Former Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall has dismissed RCR’s investigation revealing that 311,257 teenagers received a second Covid vaccine dose after officials and Vaccine Ministers had been advised of the increased myocarditis risk following dose two in young people.
A member of the public alerted RCR to an exchange they had with Verrall over email after reading our investigation, asking her: “Can you please let me know if this is correct information or fake news”.
Verrall responded with just three words: “It’s fake news”.
However, the figures and documents underpinning RCR’s investigation come from official Government sources, including Health NZ vaccination data, Official Information Act releases, emails and advice from the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group (CV-TAG).
Verrall was Associate Minister of Health and a member of the informal Vaccine Ministerial Group at the time the advice was communicated to the group.
An email from CV-TAG chair Dr Ian Town on 12 August 2021 stated that advice on the increased myocarditis risk and the recommended dosing schedule for 12 to 17-year-olds had been accepted by Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield and communicated “in detail” to Vaccine Ministers.
Just one day later, proposed public messaging linking the move from a three to six-week dosing interval to myocarditis risk was withdrawn and redrafted without that explanation.
In an email to Town discussing the messaging, an unidentified official warned it could “undermine things”, specifically noting: “the antivaxxers are all over myocarditis,” adding “what do do?”.
Voices for Freedom co-founder Alia Bland said Verrall’s three-word response was “breathtakingly arrogant”.
“For a former Vaccine Minister to dismiss documented evidence about what officials knew as ‘fake news’ is breathtakingly arrogant. It is especially contemptuous of the families whose teenagers suffered cardiac harm after decisions made by the very officials and ministers now being asked to account for them. If Verrall has ambitions for higher office, those three words may prove spectacularly ill-judged”, Bland said.
Read the full story: The emails, expert advice and newly obtained vaccination data behind RCR’s investigation. Plus see RCR’s updated myocarditis timeline – what they knew and when.
Listen or watch Alia Bland and Katie Ashby-Koppens’ discussion of the newly released vaccination data and read RCR’s Beyond The Bite full report.
Read more about the evidence and events surrounding the Covid-19 response in The People’s Position and The People’s Report.
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