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

@Tealightsandd

Re the OP. I can't be certain but I suspect the reason was due to supply limitations.

We have studies showing protection up to 12 months so far. That doesn’t mean that it only lasts 12 months.

Why on earth would anyone support playing Russian roulette with our children's lives - and long term health. Supply constraint is one thing and something there is little that can be done about except wait for more. Actively pushing not to have the protection of a vaccine is quite another matter. It's madness.

We can't possibly know how long immunity will last, nor the extent of any long term effects and damage. SARS-COV-2 is a new disease - and one that was potentially human modified and then leaked from a lab. Therefore the long-term is unknown.

Well currently we have longer term data on immunity after infection than immunity after the vaccine. And again, as the JCVI stated irt the vaccine for young people “substantial uncertainty remains regarding the health risks associated with these adverse events.”

Yes, that’s why the benefits significantly outweigh the risks for certain groups, including some children.

@Tealightsandd

There is even more considerable uncertainty over the potential long term effects of infection.

Why more? We have longer term data on it than the vaccine.

The vaccine doesn't stop an individual catching covid so the idea that a child can be vaccinated and not catch it simply by reducing their chances is ridiculous.

If you had a six sided dice with the one representing covid and increased the number of sides to 12 ( vaccinated) halving the risk of seeing the 1 and getting covid, if you kept rolling the dice you would hit the 1 unless you plan on isolating the child indefinitely

Anyway the good news is that thankfully we are now offering our older children the potentially life and health saving protection that a vaccine provides.

Interestingly, “considerable uncertainty” doesn’t mean “we know the risks and they are large”.

We know that the risks to young people are low based on well over a years worth of data.

Oh really? Did you miss this?

“The comments from parents have included descriptions of very alarming neuropsychiatric sequelae. Reports are now appearing on this topic though focused on adults.12 13 The increasing number of reports of a high frequency of tics and Tourette syndrome in children has been hypothesised as being functional though an accompanying editorial has challenged this.14 15 Reports from members of the Long-COVID Kids group suggest that tics and other Tourette-like symptoms are a common feature of COVID-19 infection sequelae. The features are very similar to the condition known as paediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infection.”
adc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/05/27/archdischild-2021-321882

A mild infection?

“According to the literature, children did not need to exhibit the classic upper respiratory symptoms of COVID-19 to develop MIS-C, which is frightening," Dr. Moreira said. "Children might have no symptoms, no one knew they had the disease, and a few weeks later, they may develop this exaggerated inflammation in the body."”
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200904125111.htm

From the same link:

“The team reviewed 662 MIS-C cases reported worldwide between Jan. 1 and July 25. Among the findings:

71% of the children were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).
60% presented with shock.
Average length of stay in the hospital was 7.9 days.
100% had fever, 73.7% had abdominal pain or diarrhea, and 68.3% suffered vomiting.
90% had an echocardiogram (EKG) test and 54% of the results were abnormal.
22.2% of the children required mechanical ventilation.
4.4% required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
11 children died.“

And:

“ Most of the 662 children suffered cardiac involvement as indicated by markers such as troponin, which is used with great accuracy in adults to diagnose heart attacks.”

And this:

“Almost 10% of children had an aneurysm of a coronary vessel. "This is a localized stretching or ballooning of the blood vessel that can be measured on an ultrasound of the heart," Dr. Moreira said.
Children with an aneurysm are at the most risk of a future event. "These are children who are going to require significant observation and follow-up with multiple ultrasounds to see if this is going to resolve or if this is something they will have for the rest of their lives," Dr. Moreira said.”

@RachelPearson34

The vaccine doesn't stop an individual catching covid so the idea that a child can be vaccinated and not catch it simply by reducing their chances is ridiculous.

If you had a six sided dice with the one representing covid and increased the number of sides to 12 ( vaccinated) halving the risk of seeing the 1 and getting covid, if you kept rolling the dice you would hit the 1 unless you plan on isolating the child indefinitely

Mmm not really as the a 6 sided dice analogy implies it's completely random event each time (i.e., repeated events of exposure to coronavirus and whether this results in an infection),

In reality, the vaccine will work better in some children than others, and it's likely efficacy will be very high in some individuals (so repeated exposure never resulting in infection), and lower in others.

