The Bureaucracy needs to stop obfuscating during estimates.
People deserve answers. Especially when it comes to deaths caused by Government negligence.
Completely disgusting behaviour here by both the TGA and Senator Marielle Smith. I asked a simple question as to whether or not the TGA are ruling out all reported deaths as not being caused by the vaccine.
I then get deliberate obfuscation by Prof Lawler who after driveling on for 3 minutes then decides to hand the question to another TGA employee who then serves me up more obfuscation. When I try to call their delay tactics out the head of the committee, Marielle Smith then stops from asking for the question to be answered.
For context this question was asked at around 10:50pm after I had sat in the room since 9am that morning. I was finally allowed a 5 minute block of questions, upon which the bureaucrats deliberately chewed up time to prevent me from asking more questions.
Marielle Smith needs to be reminded that estimates are for questions to be asked by the Senators, it’s not for long winded lies by bureaucrats to cover up their incompetence.
And the answer at 3:10 in was that they can’t rule out all 1,000 deaths being caused by the vaccine.
Took some work but we got there.
Committee on 5/06/2024
Item: Community Affairs Legislation Committee – 05/06/2024 – Estimates – and – HEALTH AND AGED CARE PORTFOLIO – National Rural Health Commissioner
Senator RENNICK: Okay. In regard to the thousand reported and suspected deaths, you’ve recognised 14. Are you saying that the other 986 reported and suspected deaths definitely aren’t from the vaccine, or are you open minded about them? Can you rule them in or out? Are you ruling them out or in?
Prof. Lawler : Again, this is an issue that we’ve not only answered multiple times but also responded to in questions on notice on the pharmacovigilance process that we undertake. You mentioned the 14 earlier this evening. I think it would be great also to be able to account for the fact that we’ve had the term ‘vaccine reported deaths’. One thing that’s an absolute cornerstone of our pharmacovigilance process and our signal detection process is that we give very strong encouragement to health professionals to report adverse events following the vaccination. Adverse events might include anaphylaxis, local site pain, chest pain, myocarditis, pericarditis and, in some tragic instances, death. Now, the fact is that, when those things are reported by health professionals, they are not always reported by health professionals as ‘this is a vaccine caused death’, which is what has been said today.
Senator RENNICK: That’s the ‘suspected’ box.
Prof. Lawler : No, that’s—
Senator RENNICK: They tick the ‘suspected’—
CHAIR: Senator Rennick, please—
Senator RENNICK: Chair, I’m short on time. I just want a simple answer.
CHAIR: Yes, you are, Senator Rennick. But we still need to go—
Senator RENNICK: Are you ruling them out?
CHAIR: Senator Rennick! When I’m making a ruling, please do not speak over me. If we’re going to get through the rest of the night, we need to have some order. The professor is able to finish his answer to your question, and then I’ll come back to you for another question. I won’t allow you to be interrupted, Senator Rennick, but I won’t allow the professor to be either.
Senator RENNICK: But we’re getting short on time.
CHAIR: Senator! Professor, please.
Prof. Lawler : We’ve received and reviewed 1,008 reports, and, as has been highlighted—Ms Kay’s at the table and is probably in a better position to answer that question.
Ms Kay : As we’ve said previously and Professor Lawler has just mentioned, those thousand reports represent reports of adverse events with a fatal outcome, where a reporter has—
Senator RENNICK: I’m aware.
Ms Kay : In some cases, those reports in fact state that the reporter does not consider the death to be related to a vaccine. You’d be aware from our previous answers to questions on notice that, in some states and territories, health professionals are required to report certain adverse events that occur following immunisation—
Senator RENNICK: I’m referring to the ones where they’ve ticked ‘suspected’.
CHAIR: Senator.
Ms Kay : The purpose of the ‘suspected’ box on the adverse event reporting form is for a reporter to indicate to us which of the products that person was using that they consider could have been associated with the event that they’re reporting to us. It doesn’t indicate that they consider that that product was definitely the cause of the event.
Senator RENNICK: Okay. So can you answer my question: are you ruling out the other 986 completely? I just want—
Ms Kay : No. As we have previously explained to you—
Senator RENNICK: Okay. Thank you. That’s all I needed to know. Thank you.
CHAIR: Let her finish, and then we’ll move on. Ms Kay, please continue your answer.
Ms Kay : We’ve previously explained that the assessment that we undertake of individual cases looks for evidence for an association between a medical condition that caused death and a vaccine. But, even where we’re unable to establish a causal association between the medical condition and the vaccine, that case remains in our database so that it continues to be subject to the statistical analysis that we undertake of that data—
Senator RENNICK: Okay, thank you.
