"Just imagine, in 5 years time we find out that these brand new technologies are associated with an increase in childhood autoimmune disorders or cancers or heart conditions or any of hundreds of other serious problems. Then the question will be "why did we do this when the kids weren't in danger in the first place?""
Dr Tim Devine
Brunswick Heads
Medical Doctor for 30 years
I ask all parents of the shire, to think carefully before you give your kids the Covid vaccine. As a doctor I can see no justification for doing so.
The reasons for vaccinating the kids, that I have heard are:
Reason 1: to protect the children from Covid 19
Experience from around the world, shows that children are not at significant risk of this illness. A huge study from the UK, which is quoted on the Queensland Health website, with 12,000,000 children showed that only 1 in 50,000 children get seriously ill and that only 2 in a million children die from Covid. All of those seriously affected had significant underlying health issues. What that means is, that unless your child has very significant health issues, you can expect them to have a mild illness. In Australia those figures tell us that in a state the size of Tasmania, we might expect 1 child to get seriously ill and in the whole country we could expect perhaps 2 to 3 kids to die. And remember all those kids already had underlying health issues.
Reason 2: to protect vulnerable people at home
I can understand that reasoning and if we knew the jabs were safe then it would be reasonable. But, a civilised society will NEVER use children to protect adults. It is adults job to protect kids, not the other way around. We don't know, we can't know the long term effects of this vaccine, simply because it hasn't been around long term. I'm not saying that the vaccines will have serious long term effects. But they could. These are brand new technologies, never used before. We simply can't know what their long term effects will be until time has passed.
Reason 3: to protect against "long Covid"
I don't know enough about the long Covid, especially in kids, to have an opinion on this.
I don't believe I am being radical or fringe or controversial in these statements. I'm not "anti-vax", I've vaccinated hundreds of kids over the years and fully support our traditional vaccine programs.
But one of the basic foundations of medicine, is that we never give new medications to children, unless the need is dire. The risk benefit analysis has to stack up.
In this pandemic, we have been reminded many times, that the actions taken are a balance between competing risks. And this is absolutely the case. In the case for vaccinating children, I can't see how the unknown risk of the vaccine stacks up against an illness that is no real danger to the kids in the first place.
Just imagine, in 5 years time we find out that these brand new technologies are associated with an increase in childhood autoimmune disorders or cancers or heart conditions or any of hundreds of other serious problems. Then the question will be "why did we do this when the kids weren't in danger in the first place?"
If your kid has significant health issues then have a considered discussion with your paediatrician. For everyone else why do it?
Dr Tim Devine