As the world's experts say, the risks of infection are greater when there are a lot of unvaccinated around.

Countries with high levels of vaccination hsve lower infection rates.

The vaccine is thoroughly trialled and tested. The virus is an unknown (and a possible leak from bioweapon research). It is obvious why the majority of respected experts (doctors and scientists) advise getting the life and health protecting benefits of the vaccine.

We are very lucky to have that option. Hopefully the rest of the world will have improved access soon too.

@BewareTheLibrarians I didn’t say that it means they are large. And ‘low risk’ doesn’t mean ‘no risk’ so yes, there can be more serious cases, such as the ones you are linking to but several studies based on well over a year of data have concluded that children are at low risk from the virus.

@Tealightsandd sure. Apparently 25,000 children need to be vaccinated to prevent 1 hospitalisation though (compared to 800 over 60s).

We are so very fortunate to have the opportunity to protect ourselves and our children. I hope soon the potentially life and health saving vaccines are available to all - wherever in the world they may be. We're putting our oxygen masks on (which is important) but we can then help others. It's wonderful. We are indeed very lucky to have access to vaccines.

From the US:

“In the 7 jurisdictions examined, 248 persons with MIS-C (following covid) were reported” (in people younger than 21 years old).
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2780861

Also: (the bolding is mine, because it’s a very important point.)

“The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, describe children who develop severe inflammation affecting multiple organ systems after having had Covid-19, sometimes between two and four weeks after the infection. The majority of the children were previously healthy.
In one of the studies, led by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital, 80% of the children who developed the condition required intensive care, 20% required mechanical ventilation, and four children, or 2%, died. In the second study, from researchers from New York state, a similar percentage of 99 children who developed the syndrome required ICU care and two children died. In both studies, many of the children developed cardiovascular and clotting problems and many had gastrointestinal symptoms. A high proportion also had skin rashes.”
www.statnews.com/2020/06/29/nejm-inflammation-children-covid19-misc/

Important point there that this condition doesn’t just affect kids with underlying conditions (as if their lives were any less worthy!) but previously healthy kids, including those with only mild covid infections. So yes. A rare complication. But you don’t know who it could affect and how badly. There’s no “she’s healthy so it’s fine!” “He’s skinny so he won’t be affected!”

children are at low risk from the virus.

Nobody’s arguing they they’re not though.

You’re arguing that the risk from the vaccine is higher than the “low risk” from covid, but without any evidence or numbers into back that up. You’re so determined that you’re right that I thought you’d at least have access to such evidence?

@BewareTheLibrarians no one is saying that the lives of people with underlying conditions are ‘less worthy’, they’re just known to be higher risk. And yes, complications can happen in healthy children, just like with any illness, but they are still classed as rare and the risk to healthy young people is still considered to be low.

You’re arguing that the risk from the vaccine is higher than the “low risk” from covid

No, I’m not. I’ve said that there’s no point in a young person taking that risk if they’ve already recovered from infection with no ill effects.

How do you know there's no ill effects? It's an unknown new virus that is potentially escaped from a lab (so not a natural disease).

The ill effects are not always immediately apparent.

Remember that some of the damage - life threatening clots in the lungs - only shows up with specialist (as opposed to standard) scans. Many (most?) people won't have had access to that yet. The NHS is currently a little bit too busy dealing with the very high rates of infection that is killing between 100-200 people a day. There isn't capacity for scans particularly not those that are non routine. Waiting lists for diagnoses and treatment are long.

The increased rates of diabetes, thought to be triggered by Covid infection, are only just starting to show up.

It would be a bit foolish to take unnecessary risks. As with speed limits and seat belts, we can't prevent all road accident injuries and fatalities but we take mitigations.

We are very lucky to have access to vaccines.

This article was quite interesting on anti vax influence https://bylinetimes.com/2021/10/01/inside-the-radicalised-anti-vaxxer-network-influencing-government-vaccine-advisory-panel/

That doesn’t mean that it only lasts 12 months.

