Mater’s Musings #36: This is how it starts


Ref: CBS News

Pfizer’s request to roll out COVID-19 vaccines for Americans as young as 5 years old cleared a key regulatory hurdle Tuesday, after a panel of the Food and Drug Administration’s outside vaccine advisers voted by a majority to back Pfizer’s request. 

OK, this passed the panel, 17 for, 0 against and 1 abstention. One of the panel members (in a video bouncing around Twitter) can clearly be heard saying:

We’re never going to learn about how safe a vaccine is, unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes.”

Techno Fog

I’ll ignore (for the time being) that (allegedly) the discussions acknowledged they have no idea about the long-term risks for kids – because I can’t confirm it with a video. We’ll see what emerges in due course.

Were there any misgivings about this nearly unanimous decision? Why Yes, there was.

Many of the panel’s members voiced concern over some unanswered questions over rare side effects from the vaccine, but sided with allowing parents to weigh the benefits and risks for their children.

“We should certainly not underestimate the knowledge and decision-making power of the public,” VRBPAC member Dr. Michael Nelson said, calling it “an access and really a personal choice and equity question, and not a mandate for all in this age.” 

“Allow parents to weigh the benefits and risks for their children”?

“We should certainly not underestimate the knowledge and decision-making power of the public”?

“an access and really a personal choice and equity question, and not a mandate for all in this age”?

Bravo!, but I find the logic a little haphazard. Some of these same ‘parents’ and ‘public’ have had that same agency removed from them in whether or not to have the vaccine themselves.

Besides, such sentiments seem to be lost in translation as they cross the Pacific. We seem to ape the approval bit, and deep-six the “risks”, “personal choice” and “not a mandate” caveats placed on the approval. This is how it starts for we Australians. Someone does us a favour by allowing us access to a vaccine, then mission creep begins. Frankly, I don’t know what’s worse; being denied access to a potentially life-saving trial pharmaceutical, by some bureaucratic arseholes, or being forced to be injected with one, by the same bureaucratic arseholes.

Then we get this half admission from the New York Times:

Ref: New York Times

Parents and doctors alike are anxious to protect them“…in a time when cases are apparently dropping sharply? I’m in no doubt that there are anxious parents and doctors out there (hysteria seems the most prevalent symptom of Covid-19), but let’s hope that that protection extends to the potential side effects outlined by the FDA panel.

Ref: New York Times

This is genuinely tragic, but let’s put some perspective around it. In the US, there have been (supposedly) 46,503,536 cases of Covid-19. That means that the 8,300 cases mentioned above represent 0.0178% of the total number of cases.

There have been 760,110 deaths (supposedly) of Covid-19. That means that the 100 child deaths represent 0.0132% of those deaths. I’m not sure either figure is a strong sales pitch under the circumstances, and I might be tempted to wager that adverse reaction numbers (cases and deaths) might outstrip them if the vaccine was administered across the entire US child population. Let’s hope the Australian authorities are numerically capable enough to comprehend this, before they clone the decision, and bastardise it into a mandate.

In closing, I wonder whether the Australian TGA had similar thoughts about “risks”, “personal choice” and “not a mandate” when they Provisionally Approved our current suite of vaccines for ages 12+? One might hope. If so, such quaint thoughts and ideas have certainly been hijacked.


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Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
October 28, 2021 5:48 am

Thank you Mater – there’s a banquet for thought.

Mark M
Mark M
October 28, 2021 6:12 am

At yesterday’s ‘Minister Hunt’s press conference in Canberra on 27 October 2021 on TGA approves Pfizer booster shot roll out and vaccination shots prepared for 5-11 year olds,’ a journalist asks TGA boss Skerritt …

Journalist: “Professor Skerritt, can I ask you, is this three shots and you’re done?
Or are you going to be getting, every six months, you’ll have to get another booster shot?”

Professor John Skerritt, TGA: “Unfortunately, I was not issued with a crystal ball when I got this job.”

https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-greg-hunt-mp/media/minister-hunts-press-conference-in-canberra-on-27-october-2021-on-tga-approves-pfizer-booster-shot-roll-out-and-vaccination-shots-prepared-for-5-11-year-olds

Unfortunately for the 5-11 year old guinea pigs, even if he had a scientific crystal ball or two, Skerritt wouldn’t know the answer.

Mengels would be proud.

Winston Smith
October 28, 2021 6:18 am

Mater:
Most of us here in Catland realised fairly early the bastards would be coming for the kids.
It’s their way.

jupes
jupes
October 28, 2021 6:21 am

Let’s hope the Australian authorities are numerically capable enough to comprehend this, before they clone the decision, and bastardise it into a mandate.

A vain hope. No.

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 28, 2021 6:39 am

Statistics isn’t the FDA’s strong point.

132andBush
132andBush
October 28, 2021 6:46 am

Those “vaccines” may not be mandatory for the kids just yet but imagine the social pressure that will come in to play.

Bullying at school is nothing new but this will be bullying with a “noble cause”.

calli
calli
October 28, 2021 7:19 am

Professor John Skerritt, TGA: “Unfortunately, I was not issued with a crystal ball when I got this job.”

This is not a serious person. This is a smartarse.

What was wrong with saying “I don’t know”?

calli
calli
October 28, 2021 7:23 am

Mater, the peer pressure is high.

This happened to my grandson too.

Mark M
Mark M
October 28, 2021 7:26 am

But, but … they’re all triple jabbed, aren’t they? …

27 Oct, 2021: NSW Health issues urgent COVID-19 alert after FIFTEEN cases are traced back to one Sydney gym in Darlinghurst

“Even fully ‘vaccinated’ people should come forward for testing if they experience symptoms, he said.

Vaccination is “very effective” but not perfect, and breakthrough infections can still occur, NSW Health’s Dr. Jeremy McAnulty warned.”

https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/nsw-health-issues-urgent-covid-19-alert-after-fifteen-cases-are-traced-back-to-one-gym-c-4347823

OH&S are all over it like a fat kid on a pink iced donut!

Megan
Megan
October 28, 2021 7:26 am

It’s outrageous and gross abuse of their role. But that fact only seems to matter to a small minority of us.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 28, 2021 7:27 am

Journalist: “Professor Skerritt, can I ask you, is this three shots and you’re done?

Haha.

Immunocompromised May Need Fourth COVID Shot: CDC (27 Oct)

Keep getting the “boosters” people or benign Big Brother will take away your holy vaccination certificate.

Vicki
Vicki
October 28, 2021 7:36 am

I would be surprised if City Gym did not require double vax. Therefore the outbreak should be the reason for serious thought re efficacy.

But it won’t.

Indolent
Indolent
October 28, 2021 8:00 am

Isn’t this the same group who recently and by a large majority recommended AGAINST full approval of Pfizer(?) because of the many reactions and unknowns? That was ignored, of course.

andrew
andrew
October 28, 2021 8:24 am

90% of the hospitalised children have something in common that makes them susceptible to coughids.
Can you guess …

… that’s right. Morbid Obesity.
Have to jab all the skinny kids because science.

Cool-Snoopy
Cool-Snoopy
October 28, 2021 8:26 am

Regards deaths (supposedly) of Covid-19:
The CDC explains, in a small note tucked far away from media talking points:
“For over 5% of these deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 4.0 additional conditions or causes per death.”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Comorbidities

bemused
bemused
October 28, 2021 8:30 am

What exactly will happen if the fears of many specialists in the field come true and the fully vaccinated begin to react adversely as many predict? More vaccinations?

twostix
twostix
October 28, 2021 8:40 am

Pfizer are selling us a pup…and we seem to be buying.

The five year contracts were signed last year, this is all just the marketing campaign now.

Kneel
Kneel
October 28, 2021 9:03 am

“…I wonder whether the Australian TGA had similar thoughts about “risks”, “personal choice” and “not a mandate” when they Provisionally Approved our current suite of vaccines for ages 12+?”

Apparently, for a 15 y.o. male, the risk of myocarditis and/or preicarditis frm the vax is six times higher than the risk of serious COVID consequences, yet they allowed (and recommended, then essentially mandated)it anyway.
I wonder if this would be the case if it was females at higher risk? One would hope it makes no difference, but I suspect it would have.

Baba
Baba
October 28, 2021 9:24 am

By mid 2022 Moloch will have more devotees (albeit unwittingly) among Australian mothers of young children than God himself.

Rorschach
Rorschach
October 28, 2021 10:04 am

Many of the panel’s members voiced concern over some unanswered questions over rare side effects from the vaccine, but sided with allowing parents to weigh the benefits and risks for their children.

“We should certainly not underestimate the knowledge and decision-making power of the public,” VRBPAC member Dr. Michael Nelson said, calling it “an access and really a personal choice and equity question, and not a mandate for all in this age.”

Hmmm. That all goes out the window when the schools MANDATE that all kids need to be vaxxed.

At least Dan Andrews is honest when he says that if you’re not vaxxed you will be sent to the gulags. Mealy mouthed statements like: “We think (hope) it’s safe but leave it to personal choice” are a cop out. If down the track thing go wrong – they will hide behind the “well informed personal choice” caveat. No recognition that the poor suckers adversely adversely impacted were brainwashed into thinking that vaxx is good; treatment is horse medicine. Most, in the future would have had no choice effectively: “Do I want to have a job / avoid the gulags / get cancelled … or … not get vaxxed.”

And Pfizer makes Billions on the public trough.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 28, 2021 10:24 am

Every time I get on the bus I see kids without masks. That is okay as they are not required to wear them.

But if the government decided kids were not at risk where adults were on the bus, then why is it so urgent to jab them now. There has been no spike in sick kids or anything.

Is anyone going to be safe from the bureaucratic logic that on average Australians have a 5% (or 2% or 0.3%) chance of carking from the bug?

It was bad enough we all had to be isolated as if we were all 70 year olds on dialysis and chemo.

Miss Anthropist
Miss Anthropist
October 28, 2021 1:54 pm

Hunt’s family are in this up to their shifty eyeballs.

Rabz
October 28, 2021 2:03 pm

This is not a serious person. This is a smartarse.

Akin to Planet Cornelius denouncing normal citizens as tinfoil hat wearing boofheads.

Any bureaucrat making such offensive and ridiculous smartarse public statements should be summarily dismissed.

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