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Scouting avian influenza vaccines
A summary of the old geezers efforts to understand what the devil is going on
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This is a summary post of our efforts so far to understand the circumstances of purchasing several million doses of a vaccine for a non-threat at our expense.
This post documents our efforts to understand precisely what is going on. Each post has a brief summary, so hopefully you can follow.
In the first post of the series, we are trying to understand what the UKHSA bought and its properties with the aid of regulatory documents:
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Maybe we identified the wrong mystery vaccine, so we fired off six sets of questions to the UKHSA to work out what was going on.
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Mind your own business was the first answer to how much it all costs.
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This was the first stonewall we hit, warning us that it’s all secret to ensure “fair and secure competition.” Remember this boilerplate sentence in the light of yesterday’s post. (See below).
A second question (not in the original order) was sort of answered by sending us round the garden:
It’s avian influenza vaccine H5N1 and H5N8, maybe H5N1 today and H5N8 tomorrow. Have you got it? The only certainty is that it’s stockpiled (maybe).
Next came evasion on the properties of what they bought:
Ask the MHRA (the enabler, formerly a regulator). We don't know; we just bought stuff with your cash. In retrospect, one of the many remarkable features of the whole saga is the UKHSA's attempts to deflect our queries by calling in the MHRA.
Can you at least please tell us whether pregnant women can be given the stuff you bought? We asked.
Stop asking us these questions, we dunno. Go ask the MHRA was the response.
So we did as we were told and passed the question onto [email protected] at the MHRA.
Our next post documented the UKHSA’s inability to explain why they had bought the vaccine and why only for 7.3% of the UK population. No prizes for guessing the “answer” we got, so we asked for an internal review:
Next, we got an “answer” to our question of what the UKHSA considers is a case of avian influenza in humans.
Could you look it up on dot.gov? Was the illuminating response.
So, you buy something you claim to know nothing about against something you cannot define. All clear, folks? Let’s move then, to a second attempt at finding out the cost of the purchase.
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UKHSA says no. It will not tell us, even after being threatened with jokes about Joe Biden.
So we wrote to XXXXX, warning him/her politely that we would not buzz off, as people pay good money for surrealist canvases and we are getting ours by writing a few emails:
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All of a sudden, we got a redacted contract, but its content puzzled Myra:
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“They are purchasing a vaccine for a disease that is currently not present, and the vaccine is based on a different strain than the one that is currently circulating in North America?”
Then we wrote up what we knew in the avian influenza trilogy, looking at the threat, the contract and the vaccine:
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We had the distinct feeling by this stage of being in one of Havel’s plays: not quite there but there somehow, with Brezhnev looming in the background.
Then, at the end of January, we learned that the first case of avian influenza had been identified. Given the reluctance of our masters to define a case, we asked for confirmation:
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But Mr Gwynne (yes, him) reassured us that the government had our best interests at heart and was all very prepared.
In early February, the MHRA told us that the vaccine bought by UKHSA was Zoonotic H5N8 Influenza, made by Seqirus Ltd and licensed in 2024 based on Aflunov’s performance. This was a Novartis H5N1 vaccine licensed in 2010.
By this stage, we were completely confused, so we asked yet again for some clarity:
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And without the help of the Rosetta stone, we thought we had deciphered what was going on:
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So, all these vaccines were licensed on the basis of bioequivalence. Where are the studies? Since 7 March, we have been awaiting the answer from the MHRA Internal Review.
Meanwhile, we hit another stonewall asking for a definition of the famous case of avian influenza:
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It’s all secret, but not for UKHSA staff who want a quick publication:
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By early March, we needed to summarise where we were in our inquiries:
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At the same time we discovered the usual model involving not just homo sapiens but moocows and all sorts:
Introducing RNA vaccines, of course and the biggest market of all, the US:
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We finally got a convoluted answer from the MHRA:
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So we were able to sketch what we thought was going on:
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Having nearly run out of steam, we wrote another summary for our long-suffering TTE readers:
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“We take your tax money and do what we think is best. However, you should not know what’s best for you, even if you insist, as you cannot better the best. If you are very lucky, we will give you snippets of information that may be confusing, contradictory, and delayed, hoping you will desist in questioning what is best for you. Finally, if you have a problem, write to [email protected] who knows what’s best for you”.
In the meantime, we asked for another internal review so we could access some information on the differences in the production process between seasonal and avian influenza vaccines.
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We are also interested in what vaccine recipients were told in the clinical trials. Did they realise they were participating in a trial against a threat that no one will define?
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“Data not held” was the MHRA's nonsense answer, so after the usual appeal, the MHRA will let us know what the consent forms said. Perhaps. Because in the meantime we received the following:
“MHRA Response
We can confirm that we hold information falling within the terms of your
request; however, we need more time to consider aspects of your request.
We are writing to advise you that the following exemption applies to the
information that you have requested:
Section 43(2) - Commercial Interests
Section 10(3) of the FoI Act provides that, where public authorities have
to consider the balance of the public interest in relation to a request,
they do not have to comply with the request until such a time as is
reasonable in the circumstances.
We have not yet reached a decision on the balance of the public interest.
We need to consider all the circumstances of the case, to determine where
the balance of the public interest lies in relation to the information
that you have requested. Therefore, we will not be able to respond to your
request in full within 20 working days of the initial receipt of your
request.
We are therefore aiming to let you have a full response by 29th May.”
Last but not least, the revelation that the purchase of the H5N8 vaccines was a single tender, something we would expect perhaps in an emergency, which in this case does not exist.
Well, if you are still with us at this stage, you qualify for an avian influenza badge from the two old geezers who wrote this post and their mate [email protected] at gov.dot.uk.
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