From the Health Forum NZ at MeWe. Examining the strange case of how vaccinations came to be scheduled for children and youth.

Yesterday the government announced that they would begin vaccinating 5 to 11 year olds before the end of January 2022. WHY? We examine the strange case of how vaccinations came to be scheduled for children and youth.

Harm from covid for children and young adults is incredibly rare

A study published in Nature drawing upon multiple studies finds the death among children under 18 years from covid is ‘incredibly rare’. The recorded rate of death is just 2 in each million cases. Half of these are clearly linked to comorbidities. This is very very very low. To put this in perspective the all cause death rate among the 15-19 age group in NZ is of the order of 500 per million per year which utterly dwarfs possible covid deaths. So there is nothing significant to fear. Virtually all children and young adults catching covid will experience very mild symptoms and develop long lasting natural immunity, rather than the rapidly waning partial immunity conferred by vaccination, which will necessitate regular jabs in future.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w

Heart inflammation, a risk of vaccination

In contrast a MedRxiv preprint estimates that the rate of myocarditis post vaccination among males aged 12 -15 years was 162 cases per million and 94 among ages 16-17 (female cases in range 12-17 were 13 per million), For males this was 3.7 to 6.1 times higher than their 120 day hospitalisation risk from Covid. A study published by the JAMA Network found slightly higher rates.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262866v1

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2782900

The NY Times reports multiple studies on this topic under the headline ‘Researchers find a higher than expected risk of myocarditis in young men after full vaccination, on 6th October 2021. NYT summarises that most cases of vaccine induced myocarditis are mild, BUT an Israeli study found that twenty percent of those affected had persistent symptoms after discharge and at least one case subsequently resulted in a death.

The USA CDC combined the results from many studies and decided that vaccination of the 12 - 17 year old cohort could prevent 215 hospitalisations and 2 deaths from covid itself for every 1 million boys vaccinated. It won’t have escaped your notice that the claimed rate of prevented hospitalisations and deaths through vaccination are very similar to the rate of hospitalisations and deaths from myocarditis caused by vaccination. BUT direct equivalence of risk between vaccinating vs not vaccinating is misleading because data from UKHSA shows some of the hospitalisations and deaths in this age bracket from covid are actually vaccinated. This implies that the adverse effects of vaccination could possibly be more deadly than those prevented by vaccination. The research findings are equivocal. It is therefore a mystery how the CDC and our government concluded that there was some benefit to vaccinating youth.

What is myocarditis?

Myocarditis is a serious illness The Myocarditis Foundation reports: “In simple terms, myocarditis is a disease that causes inflammation of the heart muscle. This inflammation enlarges and weakens the heart, creates scar tissue and forces it to work harder to circulate blood and oxygen throughout the body.

While we often associate cardiovascular conditions with elderly populations, myocarditis can affect anyone, including young adults, children and infants. In fact, it most often affects otherwise healthy, young, athletic types with the high-risk population being those of ages from puberty through their early 30’s, affecting males twice as often as females. Myocarditis is the 3rd leading cause of Sudden Death in children and young adults.”

Now we have to face the reports of persistent adverse effects among vaccinated youth—very common are dizziness, chest pain, shortness of breath, and excessive fatigue. Reports are circulating widely on social media of young sports people and children in New Zealand experiencing precisely these symptoms during exercise and even collapsing and/or fainting. There is also the previously reported case of the 13 year old girl in the Pfizer teen trial who was disabled but whose data was excluded from the trial results. BTW if you or your children have any of these symptoms since vaccination, it is important that you see a doctor and also make a report to CARM (the NZ vaccination adverse effects reporting system).

Conclusion: Where is the time for the unwanted?

Now that we are being asked to vaccinate our 5 -11 year olds, I want to cut to the chase. I had an email exchange with officials around the time of the approval of vaccination for 12-19 year olds. The response on this question:

'Whilst child mortality from covid is extremely low, I think it is fair to say that the benefit to the whole population is a factor here.'

My correspondent conceded that some studies showed the vaccine posed a risk for children, but quibbled about which studies were the most accurate, and finally advanced the argument that there would be an overall 'good' for the whole population if children were vaccinated because their parents would be protected. I call this the 'shield' argument—it is OK to use your children as a shield in a battle. If you are afraid of being hurt yourself. It is OK if you expose your children to a measurable risk of vaccine injury and deny them the benefit of long lasting natural immunity. BUT it is not OK, it doesn’t make any sense. The government is saying you are protected if you are vaccinated, but then turns around to say you need to risk harm to your children to protect yourself further. What mother would agree?

It increasingly looks as though the objective evaluation of relative risk is beyond the comprehension of our government. Unfounded fear rules.

Guy Hatchard PhD has a background in statistical analysis and was an employee of Genetic ID, a global safety testing and certification company.

Photo: the Health Forum NZ