Why does the Health Department refuse to explain the increase in all cause mortality after the rollout of the Covid vaccine?
Bureaucrat: I think we need to be very careful about making spurious temporal correlations.
Yours truly: It’s a valid indicator
Bureaucrat next minute: What we did see was an increase in excess deaths in 2022 and that did correlate with the vaccine rollout. 🙄
Bureaucrat: The Department has commissioned research to specially examine in a detailed fashion the mortality rates of those who received the vaccine and those who haven’t and these studies find there is no link.
Yours truly. Were tissue samples taken?
Bureaucrat: Not this particular study.
Community Affairs Legislation Committee
15/02/2024
Estimates
HEALTH AND AGED CARE PORTFOLIO
Office of the Gene Technology Regulator
Senator RENNICK: I’d like to address the issue of the increase in actual deaths in 2021. As per the ABS, there were 172,000 deaths, and that’s 10,000 deaths higher than 2020. Those 10,000 deaths increased the month after the vaccine rollout but before COVID got into the community in late December 2021. There’s a very strong temporal correlation of that increase in deaths with the rollout of vaccine. There was an increased rate of vaccine injury. There was no population growth and there were no autopsies done to get tissue samples of the people that died and to prove they didn’t die of vaccine injuries.
Now, I’ll note that you didn’t recognise myocarditis as a side effect of the vaccine when it first rolled out—that only happened after numerous people reported their side effects. I’ll note that this one study—and I looked this up yesterday—noted that adult humans failed to regenerate their hearts following injury, and this failure to regenerate myocardium is a leading cause of heart failure and death worldwide. Has the health department looked into why there was an increase in 10,000 actual deaths in 2021? And if not why not?
CHAIR: Senator Rennick, what are you reading from?
Senator RENNICK: I’m happy to table it.
CHAIR: Can you distribute that to the committee, please.
Dr Gould: We’ve discussed the statistics at length in this committee. As we’ve said before, it is correct to say that the ABS has recorded excess deaths in—
Senator RENNICK: I’m talking actual deaths not excess deaths. It’s a model figure. I want to stick to the actual figures please.
Dr Gould: They did see an increase in deaths in 2021. I think we need to be very careful about making spurious, temporal correlations and—
Senator RENNICK: It’s a valid indicator.
Senator ROBERTS: Chair, that’s an assertion.
Senator PRATT: Questions have got assertions in them too.
Senator RENNICK: I’m just stating facts.
CHAIR: Dr Gould is entitled to give his response and to be heard. Dr Gould, please continue.
Dr Gould: We need to be careful about associating any increase in deaths with the introduction of the vaccine just based on that temporal correlation that you’ve mentioned. Again, one key thing we have talked about in this committee is that the department has commissioned research and worked with the researchers to specifically examine, in a detailed fashion, the mortality rates of people who have received the vaccines versus those who haven’t. This type of detailed study is what you need to draw the types of conclusions that you’re looking to draw, and what these studies find—
Senator RENNICK: Were tissue samples taken?
Dr Gould: is that there is no link between COVID vaccines—
Senator RENNICK: Were tissue samples taken?
Dr Gould: Not for this particular study.
Senator RENNICK: So you don’t know, because tissue samples weren’t taken.
Dr Gould: I would not agree with the statement that we don’t know because tissue samples weren’t taken.
Senator RENNICK: What was the cause? What’s the counterfactual? If it wasn’t the vaccine, what was the cause?
Dr Gould: In order to rule out the vaccines we don’t need to have a counterfactual.
Senator RENNICK: Let’s take vaccines right out of it. What caused the increase in deaths in 2021? That was my initial question.
Dr Gould: As we’ve said, there can be natural variations in mortality statistics.
Senator RENNICK: That’s three standard deviations from the mean.
CHAIR: Senator Rennick, you’re putting questions to Dr Gould. It’s appropriate that he’s allowed to finish his answers to them before you jump in with another question.
Senator RENNICK: I have limited time and I need quick answers. I’ve been patient all day. I’m entitled to interrupt to bring him back.
CHAIR: You may be in a rush—I appreciate that—but it is appropriate on an issue as serious as this that the officials at the table—very learned people—are given the opportunity to respond to the things you are saying to them and you are asking of them.
Senator RENNICK: Well, let me just say, that was three standard deviations from the—
CHAIR: If you want to get through the program quicker, please allow them to finish their answers because I will continue to pull you up and that will waste our time. Dr Gould, would you like to finish your response?
Dr Gould: I’m not sure about the three standard deviation statistic you have mentioned. I will look at that. I would suggest that that sounds higher than what I expected. Excess deaths went up in 2022 versus 2021—
Senator RENNICK: Yes, but both years.
Dr Gould: And that did temporally correlate with COVID transmission in the community.
Senator RENNICK: So it’ll temporally correlate when it’s COVID but not when it’s the vaccine.
Dr Gould: We saw a lot of widespread transmission in the community. The ABS statistics and the ABS themself have actually said that the majority of excess mortality during that period was caused by COVID.
Senator RENNICK: Thanks, Chair, I need to move on to my next question.
