing funding from pfizer
www.brit-thoracic.org.uk/about-us/committees-and-advisory-groups/clinical-audit-leads/35589

Link to JVCI announcement
twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1422940836258590723?t=EEpQdgydhx4mdeyd6pFR6g&s=19

Link to interview.... political pressure
twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1427168031730507777?t=k1Iokrfxokiub7N9iORN-Q&s=19

@bumbleymummy

Well the concern was that children would be passing it up to older age groups who were more likely to be seriously ill/hospitalised. And that doesn’t seem to be happening thankfully :)

Thanks to the vaccines, yes, bumbley ?

'Children do transmit to unvaccinated people including children in large numbers but as most adults are vaccinated this means we haven't seen a huge increase in serious illness' is a different argument to 'children don't transmit covid' isn't it? Why did the JCVI guy apparently make the factually incorrect one?

Am trying to remember what happened in the winter when the DfE wouldn’t release a SAGE report about ? projected rates in schools or something… They kept prevaricating and saying all info needed to be released together or something. It was relevant to Gavin Williamson sending legal warnings to Greenwich to stop them closing schools iirc.

noble?

Would need to look it up, Jan. I'm remembering the time that the DfE pulled the info from a PHE report about how the Delta variant was spreading in schools.

And the time when they didn't publish data about the infection rates in schools until the day before half term because they didn't want to give the people who were arguing for a circuit-breaker the evidence needed.

Will do some digging in the archives!

The US messaging on this is a heck of a lot clearer (and in favour of vaccinations).

A huge number of first world countries have rolled out vaccines 12+ with much less fuss.

Not sure why the scientific evidence would look any different to UK scientists?

www.cypnow.co.uk/news/article/gavin-williamson-dfe-had-no-knowledge-of-new-covid-strain-when-it-ordered-greenwich-to-keep-schools-open

It was alpha of course @noblegiraffe! There was a later stage to the story, when SAGE were found to have warned about the potential problems and those minutes had been withheld I think.

Ah yes, if there was no knowledge of the new strain or of any problem then why was Matt Hancock urging mass testing of Kent secondary schools mid-December?

@herecomesthsun

The US messaging on this is a heck of a lot clearer (and in favour of vaccinations).

A huge number of first world countries have rolled out vaccines 12+ with much less fuss.

Not sure why the scientific evidence would look any different to UK scientists?

Just because the rest of the world does things doesn't mean we should

Just because the rest of the world makes sensible medical evidence-based decisions doesn't mean we should?

@BewareTheLibrarians

The factors that they considered were in line with other experts in the field, and the reason the different decision was made was because they only considered direct medical benefits to teens rather than indirect benefits.

Which leads us back to why it was approved for the 12-15 year old age group by the MHRA, who also only look at direct medical benefits, and why people see the JCVI’s decision as carrying more weight than the MHRA’s.

I mean, the MHRA is hardly going to be more lax than the JCVI when it comes to children’s health, putting their reputation at risk.

So again, there needs to be much more clarity on why each group made their decision.

And as @noblegiraffe says, when you have JCVI members still publicly promoting the (wildly incorrect) idea that children don’t spread covid, you have to wonder what their motivations are.

I've felt like I've banged my head against a wall for the last few months on here with the "the JCVI haven't approved it so I'm not having our Ernie vaccinated" stuff. As you say, people seem to have been led to believe the JCVI were the absolute experts in the field, when some aren't doctors/scientists and others are scary loons. (tbf, I think their head loon left "to spend more time with his family" before the decision was made though)

I think they should be likened to the PTA. Some people that know what they're talking about, others there to protect their own interests, and others still for the pie and pea suppers.

I think the JCVI were scared of getting sued by the looney FOMO us4them - it has since emerged there was an on-going court case about one parent trying to stop everyone else in the country getting their children vaccinated in case it negatively affected their unvaccinated child - funnily enough they lost that case.
But JCVI have probably seen the abuse JVT and CW have received and chickened out and left the decision to the government to take responsibility for.
Hence not releasing minutes that will undermine their expert status.

At least one JCVI member (now left) was happily retweeting Us4Them so not so much scared of them as agreeing with them.

I trust the MHRA to make the right decisions on if covid jabs are safe and they have.

However I don't trust JCVI who had professor Dingwall who was sociologist who agreed with us for them and I believe signed the great Barrington declaration.
I believe us for them is shadowy group that have infiltrated the media, some government abd the JCVI.
They playing into the hands of the anti vaxers by hiding this information.

Not that my 12 or 15 year old can actually access the jab anytime soon whis decision was only to do in schools?

Other countries have double vaccinated teens have lower levels of covid than we do and have lower hospitalisation maybe its because they have higher vaccination rates as children are large chunk of population we just neglecting and evidently they so catch and spread covid at a alarming rate and 10-19- is very high because they not been vaccinated.

@BewareTheLibrarians the MHRA also approved the AZ vaccine for over 18s.

@herecomesthsun other countries didn’t roll out the vaccine in the same way as we did - prioritising the most vulnerable. And we had really high uptake in those groups. So the benefit of vaccinating young people in the uk is less.

[quote bumbleymummy]@herecomesthsun other countries didn’t roll out the vaccine in the same way as we did - prioritising the most vulnerable. And we had really high uptake in those groups. So the benefit of vaccinating young people in the uk is less.[/quote]
All other countries?

It depends on if you think trying to protect kids from catching covid is a reasonable aim, bumbley, doesn't it? We know you don't, but other people (and countries) think differently, which is perfectly reasonable.