Another letter to the four Chief Medical Officers

Is it acceptable that 60% of young people with vaccine-induced myocarditis have cardiac damage?

September 30, 2024

Open letter to the Chief Medical Officers of the 4 nations of the UK

Professor Chris Whitty – CMO England: Email c.whitty@nhs.net

Sir Michael McBride – CMO Northern Ireland: Michael.McBride@health-ni.gov.uk

Dr Gregor Smith – CMO Scotland: cmo@gov.scot

Dr Frank Atherton – CMO Wales: pschiefmedicalofficer@gov.wales

30th September 2024 

Dear Professor Whitty, Dr McBride, Dr Smith and Dr Atherton,

Sixty doctors and scientists wrote to you on 6th September 2021 urging you against rolling out Covid-19 vaccines to healthy children.  We had written previously to Professor Whitty in May and again in June of that year to flag up our concerns.  As you know, the JCVI in their statement on 3rd September 2021, had decided against recommending these products for children’s direct benefit in view of the mild nature of SARS-CoV-2 infection for their age range coupled with concerns about the known and as yet unknown adverse effects. 

They had held a conference call with cardiologists from the USA and also Israel, both countries which had started vaccinating children ahead of the UK. These groups had both reported on vaccine-induced-myocarditis, with the US group having studied a case series of 63 children and finding 89% of affected children showing Late Gadolinium Enhancement (LGE) on cardiac MRI scanning. This finding is known to be indicative of cardiac scarring and to be a predictor of deaths in the 5-years following. The group were planning a follow-up study and members of the JCVI specifically requested a delay of 6 months to await this data before making a decision. 

Finally, almost 3 years later, this study has been published and it does not make for happy reading, especially if you are a parent of a child or young person who was affected. Of the 333 children and young adults enrolled, and despite an apparently mild clinical course, 82% showed LGE on their initial cardiac MRI scans, and in 60% these changes were still present at the 6 months follow-up scan. Long-term data is still awaited and risk of cardiac failure sudden death is still unquantified. A new systematic review has confirmed that LGE is a risk factor for all cause mortality, cardiac deaths, arrhythmias and heart failure.

This letter is to put on record the failure of due diligence which you, as a group of chief medical officers, showed when recommending these products for use in healthy children. “The view of the UK CMOs is that the additional likely benefits of reducing educational disruption, and the consequent reduction in public health harm from educational disruption, on balance provide sufficient extra advantage in addition to the marginal advantage at an individual level identified by the JCVI to recommend in favour of vaccinating this group.”  The argument that vaccinating children would reduce school disruption seemed to ignore the fact that most of the disruption was arising from the combined policy of (a) routine testing of asymptomatic children and (b) the quarantining of whole classes or in some cases even whole year groups if one child tested positive. In England, this policy had been discontinued on 19 July 2021 just 2 days  before the end of the summer term and with no time to assess the likely improvement in school attendance. It was also admitted that the calculations of possible school time saved were not balanced against any potential for school time lost, even for the vaccination process itself, let alone any possible adverse events.

When you advised the rollout of the vaccines to children, did you also advise a prospective study of cardiac health to be carried out in any of the four nations?

If the answer is yes, we would be very grateful to see the results.

If the answer is no, this surely should be organised as a matter of urgency. 

Yours sincerely,

Dr Rosamond Jones, MBBS, MD, FRCPCH, retired consultant paediatrician, convenor of CCVAC

-Professor Anthony J Brookes, Department of Genetics & Genome Biology, University of Leicester

-Professor Richard Ennos, MA, PhD. Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Edinburgh

-Professor Karol Sikora, MA, MBBChir, PhD, FRCR, FRCP, FFPM, Dean of Medicine, Buckingham University, Professor of Oncology

–Professor David Livermore, BSc, PhD, Professor of Medical Microbiology, University of East Anglia

-Professor Keith Willison, PhD, Professor of Chemical Biology, Imperial, London

–Professor Angus Dalgleish, MD, FRCP, FRACP, FRCPath, FMed Sci, Emeritus Professor of Oncology, University of London, Principal, Institute for Cancer Vaccines & Immunotherapy

–Professor John Fairclough FRCS FFSEM retired Honorary Consultant Surgeon 

-Professor Norman Fenton, CEng, CMath, PhD, FBCS, MIET, Professor of Risk Information Management, Queen Mary University of London

-Professor John Watkins, Consultant Epidemiologist Cardiff University

–Lord Moonie, MBChB, MRCPsych, MFCM, MSc, House of Lords, former parliamentary under-secretary of state 2001-2003, former consultant in Public Health Medicine

-Dr Theresa Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD, Director, Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd, Bath

-Dr Roland Salmon, MB BS, MRCGP, FFPH, Consultant Epidemiologist (retired), former Director, Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (Wales)

-Dr Alan Mordue, MBChB, FFPH. Retired Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiology

-Dr John Flack, BPharm, PhD. Retired Director of Safety Evaluation,Beecham Pharmaceuticals 1980-1989 and Senior Vice-president for Drug Discovery 1990-92 SmithKline Beecham 

-Dr Gerry Quinn, PhD. Postdoctoral researcher in microbiology and immunology

-Dr Karen Horridge, MBChB(Hons), MSc, MRCP, FRCPCH, Consultant Paediatrician (Disability)

-Mr Anthony Hinton, MBChB, FRCS, Consultant ENT surgeon, London

-Dr Geoffrey Maidment, MBBS, MD, FRCP, retired consultant physician

-Mr Malcolm Loudon, MBChB, MD, FRCSEd, FRCS(Gen Surg), MIHM,VR, Consultant Surgeon

-Dr Christina Peers, MBBS,DRCOG,DFSRH,FFSRH, Consultant in Reproductive Health 

-Dr Noel Thomas, MA, MBChB, DCH, DObsRCOG, DTM&H, MFHom, retired doctor

-Dr Elizabeth Evans MA(Cantab), MBBS, DRCOG, Retired Doctor

-Katherine MacGilchrist, BSc (Hons), MSc, CEO/Systematic Review Director, Epidemica Ltd.

