There were numerous warning signs Phase 2 of the Royal Commission into the Covid Response would produce a disappointing outcome.
The initial terms of reference specifically excluded an adversarial approach where evidence and submissions could and would be challenged.
Key political figures like Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins were excused from public appearances, as was the then Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield.
During the Commission hearings Counsel Assisting, Nicolette Levy KC, dismissed evidence from a New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science (NZDSOS) official information request. The OIA asked how many cases there were of people with Covid getting myocarditis. The Ministry of Health couldn’t provide any cases. But Ms Levy said to the NZDSOS submitters Matt Shelton and Alison Goodwin “I don’t want to get into the detail of all your submissions.”
Then soon before the report was released, the Commission told us that evidence from Medsafe Director Chris James and the Ministry of Health’s Chief Science Advisor Ian Town would not be made public - ever - despite there being a separate file in the report Pandemic Perspectives which is a summary of public submissions and engagement.
Yes, the report lands a few big blows. In particular there was the advice from the Ministry of Health about whether or not under 18 year olds would be at risk of myocarditis if they took a second dose of the vaccine, and why that advice did not reach the relevant Ministers Chris Hipkins and Ayesha Verrall.
Then there was the line about how around half of the $70 billion borrowed for Covid response projects was not actually spent on the Covid response, but on projects like a 40 million dollar revamp of the new swimming pool in Gisborne, which just happens to be Jacinda Ardern’s husband’s hometown.
But what I was looking for was a really solid analysis of the impact of the Covid vaccine? Did it harm people? Did it cause death? And most importantly, should it be withdrawn because it’s dangerous?
Here’s a few basic numbers. Coroner’s reports have confirmed that two people have died because of the Pfizer Covid vaccine. Young Dunedin man Rory Nairn was one of them while the other remains anonymous. Another death is considered likely due to vaccine induced myocarditis and yet another where a link to the vaccine could not be excluded because myocarditis was found in the autopsy.
So that’s two definite, and probably two other deaths because of this medicine. Yet it’s still being injected, although thankfully not very often. But its use for boosters is still officially being encouraged by some health professionals. Let’s also remember that ACC have paid out just under $17 million in claims by 1,812 people for injury caused by the Pfizer vaccine.
Call me naïve but if a medicine is found to have caused at least one death then that’s strong evidence the medicine is potentially extremely dangerous. If upwards of 2000 people have been paid from a government insurance scheme for injuries received through taking that same medicine then the evidence is even stronger that this is a dangerous potion and should not be on the shelf for public consumption.
But in the last five years do you know how many medicines have been withdrawn by Medsafe because of safety concerns? Just one. It’s called Pholcodine and we buy it in Duro-Tuss cough medicine and Difflam lozenges. The medicine was banned because of the small risk of life threatening anaphylaxis during surgery. Did anybody actually die because they’d taken pholcodine?
No. But it was banned because of the risk.
Yet here is the Covid vaccine which we know has killed at least two people still on the shelf, still being injected into some very uninformed patients’ arms and this Royal Commission produces a report in excess of three hundred pages in which it repeatedly uses the phrase “safe and effective.”
The Royal Commission was presented with much evidence from the likes of NZDSOS and Voices for Freedom (VFF) that Covid was not an especially dangerous disease, that the Pfizer Covid vaccine did not prevent transmission of the disease and that the government knew of the potential for severe side effects because 9 pages of such side effects were published by Pfizer themselves in 2021.
The commission should also have known that Chris James, the Medsafe Director, wrote to Pfizer on January 28th, 2021 and told them that “having reviewed the information supplied in your initial application and in your further responses, I am not satisfied that I should give my consent to the distribution of the product.”
But under the Medicines Act legislation, he had to pass the decision to the Medicines Assessment Advisory Committee, the MAAC, who then – without any new evidence at all from anybody, approved the vaccine. The members of the MAAC to this day, despite official information requests, remain unknown.
There is also much evidence from late 2020 and early 2021 to say the government was told that vaccine mandates were not justified under the Bill of Rights. Section 11 of that Act says everybody has the right to refuse medical treatment unless a limitation on that right can be justified.
But Ashley Bloomfield told Chris Hipkins on February 10, 2021 that because there was no conclusive evidence at that time of the vaccine preventing or reducing transmission, "mandatory vaccination is unlikely to be a justified limitation of the right to refuse medical treatment.”