So you have decided, Bumbley in the face of everything we know about coronaviruses, and despite evidence that many people have in fact caught covid twice, that natural immunity to covid lasts forever.

That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?

I haven’t decided that at all noble. I’m just going by the data which shows durable immunity and very low rates of reinfection. Reinfection cases are usually milder too. People still have immunity to the previous SARS virus 17 years later so it is possible that immunity could last several years. It would be great if it did, wouldn’t it? :)

You said, bumbley Why wouldn’t you want to have something mildly and not have to worry about it again?

We know that lots of people have had covid twice even within this pandemic so the suggestion that you could have it once and not have to worry about it again is pure bollocks.

ONS: “The number of reinfections is low overall, and reinfections with a high viral load (which are more likely to cause illness) are even lower.”

So, no, not bollocks at all.

Also, you’re taking that comment out of context anyway. I was talking about long term immunity in general at that point, not immunity to covid in particular. Why it’s desirable to have long term immunity to something, even if it’s not necessarily severe.

I was talking about long term immunity in general at that point, not immunity to covid in particular.

Which is weird on a discussion about covid immunity in particular, especially when you are extolling the virtues of natural immunity to covid. Unless you intended to mislead?

I've noticed you making comments about 'vaccination' as well, when I'm pretty sure you're not meaning the covid vaccination in particular, but are happy to give the impression that you are.

@bumbleymummy

ONS: “The number of reinfections is low overall, and reinfections with a high viral load (which are more likely to cause illness) are even lower.”

So, no, not bollocks at all.

Also, you’re taking that comment out of context anyway. I was talking about long term immunity in general at that point, not immunity to covid in particular. Why it’s desirable to have long term immunity to something, even if it’s not necessarily severe.

As has been said repeatedly but you choose to ignore

• it is debateable whether (purely on immunity generated), whether vaccination or infection induced is more robust
• even if it turned out that infection induced immunity generally produced a better response, vaccination does not prevent this from happening

-in addition, there are several studies showing the chances of reinfection are drastically lower in those who have been vaccinated after infection

Don't get vaccinated if you don't want to, but why spend so much time on MN trying to convince people they shouldn't either with dodgy arguments (for coronavirus or for other vaccines).

Not really. You were trying to make out that I was being silly for suggesting that it is desirable to be immune to covid long term by contracting covid. I gave an example of the common cold to illustrate that it can be desirable to have long term immunity to something even if the illness itself isn’t much more than a minor inconvenience. A virus doesn’t have to be deadly or even high risk to want to have it once and have durable immunity to it.

Not sure what comments you mean in your second paragraph.

Not sure what comments you mean in your second paragraph.

It means I know you are posting in bad faith. Not being straightforward. Deliberately obtuse. Giving impressions that can be denied.

You have, after all, been in this game a very long time.

@bumbleymummy

Not really. You were trying to make out that I was being silly for suggesting that it is desirable to be immune to covid long term by contracting covid. I gave an example of the common cold to illustrate that it can be desirable to have long term immunity to something even if the illness itself isn’t much more than a minor inconvenience. A virus doesn’t have to be deadly or even high risk to want to have it once and have durable immunity to it.

Not sure what comments you mean in your second paragraph.

No idea who this is in response to.

It's such a bizarre argument.

Turning down the vaccine doesn't make you more likely to have long term immunity

@riveted1 I’m not trying to convince anyone to do anything. People can do what they like irt having the vaccine, why would I care? It’s mainly the other way around - vaccinated people trying to convince unvaccinated people to have the vaccine.

I do think it’s ridiculous to not acknowledge natural immunity when implementing things like vaccine passports and mandatory vaccines for health care workers though. So I will continue to post about natural immunity and the evidence in relation to its durability and low risk of reinfection etc.

There is a nature paper that was published recently about improved memory B cell response in previously infected people compared to vaccinated people.

@noblegiraffe

Not sure what comments you mean in your second paragraph.

It means I know you are posting in bad faith. Not being straightforward. Deliberately obtuse. Giving impressions that can be denied.

You have, after all, been in this game a very long time.

I’m being perfectly straightforward. Please tell me what post you’re referring to and I’ll tell you if I was talking about the covid vaccine or another vaccine.