Another parliamentary debate but still no straight answers published

More elephants in the House

On Thursday 22nd February a private member debate was held on ‘Heart and Circulatory Diseases: Premature Deaths’. The debate was led by Dean Russell, conservative MP for Watford, who spoke eloquently about having a heart attack last August at the age of 47. He talked about the importance not only of immediate access to emergency medical care, but also about the rehab and life-style changes required. He also discussed the psychological impact including initial loss of confidence. 

Mr Russell mentioned the decline in cardiac deaths over the last 6 decades, from the 1960s to 2019, but he did not mention the increase since 2021. He also rightly mentioned multifactorial aetiology including mention of obesity and smoking and our more sedentary lifestyles. He did not mention whether he had received any DNA or mRNA vaccines and no-one was impertinent enough to ask him. He ended his speech with a plea for action: “As I have said, heart and circulatory diseases cause a quarter of all deaths in England, amounting to over 140,000 each year, 480 a day or one every three minutes. Sadly, in the time that I have spoken today, five people will have lost their lives. I therefore call for urgent action to do more to protect our hearts. By prioritising the right action and supercharging the progress that has been made on addressing heart and circulatory diseases, we can improve the nation’s health, grow the economy and give people hope for a brighter, healthier future.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, it was Andrew Bridgen who was first on his feet to speak and when the speaker wanted to limit him to 5 minutes, he pointed out the debate had already been cut from the customary 3 hours to only one hour, so she gave him 7 minutes, an extra 40% for which he promptly thanked her. He reminded MPs that the briefing pack for the debate mentioned a 10% increase in cardiovascular deaths since the pandemic. As he said, “The previous steady reductions followed major improvements in public health policy, reductions in risk factors such as smoking, and the controlling of blood pressure, as well as improvements in medical care. Although I am grateful to the hon. Member for Watford for securing this debate, and to the other Members who will contribute, there is an elephant in the room—indeed, there are so few speakers that there is probably room for a herd of elephants. Why has there been a significant uptick in cardiac deaths in recent years? What novel intervention in public health has occurred since 2019?”

Sir Christopher Chope then intervened with a request that the Minister in responding to the debate would “address the article in The Daily Sceptic on 20 February this year by Will Jones, headlined “Covid Vaccines Linked to Large Increase in Heart, Blood and Neurological Disorders, Major Study Finds”?”

Andrew Bridgen went on to say ”a mountain of peer-reviewed evidence is emerging and hypotheses are being proposed. Numerous cardiologists have concerns, but unfortunately, many experts do not feel able to speak out openly about their concerns because of the climate of fear, and the consequences of whistleblowing or speaking out against big pharma, which has so often been found to be not operating in the public interest, and causing harm.” He ended with, “I wish I had more time, Madam Deputy Speaker; this is a huge issue and we need to debate it again. It is the biggest killer of our constituents, and our fear is that the rate of increase in cardiac deaths will not slow in the UK, or the rest of the world.” The full speech he planned to give is included as an appendix below.

Philip Davies, MP for Shipley, spoke next and his speech can also be read in full on the Hansard link at the top of the page, but I recommended watching him on this video link. While he is speaking, “These are not just numbers and statistics—these are real people, loved ones, often from younger age groups, who are dying before their time. It is urgent and our duty to get to the bottom of the situation sooner rather than later. As I am sure we are all aware, there are many theories circulating about the causes of these excess deaths. One is the possibility of a causal link between the population-wide use of covid-19 vaccines and the marked increase in cardiovascular-related critical events, including heart attacks and strokes, among otherwise apparently healthy people. We do not know if that is the cause or not, because the data is not being released. Until certain data sets are released, it is impossible to rule that theory in or out.”, two MPs in the second row are apparently laughing and chatting. His speech lasted only 5 minutes and surely MPs are well aware they are on camera.  Perhaps they are lucky and don’t know any “otherwise apparently healthy people” who have suffered a “cardiovascular-related critical event”. Or perhaps they do, and it was nervous laughter.

Mr Davies went on to say that he and cross-party colleagues had written the previous day to Secretary of State for Health and Social Care; Professor Steven Riley, the director general for data at the UK Health Security Agency, and Dr Alison Cave, the chief safety officer at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, asking that “anonymised record-level official mortality data be released, alongside vaccination dates, doses and co-morbidities, without delay.”  He then asked, “if the Government and their agencies are not willing to share the data we have requested, will the Minister explain to us why not?” He ended by rightly saying,“We are all on the same side and want to look after people.”  Sadly it doesn’t always feel like that.

Jim Shannon, DUP, again highlighted the recent increase in cardiovascular deaths, “But after nearly a decade of slowing progress, recent statistics show that the rate of premature deaths from cardiovascular disease has now increased in England for three years back to back. This is the first time that there has been a clear reversal in the trend for almost 60 years. Again, the question must be: what has brought that about and what has been done to stop it.” 

Moving on to the Minister’s response, Dame Andrea Ledsome said “I will write to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) about the statistics. I do not have any information today; I wanted to focus on the Government’s strategy for preventing cardiovascular disease, but I will write to them.”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to say she would write to them about the statistics of cardiac deaths and covid vaccination status, but at least she “will write to them.”