The worst aspect of the conduct of the Royal Commission and the subsequent report was the way that organisations such as VFF and NZDSOS were treated by the Commission. These people are articulate, educated and exceedingly well researched on almost aspects of the covid response. NZDSOS presented a 382 page report called A Critique of the official New Zealand covid response with a focus on vaccines: what the evidence says. VFF presented more than 250 pages in The People’s Position.
When both organisations appeared in front of the commission their evidence was constantly challenged. VFF even had the questions they were originally due to be asked changed the day before their appearance, and then the next day the order of those questions was different to what had been advised.
The VFF representatives performance at the hearings has been criticised by those with a different ideology, but Claire, Alia and Katie were made to play on a very sticky wicket. I’ve mentioned before how Counsel assisting the commission brushed off an NZDSOS answer with “I don’t want to go into the details of your submission.”
Yet the Commission appears to have had no problem accepting claims from fringe outfits like FACT Aotearoa - that’s the outfit committed to “fighting against harmful conspiracy theories that harm the very fabric of New Zealand society.”
Then there was Sir Graham le Gros, the immunologist who was the boss of the Malaghan Institute, making claims in front of the Commission saying that Covid 19 had a high lethality.
But as NZDSOS pointed out to the Commission the average age of Covid death was 82. In the UK Covid was downgraded from a High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) as far back as March 19, 2020 -before the first case was even reported in this country.
And the Director of Public Health was quoted in a memo from the Ministry of Health to the Chief Coroner on March 18, 2020 as saying “Covid does not have a particularly high mortality rate and is not particularly transmissible.”
NZDSOS advised the Commission of inconsistencies and other information from both local and overseas sources which contradicted Professor le Gros’ submissions. The Commission has appeared to disregard what NZDSOS reported in favour of Professor le Gros.
As Mary Hobbs has written, the Royal Commission may as well have ripped the intricately prepared pages of proof from NZDSOS and VFF into confetti and thrown it throughout the country.
So what next ?
This Royal Commission report essentially tells us nothing we didn’t know. More importantly, it doesn’t tell us plenty that we do know.
Winston Peters is now talking of a Select Committee but with his Coalition partners not especially keen on further investigations, I doubt we can expect much to come from that either.
And so the vacuum remains. The establishment is holding firm. Accountability for death, injury and economic recklessness remains absent.
All we the people can do is keep fighting, and hope .. and hope .. that one day, justice will prevail.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
During the Commission hearings Counsel Assisting, Nicolette Levy KC, dismissed evidence from a New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science (NZDSOS) official information request. The OIA asked how many cases there were of people with Covid getting myocarditis. The Ministry of Health couldn’t provide any cases. But Ms Levy said to the NZDSOS submitters Matt Shelton and Alison Goodwin “I don’t want to get into the detail of all your submissions.”
Then soon before the report was released, the Commission told us that evidence from Medsafe Director Chris James and the Ministry of Health’s Chief Science Advisor Ian Town would not be made public - ever - despite there being a separate file in the report Pandemic Perspectives which is a summary of public submissions and engagement.
Yes, the report lands a few big blows. In particular there was the advice from the Ministry of Health about whether or not under 18 year olds would be at risk of myocarditis if they took a second dose of the vaccine, and why that advice did not reach the relevant Ministers Chris Hipkins and Ayesha Verrall.
Then there was the line about how around half of the $70 billion borrowed for Covid response projects was not actually spent on the Covid response, but on projects like a 40 million dollar revamp of the new swimming pool in Gisborne, which just happens to be Jacinda Ardern’s husband’s hometown.
But what I was looking for was a really solid analysis of the impact of the Covid vaccine? Did it harm people? Did it cause death? And most importantly, should it be withdrawn because it’s dangerous?
Here’s a few basic numbers. Coroner’s reports have confirmed that two people have died because of the Pfizer Covid vaccine. Young Dunedin man Rory Nairn was one of them while the other remains anonymous. Another death is considered likely due to vaccine induced myocarditis and yet another where a link to the vaccine could not be excluded because myocarditis was found in the autopsy.
So that’s two definite, and probably two other deaths because of this medicine. Yet it’s still being injected, although thankfully not very often. But its use for boosters is still officially being encouraged by some health professionals. Let’s also remember that ACC have paid out just under $17 million in claims by 1,812 people for injury caused by the Pfizer vaccine.
