The Bureaucrats did a great job of running down the clock on this one.
Simple question.
Hundreds of registered health professionals lodged a death report with the TGA ascribing their patients death to the vaccine.
The TGA ignored nearly all of them.
Given AHPRA threatened their members when they talked the vaccine down you would think they would follow up members who claimed the vaccine was killing people.
Very suspiciously they didn’t.
I asked why AHPRA didn’t follow up, only to get 5 minutes of obfuscation including the outrageous claim by Prof Kelly that there was a low threshold for reporting a death attributed to a vaccine.
How offensive and callous can you be!
Not only to families of the deceased, but to the Health Professionals who risked their registration in lodging a report of death.
If there was a low threshold for anything it was reporting deaths from COVID which had an average age of death the same as life expectancy and multiple comorbidities.
Committee on 5/06/2024
Community Affairs Legislation Committee Estimates
National Health and Medical Research Council
Senator RENNICK: You seek advice, and I’ll ask another question. The TGA has had about a thousand reported and suspected deaths from the COVID vaccine. Over 60 per cent of the reports were from health professionals, and I presume nearly all of whom would have been registered with your body. Of those, the TGA recognised 14 out of the thousand as being related to the vaccine. Are you concerned that there’s a difference in opinion between your registered members—if I can call them that—and the TGA? Because the TGA is basically saying that 97 per cent of the professionals who lodged a reported or suspected death are wrong. There’s an issue here, because the doctors are saying one thing and the TGA is saying another thing. When you’ve got a discrepancy of 98 per cent versus two per cent, that’s a massive discrepancy. Is that something that you’ve raised with the TGA as to why they’re saying that your members are wrong?
Mr Fletcher : No.
CHAIR: Senator, I can confirm for you that your question was out of order.
Senator RENNICK: Okay, no worries. Why aren’t you concerned about that? I would have thought that you were interested in quality assurance. If we’ve got doctors reporting suspected deaths and the TGA is ignoring them, someone is wrong there. Wouldn’t it be in your interest and the interest of your members to find out why the TGA disagrees with your members?
Mr Comley : I wonder if Professor Kelly might be able to—
Senator RENNICK: No, I just want to ask—
Mr Comley : I think there’s a—
CHAIR: Sorry—
Senator RENNICK: Can you not interrupt, please?
CHAIR: Senator Rennick, officers are able to refer questions to superior officers or to a minister at the table. That is within the rules of our committee, so if it is more appropriate for Professor Kelly to answer the question, it is within his rights to do so. Professor Kelly.
Prof. Kelly : Thank you, Chair.
Senator RENNICK: Well, it’s a great deflection. Go on.
Prof. Kelly : I’ll return to the specifics of the question, but I just need to point out that your assertion there that the doctors are wrong and the TGA is right or vice versa is not how the post-market safety approaches of the TGA and other mechanisms are formed. It’s important that doctors in the field have a low threshold for reporting, and it’s appropriate that the appropriate authorities look at that report and make appropriate conclusions. So both are correct, in fact.
Senator RENNICK: The TGA has been unequivocal—
Prof. Kelly : Yes.
Senator RENNICK: in saying that only 14 of the thousand reported and suspected deaths are from the vaccine?
Prof. Kelly : Professor Lawler is here now.
Senator RENNICK: That is an issue because over 60 per cent of these reports have come from health professionals that are members of AHPRA, who pay registration fees to AHPRA. AHPRA has a responsibility—
Prof. Kelly : It’s probably more like 100 per cent, I would say, mostly.
Senator RENNICK: No. It’s your own information that has been given to me. I’m quoting: 20 per cent are from pharmacists, 20 per cent are from health professionals—state governments—because health professionals have to go through the state governments—and about 20 per cent are from individual people. So that’s the break-up. Okay?
Prof. Kelly : Okay.
Senator RENNICK: So 95 per cent, 98 per cent—whatever—there is a disagreement between the TGA and AHPRA. My question for Mr Fletcher is: why aren’t you concerned that the TGA has ignored these reports or overruled these reports, and the TGA has said on multiple occasions that they’re only recognising 14 of the thousand deaths. Wouldn’t it be incumbent upon you to represent your members and ask the TGA why they are overruling your members?
Mr Fletcher : I’m going to have to say that the premise of your question is wrong in the sense that we do not have members. We are not an association representing people—
Senator RENNICK: Okay. Whatever they—the people that pay fees to you.
Mr Fletcher : Well [inaudible]—
CHAIR: Senator Rennick, I think he is finishing the question. Especially when we’re on video, I do ask that you allow him to finish. I’ll come back to you for another question. Mr Fletcher.
Mr Fletcher : What I was going to say was that these are registrants who are required to meet certain obligations in order to have their registration as health practitioners in Australia. We often talked to this committee during COVID and what we sought to do was to make very clear what our expectations were in relation to the existing obligations on registered health practitioners to use best available evidence and clinical judgement in the advice and information they were providing to patients. A particular focus of our work during that time was to deal with any concerns that were raised with us about COVID related issues in relation to the conduct of those registered health practitioners.
Senator RENNICK: Okay. So wouldn’t you then therefore have a problem if they then made reports to the TGA and the TGA are saying they’re wrong?
Mr Fletcher : What we would do is, where a concern was expressed with us about the care that had been provided by a registered health practitioner or the information they provided a patient, we would look to that reference point of the code of conduct that applied to that. There would always be an opportunity for that medical practitioner or any health practitioner to explain their actions before any decision was made about whether regulatory action was needed.
