Joan Bakewell vaccine legal challenge

Callistemon

^Truly surprised this last sentence came from you Lucky. So ageist really^.

Did you really take that seriously, biba?

??? ?

Ah, excellent point. Yes, I did- but if you say it was in jest, I am happy. Thanks.

Callistemon

^p.s. I'm much younger than Dame Joan and I love knitting by the fire.^
I told my friend I'd taken up crochet and she exclaimed with horror "I'm not that desperate yet!"

Nought wrong with that- as long as it is a choice, and not because this is expected of you because you are too old for anything else. Mind you, knitting is just awful for arthritic hands?

I took up crochet and embroidery at the ripe old age of 19- stuck on my back in traction for months on end. No TV, no internet, no mobile in hospital in 1970? Hated it at school- but it 'saved me' then. Knitting the continental way, with falpping needles was just not possible in bed flat on your back either. But we digress.

flapping, even ..

Biba So, political reasons to deflect from criticism of the handling of the crisis - or real medically based decision. Medics in the UK certainly disagree, and medics all over the world even more so

It was actually Tony Blair’s idea, and, as has been said many many times on here, the government acted on the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Do you have a problem with that?
Do you think the U.K. government should have ignored the committee’s recommendations?
The fact that medics disagree is actually a good thing. If no one ever questioned anything, no progress would ever be made, and patients would suffer because entrenched ideas would never be challenged.

it is indeed a difficult one, I agree.

But I admire Joan for challenging the decision and getting other opinions from specialists on board.

No other country has made that decision- and you have to wonder why. It does not make it wrong- but it is important to look at advice from many groups of specialists.

Alegrias1

Headline : In Europe, more countries delay second vaccine doses or mull plans to do so.

www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/world/second-covid-vaccine-delay.html

It wasn't the government who made this decision it was the MHRA. How many times?

p.s. I'm much younger than Dame Joan and I love knitting by the fire.

Quote from this very thread about other countries doing the same as the UK or thinking about it.

biba No other country has made that decision- and you have to wonder why

Could it just be that other European countries are lagging behind the U.K. and haven’t got round the logistics of administering the first dose yet, never mind deciding when they’ll give the second?

Above article states:

Pfizer has also pushed back on the idea of additional lag time. “Two doses of the vaccine are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease,” said Steven Danehy, a spokesman for Pfizer. “There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.”

Just to keep things balanced, the above article also states:

“some scientists believe the United States should consider widening the gap between doses. Proponents of the idea argue that spreading vaccines more thinly across a population by concentrating on first doses may save lives.

On Sunday, Dr. Robert M. Wachter, the chair of the department of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, and Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post that “it’s time to change the plan.”
“The biggest mistake you can make in medicine is anchoring bias,” Dr. Wachter told The New York Times. “You get stuck on what you thought, and you don’t shift with new information.”

I don’t think Joan Bakewell s medical or scientific knowledge has anything to do with her case. Surely she is talking about the ethics of changing the goalposts for those people who had already been given the first dose . The 3 rd part of her case:
assessment.
Breach of legitimate expectations: it was clear from published documents and publicly made statements that the second dose would be administered 21 days after the first dose. Patients consented to a course of medical treatment on that understanding. The instruction contained in the NHS Letter breached these expectations and undermined their informed consent to the first dose.

Indeed, and the reason the country where I am living currently have chosen to give the two doses as per Manufacturer's scientific instructions- and for ethical and legal reasons too.

biba70

Indeed, and the reason the country where I am living currently have chosen to give the two doses as per Manufacturer's scientific instructions- and for ethical and legal reasons too.

Switzerland is not doing very well as yet, I thought? It may be dependent, too, like most countries, on how many vaccines they receive.

www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-affected-by-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-delay/46293514

www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-authorities-accused-of-dragging-feet-over-covid-vaccinations/46258380

That is not the point- the pont is about giving the vaccine properly as per researchers/makers instructions.

The researchers/makers don't issue instructions. They do trials which the licencing bodies then make decisions about.

That's how it works. That's how it has always worked.

The premis is to keep people out of hospital, not to allow us to go about our business as normal.
Thus the intention is to give as many people as possible the vaccine so if anyone does catch it the disease is less serious and doesn't tie up NHS resources/staff and beds.
I'm afraid we will all have to continue as we are....hands/face/space, until the country has enough of the population vaccinated to severely curtail transmission.
I can see the point but my only reservation is that it will possibly likely to lead to more mutations.
The analogy is when a person doesn't take their full course of prescribed antibiotics, a few bugs might escape effective treatment and grow resistant to that antibiotic.
I hope she doesn't win as we need to get as many first vacs into people as possible

biba70

That is not the point- the pont is about giving the vaccine properly as per researchers/makers instructions.

They may find supply and demand puts constraints on decisions.

As Algerias says, The researchers/makers don't issue instructions. They do trials which the licencing bodies then make decisions about.

That's how it works. That's how it has always worked.

And there are indications that a longer time span between vaccines may, in fact, give a higher level of protection.

very much disputed, unfortunately. And that it could encourage mutations. The researcher//makers do trials to indicate the best way to take them safely and effectively.

Perhaps we can just agree that there are many ways of looking at this, and that even experts disagree. However if I sign up to receiving a two dose vaccine, this is what I'd expect- and will get when my time comes. OH will be quite a bit before me.

Perhaps we can just agree that there are many ways of looking at this, and that even experts disagree
Yes, that’s what I said further up the thread, that experts disagree and that’s a good thing.
However if I sign up to receiving a two dose vaccine, this is what I'd expect- and will get when my time comes. Yes, that’s what you’ll get, so what is the problem, exactly?

Yes, I will, two doses at the recommended gap.

many in the UK will not, hence the problem for many and Dame Joan.

Its really, really important to realise that the gap is not "recommended". It is the gap that has been used in trials, on this occasion. And the opinion of the medical regulators in the UK is that this vaccine will have the same effect as every other vaccine, so the longer gap is fine.

I don’t think it’s a problem for many, Biba. I really don’t understand why, or care, if it’s a problem for you or Dame Joan, as I understand she’s had both her doses.

I think most people will
a) be grateful they’re getting the vaccine more quickly than people in many other countries
b) understand that delaying their second dose will mean more people can be vaccinated more quickly, and
c) put their trust in the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

Yes, I will, two doses at the recommended gap.
Recommended by whom?

Pfizer and BioNTech in response have both said their vaccine was tested based on two doses three weeks apart and that they have no data to supportdiverging from that timeline.But given limited supplies, faltering distribution networks and surging infections, many public health experts have argued that spacing the doses further apart can be justified, begging the question: how safe is it?

Andy Pollard, the chief investigator for the Oxford/AstraZeneca trials, said that longer gaps almost always correlated with stronger immune responses and that spacing doses was a common feature of many vaccination strategies. “The idea of having [a longer] gap is absolutely mainstream in immunology,” he said.

Data from the Oxford/AstraZeneca trials supports the new regimen. It showed that antibody levels were nearly three times higher in participants who had waited 12 weeks between doses, compared with those where the gap had been under 6 weeks.

Thank you Calli.