Commentary
The Brazilian government via its Health Ministry has added the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine to the country’s National Immunization Program (PNI) for children six months to five years old.
As reported by Agência Brasil, the new policy will take effect in 2024 and will require at least three doses of the vaccine.
Approved on Nov. 29 by the Senate’s Committee on Social Affairs, law proposal No. 826 is currently being analysed by the Educational Commission.
With the obligation, not vaccinating children will result in fines and loss of social benefits to their families.
In addition to mandatory vaccination for young children, the Brazilian government may also introduce a compulsory vaccination program in schools. This will be the result of another bill under present consideration by the Brazilian Senate, establishing vaccine centres in the country’s schools.
According to the newspaper Estadão, this law proposal states that students who do not participate in the school vaccination program would be reported to Brazilian authorities.
“Five days after vaccination in the school unit, education professionals must send to the health unit a list with all students who did not receive the vaccination” along with the address and information of their parents or guardians.
As reported by CNN Brasil, the mandatory vaccination program also will be prioritised for other groups, including the elderly, immunocompromised, the permanently disabled, pregnant and postpartum women, health workers, those with comorbidities, Indigenous peoples, residents of long-term care facilities, the homeless, the incarcerated, and prison staff.
The Brazilian government claims the new policy is aligned with WHO recommendations.
However, as openly acknowledged by Ethel Maciel, secretary of health surveillance of Brazil’s Health Ministry, “In Brazil, we have slightly expanded the group compared to WHO’s recommendations, which are more limited.”
“We already have very robust evidence that indicates the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine,” Mr. Maciel also said.
However, this claim is not accurate.
For example, a comprehensive study conducted by King’s College London scientists has concluded that the overall risk of children becoming severely ill or dying of COVID-19 is “extremely low.”
The conclusions reached by the King’s College scientists encourages governments to be cautious when it comes to making health decisions—especially for vulnerable very young children—which, in the long run, may have adverse consequences for their health and future.
For this reason, the United Kingdom government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has refused to endorse compulsory vaccination for children under the age of 18, stating that the benefit to them of receiving this vaccine is “virtually zero,” whereas the already-known risk of serious harms are “not negligible.”
Therefore, “JCVI is of the view that the health benefits of universal vaccination in children and young people below the age of 18 years do not outweigh the potential risks.”
Just one known serious potential risk, or adverse effect of these novel vaccines, is that of myocarditis—inflammation of the heart.
Speaking on these very vaccines, a member of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisations (ATAGI), acknowledges that “the more doses you get, the less benefit you derive from them, and then we start to worry about causing side effects.”
A considerable number of blind-reviewed academic papers directly link these vaccines with a higher risk of myocarditis, and even Pfizer scientists now acknowledge that there have been increased cases of myocarditis after vaccination.
Marco Lazzarini/Shutterstock
Charging Ahead
Despite all these serious concerns, Brazilian Health Minister Nísia Trindade has defended the new policy of mandatory vaccination on children as a matter of “children’s rights.”In reality, the very opposite is true and the decision to seek to vaccinate pregnant women and small children as young as six months is wrong and not supported by scientific evidence.
Given the already known potential harms of these vaccines, of which myocarditis is just one, and their entirely unknown long-term adverse effects, the decision of the Brazilian government to seek to vaccinate small children is not supported by scientific evidence.
According to an article in the British Medical Journal, “From a public health standpoint, it makes poor sense to impose vaccine side-effects on people at minimal risk of severe COVID-19. The argument that it protects others is weak or contrary to evidence.”
To conclude, this decision is entirely political, not a medical one. Nor is it moral or ethical to impose mandatory vaccination, because there are serious risks attached to mandating such vaccines, particularly on children and pregnant women.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
