Full facts on jab 'would have helped'
Parents should have been told more clearly that the vaccine against New Zealand's epidemic strain of meningococcal disease provided only short-term protection, says the head of the trials that led to its mass use. Professor Diana Lennon, an Auckland University paediatrician, told the Herald yesterday that "it might have helped" to do this. "I would have liked to have talked about it a bit more at the launch. I think it is a reasonable statement to say more discussion would have helped at the time because the truth will out, every time, and it's important," Professor Lennon said. Her comments follow the Herald's report yesterday that medical experts had found the MeNZB vaccine given to more than a million under-20-year-olds in the Government's $200 million-plus campaign provided protection for a period of only months. In a draft paper for a scientific journal, she and colleagues say: "MeNZB vaccination was not expected to provide long-term protection. In the youngest age group studied (6- to 8-month-old infants) only 27.5 per cent had ... antibody [levels] likely to protect, at 7 months after the third dose of vaccine." But the Ministry of Health said leaflets given to parents, and to young adults considering having the vaccine, had stated: "The majority of people are expected to be protected but the vaccine may not protect every person who receives the three doses. Protection is expected to last for a few years but the exact period is unknown."
Many NZers have questioned this bloody vaccine and right from the start the $200 million spent on a disease that was sold to us as an ‘epidemic’ with awful pictures of babies with their limbs removed was used as an all encompassing answer when anyone tried to question the ‘epidemic’, the $200 million spent and the issues the vaccine had when it was rolled out in Europe. NOW it turns out that the bloody vaccine only protected up to 30% for less than a year – and the Ministry of Health now has the gall to believe that NZers are stupid and won’t recall all the hype THEY created over the vaccine and very lamely offer up their excuse as ‘"The majority of people are expected to be protected but the vaccine may not protect every person who receives the three doses. Protection is expected to last for a few years but the exact period is unknown." – this is the statement the Ministry of Health claim explained to everyone that the vaccine was only good for less than a year for only 30% of those who were given it – how in any way shape or form does the statement, “"The majority of people are expected to be protected but the vaccine may not protect every person who receives the three doses. Protection is expected to last for a few years but the exact period is unknown." – how does that statement add up to only 30% for less that a year? The Ministry is speaking out of both sides of their mouth, this whole farce was NZ being conned into buying a vaccine we didn’t need and now as the wheels fall off the wagon there is this bullshit explanation from the Ministry of Health – their explanation shows the utter contempt they have to being questioned on any public health issue where they have screwed up, just the way they have done with the chemical spraying in NZ from the domestic chemical cousins of Agent Orange. The Ministry of Health was sold a lemon and they made it our problem and this entire farce probably made the entire process more dangerous as parents who had the vaccine may have been lulled into a false sense of confidence and may not watch their kids as closely for symptoms, in fact I’d have argued a $200 million awareness of symptoms campaign would have been much more effective than a vaccine that only protected 30% for less than a year and never fully disclosed that, and I write this as someone who has actually had meningitis so I’m well aware personally of how awful it can be. The Ministry has a lot of questions to answer.
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