CMO says health ministry has been truthful and will stick to vaccine efforts

A suggestion that Governments across the world have been giving false information in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been strongly refuted by this island’s Chief Medical Officer, The Most Honourable Dr Kenneth George.

Speaking this morning during a webinar entitled, Considering current global pandemic Threats. Are Covid-19 vaccines necessary for children and the wider Barbadian population?, American epidemiologist  Dr Peter McCullough claimed that COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe and obsolete while his Trinidadian colleague Dr Paul Alexander charged that Governments were disseminating inaccurate information to support a narrative.

In fact, Dr Alexander said the fact that data in Barbados showed that the majority of persons who had died from COVID-19 were unvaccinated was “an anomaly”.

He said data from around the world was showing that vaccinated persons were more affected and accounted for the majority of hospitalizations and deaths.

But in a subsequent interview with Barbados TODAY, Dr George said the Ministry of Health and Wellness would continue to push its vaccination programme.

He gave the assurance that at no time during the COVID-19 pandemic did the Barbados Government lie to its citizens.

“Countries across the world have endorsed vaccinations as a method of controlling the current situation we are in. We will always have detractors to a purpose but we will continue to push on,” Dr George pointed out.

“You are aware that many international agencies have supported vaccines across the world with respect to having their populations vaccinated. We will always have detractors but our purpose as the Ministry of Health will continue. We have never given any false information, I’m putting that out in the public space…As the Ministry of Health that has the responsibility for taking care of the population, we will continue to promote vaccines and boosters as a means and a layer to reduce the effects of COVID-19.”

Dr Alexander, a former COVID pandemic evidence-synthesis advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), maintained that the vaccines had “failed catastrophically” during the Omicron outbreak.

He contended that a scare technique was being used to encourage persons to be vaccinated.

“We’ve been on the forefront releasing this clarion call to the global community to say, ‘Hold on, we are dealing with vaccines that are ineffective, they are not safe.’ This is not our statements only, this is actual data.

“I think the governments in the Caribbean, particularly the ministries of health need to get contemporary mitigating science across the world and they need to stop trying to scare the population into compliance, particularly with these vaccines,” Dr Alexander said.

Dr McCullough, who is an American internist, cardiologist and epidemiologist and considered by some to be a leader in the medical response to the COVID-19 pandemic, described the several vaccinations on the market as “randomized trials”.

He said several countries including England, Ireland, Scotland and Sweden were now discontinuing their vaccine mandates.

He said 25 000 people had died as a result of taking the vaccine while 40 000 had been permanently injured.

“The reason why they are doing that is the vaccines have demonstrated to not be sufficiently safe for human use. We have had far too many people die immediately after the vaccine and over 40 000 people permanently disabled from the vaccine.

“The vaccines are considered obsolete and even the World Health Organisation has warned against boosters at this point. The vaccines have not been adjusted to cover even Delta or Omicron and now that the Omicron outbreak is over even if they are vaccines that come forward we anticipate those will be obsolete as well,” Dr McCullough said.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb