A Tinfoil-Hat Conspiracist no Longer

Who would have guessed there would be two startling revelations about the great Covid over-reach in the space of about a week, upholding claims previously dismissed as conspiracy theories and misinformation?

First, a  peer-reviewed scientific study linked Covid vaccines to a range of serious health disorders, and then Queensland’s Supreme Court ruled the vaccine mandates imposed on police and ambulance workers were unlawful.

Both provide a welcome dose of reality after the worst days of lockdowns and vaccine roll-outs, when we were all indoctrinated with the message that the jabs were “perfectly safe and effective.” Now we know for certain that they don’t prevent contraction or transmission of the virus and there’s an acknowledged chance they could kill or maim you.

Some of us have been aware of that for a long time, but of course vaccine promoters including Big Pharma and government bureaucrats will still insist that the risk is “very low” the acknowledged disorders are “rare” and vaccines still provide the best means of protection against covid.

But how low is “very low” and how “rare” is rare?  Let’s look at the latest findings from the largest vaccine safety study to date, conducted by the Global Vaccine Data Network. A research division of the World Health Organization, it reportedly looked at 99 million vaccinated individuals in six continents.

The study confirmed connections between the mRNA COVID vaccine produced by Pfizer and Moderna, and the vaccines produced by AstraZeneca, to the “rare conditions.” Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) and pericarditis (swelling of the sac around the heart) were found with the mRNA vaccine. More severe conditions were linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, which include Guillain-Barré syndrome, which causes the nerves to be attacked by the immune system. The AstraZeneca vaccine has also been linked with cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (a blood clot in the brain) and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (inflammation and swelling in the brain and spinal cord).

According to a report at Forbes.com (emphasis added):

While the side effects are serious, the chance of experiencing them is low. Some highlighted increases include a 6.1-fold increase in myocarditis from the second dose of the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Cases of pericarditis had a 6.9-fold increase as a result of the third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. There is a 2.5-times greater risk of developing Guillain-Barré syndrome from the AstraZeneca vaccine along with a 3.2-times greater risk of developing blood clots from the same vaccine. There is a 3.8-times greater risk of getting acute disseminated encephalomyelitis from the Moderna vaccine, and a 2.2-fold increase in the AstraZeneca vaccine.

When choosing to get vaccinated, it is important to weigh the benefits and risks of the vaccine. Information like this makes it easier to make the right choice…”

Well thanks, but my wife and I made that choice a few years ago and we remain very glad we did, given there are some still trying to pedal the message that a six- to seven-times chance of contracting a serious heart condition is “low”.

Fast forward to February 2021, when the novel new Covid vaccines were rolled out in Australia after being developed and approved in record time without any long-term human trials.The fact that the manufacturers were granted immunity from liability in any subsequent mishaps, rang a big alarm. Some had records of huge fines for past pharmaceutical misadventures.

There were also some experts, including highly qualified epidemiologists, sounding warning bells, particularly in Europe and the US. Some adverse events might only become apparent months or even years after the jabs were administered, but that was dismissed as a ratbag conspiracy theory, disinformation and misinformation.

Well not anymore, and hopefully the Queensland Supreme court ruling that the vaccine mandates were unlawful mainly because  those ordering them didn’t pay sufficient attention to workers’ human rights. As Augusto Zimmermann and Gabriël Moen reported here at Quadrant Online, “if they had been able to prove the advice received was carefully considered, these public officials would have been given the green light.”

As Rowan Dean wrote in The Spectator Australia, “The news, of course, is to be welcomed. It is the first crack in the dam wall and will hopefully be followed by significant class actions and further court cases…” Including, one can only assume, in payouts. Let us hope that the anticipated actions don’t  become bogged down in the appeals court by a government with a culpable record and deep pockets.

IF READERS will indulge a personal note, my Covid-vaccine wariness owes quite a bit to my first job after leaving high school, when I undertook a pharmacy apprenticeship in a very busy regional pharmacy. It was one of the last such apprenticeships in Queensland before it became a full-time university course, but when I completed it after three years, I tossed it all in to take off on a round- Australia spearfishing adventure before deciding what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life. (There’s nothing like some deep water experiences with sharks to focus the mind.)

I already knew I didn’t want to do a final year at university to become a full-fledged pharmacist, even though I was already a qualified dispenser. Why? Well, several reasons: I found much of the work involved scraping labels off bottles before pasting on new ones, counting pills and only occasionally mixing potions from scratch according to time-honoured formulae in a weighty tome, the British Pharmacopia.

And it didn’t help when I was questioned by a detective after a patient died while taking a sleeping mixture I had dispensed, even though I was later cleared after forensic tests showed the medicine contained the correct level of ingredients. The poor bloke had simply swallowed an overdose.

The last straw, though, had to do with a drug I dispensed to pregnant women suffering morning sickness. Finally the authorities woke up to the fact that the “cure”, thalidomide, was causing horrific birth defects. Sound familiar?

So I put pharmacy in the “been there, done that” basket and eventually, more by chance than design, stumbled into journalism. But that’s another story.

John Mikkelsen is a former editor of three Queensland regional newspapers, columnist,  freelance writer and author of the Amazon Books memoir, Don’t Call Me Nev