A number of MP’s who took part in a debate about the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines have been linked to antivaxxers and accused of spreading misinformation.
The MPs took part in a debate held last week on the safety of covid vaccines. It took place at Westminster Hall after a petition demanding a public inquiry into the use of jabs during the Covid-19 pandemic reached 100,000 signatures.
According to The Times:
A Conservative MP was applauded by a group of antivaxers that included Piers Corbyn, brother of the former Labour leader, as he questioned the safety of coronavirus vaccinations during a Commons debate.
Sir Christopher Chope, the MP for Christchurch, claimed that the vaccines were “not perfectly safe” and that there was a question about “whether they are effective”.
Chope was one of a group of MPs who took part in a debate held last week on the safety of vaccinations…
The petition was promoted by celebrity antivaxxers including Beverley Turner, the presenter of This Morning, who was taken off air last year after she urged viewers to refuse vaccinations, and Richard Fairbrass, the lead singer of Right Said Fred, who said that coronavirus jabs were a “scam”.
During the debate, which was watched by a group of antivaxers in the gallery, including Corbyn, false claims were made by backbench Conservative MPs.
Andrew Bridgen, the MP for North West Leicestershire, questioned why “the [coronavirus] vaccine was given to people who had natural immunity because they had probably contracted the virus”.
He also cited debunked statistics, claiming that there was an “84 per cent increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males aged 18 to 39” following vaccination.
The study to which Bridgen referred — which has not been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal — was widely criticised by public health experts for lack of evidence and potential methodological failures.
Fact-checkers described the study, conducted by the Florida Department of Health, as misleading.
Chope, who was criticised by the UK Statistics Authority in June for making baseless claims in parliament about the safety of coronavirus vaccines, used his speech to encourage those present to watch a film he took part in produced by Oracle Films, an antivax conspiracy group that had their account suspended by Paypal last year after claiming that vaccines could alter DNA.
At the end of Chope’s intervention, he was applauded by the antivax conspiracy theorists — including Corbyn — watching the debate.
Other MPs who appeared to raise questions about the effectiveness of vaccines were Danny Kruger, the Tory MP for Devizes, and Apsana Begum, the Labour MP for Poplar & Limehouse.
Kruger questioned the independence of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which determines whether vaccines are safe, and said it was time to stop “a remote power telling people what to do”.
Begum demanded that more be done to help those who have “experienced damage from the vaccine”.
Andrew Gwynne, the shadow public health minister, condemned the interventions from MPs and said vaccines were safe and effective.
“It really is scary to see members of parliament using their platform to spread public health misinformation,” he said.
“Vaccine hesitancy remains a real problem, and when MPs make these outrageous and unsubstantiated claims they are putting their own constituents at risk.”
The ad hominem attack may be as old as time but it remains a very effective weapon in the arsenal of the establishment. This really is an appalling piece of claptrap even by the woeful standards of The Times.
Did the paper approach the MP’s to offer them right of reply? Doubtful. If they had, they would have mentioned that the politicians referenced in the article had been invited to comment.
No, the press does what the press does. The Times knows that by mentioning Pier Corbyn and emphasising that Chope was “applauded by antivaxxers” is enough to discredit the debate itself.
Labour’s Andrew Gwynne, the shadow health minister, is either as thick as mince, or he’s a pathological liar. Let’s hope it’s the former, because the covid jabs have killed tens of thousands of people in this country alone. They’ve seriously injured many more.
What if Gwynne knows that and he’s keeping schtum?
But Gwynne is not the real villain here. The media, the media, the media.
If the Times reviewed the government’s own data on covid vaccine injuries, the paper would have the story of the century.
If only.
