Vax letter to Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister,

Original link to the published letter.

Britain has spent six years arguing about the Covid pandemic. We do not believe the country needs another rehearsal of those arguments. But what it does need is answers.

We are a group of (x number) doctors, scientists health professionals and public figures asking you to do something your predecessors have repeatedly failed to do: commission an independent examination of outstanding questions about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines and ensure that those who believe they have been injured or bereaved are properly heard.

We are not asking you to accept our conclusions.

We are asking you to ensure that the evidence is examined.

That distinction matters.

You have spoken powerfully about what happens when institutions become defensive and difficult questions are left unanswered. Britain has seen the consequences in Hillsborough, the infected blood scandal and the Post Office scandal. In each case, people raising concerns were dismissed for years before institutions were eventually forced to confront what had happened.

Whatever your own view of Covid vaccination, we ask you to ensure that the same mistake is not made again.

There remain legitimate and unresolved questions about adverse events following Covid vaccination, including cardiovascular events; increases in cancer, the causes of excess mortality and increased long-term sickness since the pandemic; the adequacy of systems for identifying vaccine injury; and whether those who believe they have suffered serious harm have been adequately investigated and supported.

We recognise that excess mortality and ill health are likely to have multiple causes, including delayed NHS treatment, the effects of lockdown, Covid infection itself and wider pressures on the health service.

But we believe vaccination must also be permitted to form part of that investigation rather than being treated as a question that cannot be asked. This is ultimately an issue of public trust.

Four of the lead signatories to this letter were asked by Baroness Hallett's UK Covid-19 Inquiry to provide witness statements for Module 4 on vaccines and therapeutics.

Those statements were submitted in January 2024.

We were deeply disappointed by what we regarded as the Inquiry's failure to examine the full body of evidence and arguments we had submitted concerning vaccine safety and efficacy.

Whatever one's view of that evidence, inviting doctors and scientists to provide testimony and then failing adequately to engage with contested evidence does little to restore confidence among those who already believe their concerns are being ignored.

We therefore ask your government to support a full and transparent examination of the outstanding evidence.

These questions have not disappeared.

They are increasingly being debated internationally and has now reached the United States Senate

Earlier this year, three of the signatories travelled to Washington to testify before a United States Senate subcommittee examining concerns surrounding Covid vaccination and scientific research into potential harms.

Our testimonies raised a wider issue which we believe deserves serious political attention in Britain: the influence of the pharmaceutical industry over medical research, regulation and public health policy. Even our own APPG on pandemic response and recovery in 2024 concluded that the MHRA is a serious risk to patient safety for failing to flag serious harms from the Covid vaccine.

The pharmaceutical industry produces medicines that save millions of lives. But precisely because governments spend billions purchasing its products and depend upon its research, the relationship between industry, regulators, medical institutions and government must be transparent and subject to rigorous scrutiny.

No industry responsible for products affecting the health of billions of people should be beyond challenge.

Nor should doctors or scientists fear professional or reputational consequences simply for raising legitimate questions about safety.

There is another group whose voices should not be lost in the political argument: people who believe they have been seriously injured by Covid vaccines and families who believe they have been bereaved.

Some adverse effects of Covid vaccines are already officially recognised.

The question is whether Britain's mechanisms for identifying, investigating and compensating serious vaccine injury are adequate - and whether every credible safety signal has been investigated with sufficient independence and urgency. As one of the signatories to this letter states under oath in the United States senate in June his fears that millions of people may be at risk of premature heart disease and cancer.