Professor Peter Openshaw told the BBC’s global audience yesterday (at 10am British time) that the mRNA vaccines have not caused serious cases of myocarditis. This appeared to be in response to an earlier interview on BBC News, that only their domestic audience saw, which must have based on evidence from those with serious side effects after being injected, which is not that uncommon at all.

So from what I saw, which was at 11pm New Zealand time, Openshaw was asked to clarify the comments made about ordinary patients who had a medical event after an injection. As a so-called expert on Covid 19, Openshaw, like so many other epidemiologists, decided he had to negate the anecdotal evidence just broadcast to cast aspersions on it, which turned out to be from an English cardiologist . He did this by referring to an apparently broad-based survey found in some academic literature. Then he made a number of dubious claims based on its findings. These included: that only 7 people per million of those injected had got myocarditis; these people were all male aged between 12 and 15; and this only happened after the second dose. And, of course, he did not acknowledge that there had been any deaths.

Now, in Australia and New Zealand there is official data on Covid vaccine safety, and reports of serious disease, including myocarditis and pericarditis, as well as other serious conditions. These reports are released by health officials, even though they are trying to maintain the line that the Pfizer vaccine is still safe, despite the thousands of reports from medical practitioners, as well as members of the public. I have referred to New Zealand cases before, the most recent is in the 46th report, released in mid-December, for the period ending 30 November 2022. In fact, this may be the last report because so few people now get injected with the Pfizer vaccine, given that it is obvious it does not provide any immunity and thousands of fully vaccinated people have died in the last year.

So in the most recent ‘safety report’, the cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have now almost reached 1000, and the majority are considered serious. Almost all of these cases are in people older than 15, and, of course, there are women as well as men getting the heart disease. A significant number of myocarditis cases are reported after the first dose of Comirnaty, as was the case with Rory Nairn, the 26 year old who died as a result of the injection. Medsafe have now decided to refer a fourth case of myocarditis related death to the Coroner, although this is a reconsideration of an historical case, which may not be made public. That brings the total number of reported deaths from the Pfizer vaccine to 184 in New Zealand.

Now, the so-called academic experts in New Zealand are never asked about vaccine safety, and they just repeat the mantra that it is completely safely and totally effective, if you keep getting boosted. They usually don’t refer to immunity, but say that the vaccine is the ‘best protection’ against serious disease and death. Nonetheless, in the last year, and since the border has been reopened, thousands of people have died with Covid 19. The death toll was around 50 at the beginning of 2022; when it reached 2000 in the middle of the year, the health officials decided to revise the death toll, and release statistics based on people who died from the virus, not all those who had the virus when they passed. This meant that the officials were making judgments about cause of death without doing actual medical examinations; and this was inconsistent with their practice on vaccine safety, where they never accept causation until the coroner makes a decision. This makes for constant revisions, and rather unreliable statistics, but we know that thousands of older New Zealanders are dying, and most have actually been boosted twice.

Ironically perhaps, the reports of serious disease caused by the vaccine are more reliable,since they are made by doctors who are under incredible pressure to maintain that the vaccine is safe for everyone. By contrast, academics like Openshaw, and the strident vaccine evangelists that occupy the ivory towers in New Zealand, can say anything they like and claim that it has statistical backing. Indeed, it is amazing how these commentators always have a new academic study on hand to back up their opinions. In the old days scholarly research took ages to publish, because it had to be peer reviewed, and scientific theories had to be ‘falsifiable’, in other words, it had to have an empirical basis to be credible. Saying that only teenage boys get myocarditis from vaccines is empirical false, and Openshaw is a shameless liar.