House debates

Thursday, 28 October 2021

Constituency Statements

COVID-19: Vaccinations

11:13 am

Photo of Craig KellyCraig Kelly (Hughes, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

Yesterday I wrote to the head of the TGA, Professor John Skerritt, and, based upon the latest deaths data out of the UK, called for an immediate suspension of the COVID vaccinations on Australian teenage males. That data shows that, for the first 41 weeks of 2020 in England, there were 347 deaths in the 15- to 19-year-old age group; however, this year, in the first 41 weeks, there were 450 deaths. That's an increase of 103 extra deaths this year in males aged 15 to 19 in the UK. And what is greatly concerning about that data is that for the first 16 weeks there was no trend. The deaths in 2020 matched the deaths in 2021; they were on par. But since week 16 in the UK we have seen an over 50 per cent increase in deaths in young males in the 15- to 19-year-old age group. What is of great concern is that that coincides exactly with the timing of the rollout of the COVID vaccines in that age group in the UK. What is also of great concern is that we are not seeing the same increase in deaths in young females in that age group in the UK.

We know from the US data that the incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis and heart inflammation from the vaccines is heavily and overwhelmingly weighted to young boys, to males. That is exactly what we are seeing from the data in the UK. There may very well be other explanations for this dramatic surge in deaths in 15- to 19-year-old males in the UK; there could be many explanations. But given the coincidences in the fact that the deaths are overwhelmingly weighted to males and not females and given the exact correlation between the increase in deaths of young males and the ramp-up of the vaccines in that age group, if we were to apply the precautionary principle we should suspend these injections for all teenage males until an alternative explanation can be found. There may very well be an alternative explanation. But our history and tradition tells us we must apply the precautionary principle, especially when it comes to teenagers—15- to 19-year-olds—who have six or seven decades of life ahead of them.