-Dr Greta Mushet, MBChB, MRCPsych, retired Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy

-Mr James Royle, MBChB, FRCS, MMedEd, Colorectal surgeon 

–Mr Ian F Comaish, MA, BM BCh, FRCOphth, FRANZCO, Consultant ophthalmologist

-Dr Helen Westwood MBChB MRCGP DCH DRCOG, General Practitioner

-Dr Jonathan Engler, MBChB, LlB (hons), DipPharmMed

-Dr Renée Hoenderkamp, General Practitioner

-Mr Colin Natali, BSc(hons) MBBS, FRCS (orth) ,Consultant Spinal Surgeon

–Dr Alan Black, MBBS, MSc, DipPharmMed, retired pharmaceutical physician

–Dr Mark A Bell, MBChB, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, Consultant in Emergency Medicine

-Dr Livia Tossici-Bolt, PhD, NHS Clinical Scientist

-Dr Zac Cox, BDS, LCPH, Holistic Dentist, Homeopath

-Dr Samuel McBride, BSc(Hons) Medical Microbiology & Immunobiology, MBBCh BAO, MSc in Clinical Gerontology, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, FRCP(Edinburgh), NHS Emergency Medicine & geriatrics

-Dr Branko Latinkic, BSc, PhD, Reader in Biosciences

-Dr Kulvinder Singh Manik, MBBS, General Practitioner

-Dr Michael D Bell, MBChB, MRCGP, retired General Practitioner

-Dr Jason Lester, MRCP, FRCR, Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Rutherford Cancer Centre, Newport

-Dr Clare Craig, BMBCh, FRCPath, Pathologist

-Dr Scott McLachan, FAIDH, MCSE, MCT, DSysEng, LLM, MPhil, Postdoctoral researcher, Risk & Information Group

-Dr Franziska Meuschel, MD, ND, PhD, LFHom, BSEM, Nutritional, Environmental and Integrated Medicine

-Dr Emma Brierly, MRCGP, General Practitioner

-Dr Sarah Myhill, MBBS, Dip NM, Retired GP, Independent Naturopathic Physician

-Michael Cockayne, MSc, PGDip, SCPHNOH, BA, RN, Occupational health practitioner

–Dr Christopher Exley, PhD, FRSB, retired professor in Bioinorganic Chemistry

-Julie Annakin, RN, Immunisation specialist nurse

-Dr Charles Forsyth, MBBS, BSEM, Independent Medical Practitioner

-Dr Marco Chiesa, MD, FRCPsych, Consultant Psychiatrist & Visiting Professor, UCL

-Dr Paul Cuddon, PhD, Pharmaceutical Equity Research Analyst, Head of Healthcare and Life Sciences

-Margaret Moss, MA (Cantab), CBiol, MRSB, Director, The Nutrition and Allergy Clinic, Cheshire

-Prof Anthony Fryer, PhD, FRCPath, Professor of Clinical Biochemistry, Keele University 

-Dr David Critchley, BSc, PhD, 32 years in pharmaceutical R&D as a clinical research scientist.

-Dr David Morris, MBChB, MRCP(UK), General Practitioner

-Dr Scott Mitchell, MBChB, MRCS, Associate Specialist in Emergency Medicine

-Dr Pauline Jones, MB BS, retired General Practitioner 

-Sarah Waters, BA (Hons), MBACP, Psychotherapist, Therapeutic Parenting Practitioner

-Dr. Eashwarran Kohilathas, BMBS, GP Trainee

-Dr Rohaan Seth, Bsc (hons), MBChB (hons), MRCGP General Practitioner

-Dr Jessica Robinson, BSc(Hons), MBBS, MRCPsych, MFHom, Psychiatrist & Integrative Medicine

-Dr Dee Marshall, MBBS, MFHom, Nutritional Medicine

-Dr Jenny Goodman, MA, MB ChB, Ecological Medicine

-Dr Elizabeth Burton, MBChB, retired general practitioner

-Dr Sam White, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner, Functional medicine practitioner

-Dr Rachel Nicoll, PhD, Medical researcher

-Dr Ruth Wilde, MB BCh, MRCEM, AFMCP, Integrative & Functional Medicine Doctor

-Dr Damien Downing, MBBS, MRSB, private physician

-Dr Andrew Isaac, MB BCh, Physician, retired

-Jemma Dale, BSc (Hons), Biomedical Scientist

-Dr David Bramble, MD, MRCPsych, Consultant Psychiatrist, Child & Adolescent Learning Disability (Retired)

-Angela Chamberlain, Bsc (Hons), Midwife

-Alex Hicks, MEng, MCIPS, Compliance Director (Supply Chain)

-Sophie Gidet, RM, Midwife

-Helen Auburn, Dip ION, MBANT, CNHC, Registered Nutritional Therapist

-Dr Ali Haggett, PhD, Mental health community work, former lecturer in the history of medicine