Call me naïve but if a medicine is found to have caused at least one death then that’s strong evidence the medicine is potentially extremely dangerous. If upwards of 2000 people have been paid from a government insurance scheme for injuries received through taking that same medicine then the evidence is even stronger that this is a dangerous potion and should not be on the shelf for public consumption.
But in the last five years do you know how many medicines have been withdrawn by Medsafe because of safety concerns? Just one. It’s called Pholcodine and we buy it in Duro-Tuss cough medicine and Difflam lozenges. The medicine was banned because of the small risk of life threatening anaphylaxis during surgery. Did anybody actually die because they’d taken pholcodine?
No. But it was banned because of the risk.
Yet here is the Covid vaccine which we know has killed at least two people still on the shelf, still being injected into some very uninformed patients’ arms and this Royal Commission produces a report in excess of three hundred pages in which it repeatedly uses the phrase “safe and effective.”
The Royal Commission was presented with much evidence from the likes of NZDSOS and Voices for Freedom (VFF) that Covid was not an especially dangerous disease, that the Pfizer Covid vaccine did not prevent transmission of the disease and that the government knew of the potential for severe side effects because 9 pages of such side effects were published by Pfizer themselves in 2021.
The commission should also have known that Chris James, the Medsafe Director, wrote to Pfizer on January 28th, 2021 and told them that “having reviewed the information supplied in your initial application and in your further responses, I am not satisfied that I should give my consent to the distribution of the product.”
But under the Medicines Act legislation, he had to pass the decision to the Medicines Assessment Advisory Committee, the MAAC, who then – without any new evidence at all from anybody, approved the vaccine. The members of the MAAC to this day, despite official information requests, remain unknown.
There is also much evidence from late 2020 and early 2021 to say the government was told that vaccine mandates were not justified under the Bill of Rights. Section 11 of that Act says everybody has the right to refuse medical treatment unless a limitation on that right can be justified.
But Ashley Bloomfield told Chris Hipkins on February 10, 2021 that because there was no conclusive evidence at that time of the vaccine preventing or reducing transmission, "mandatory vaccination is unlikely to be a justified limitation of the right to refuse medical treatment.”
The worst aspect of the conduct of the Royal Commission and the subsequent report was the way that organisations such as VFF and NZDSOS were treated by the Commission. These people are articulate, educated and exceedingly well researched on almost aspects of the covid response. NZDSOS presented a 382 page report called A Critique of the official New Zealand covid response with a focus on vaccines: what the evidence says. VFF presented more than 250 pages in The People’s Position.
When both organisations appeared in front of the commission their evidence was constantly challenged. VFF even had the questions they were originally due to be asked changed the day before their appearance, and then the next day the order of those questions was different to what had been advised.
The VFF representatives performance at the hearings has been criticised by those with a different ideology, but Claire, Alia and Katie were made to play on a very sticky wicket. I’ve mentioned before how Counsel assisting the commission brushed off an NZDSOS answer with “I don’t want to go into the details of your submission.”
Yet the Commission appears to have had no problem accepting claims from fringe outfits like FACT Aotearoa - that’s the outfit committed to “fighting against harmful conspiracy theories that harm the very fabric of New Zealand society.”
Then there was Sir Graham le Gros, the immunologist who was the boss of the Malaghan Institute, making claims in front of the Commission saying that Covid 19 had a high lethality.
But as NZDSOS pointed out to the Commission the average age of Covid death was 82. In the UK Covid was downgraded from a High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) as far back as March 19, 2020 -before the first case was even reported in this country.
And the Director of Public Health was quoted in a memo from the Ministry of Health to the Chief Coroner on March 18, 2020 as saying “Covid does not have a particularly high mortality rate and is not particularly transmissible.”
NZDSOS advised the Commission of inconsistencies and other information from both local and overseas sources which contradicted Professor le Gros’ submissions. The Commission has appeared to disregard what NZDSOS reported in favour of Professor le Gros.
As Mary Hobbs has written, the Royal Commission may as well have ripped the intricately prepared pages of proof from NZDSOS and VFF into confetti and thrown it throughout the country.
So what next ?
This Royal Commission report essentially tells us nothing we didn’t know. More importantly, it doesn’t tell us plenty that we do know.
Winston Peters is now talking of a Select Committee but with his Coalition partners not especially keen on further investigations, I doubt we can expect much to come from that either.
And so the vacuum remains. The establishment is holding firm. Accountability for death, injury and economic recklessness remains absent.
All we the people can do is keep fighting, and hope .. and hope .. that one day, justice will prevail.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
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