West Lancashire MP Rosie Cooper has pushed the Government for further evidence to back up the decision to delay the Covid vaccine second dose to the 12 week limit.

Rosie, who is a member of the Parliamentary Health Select Committee has written to the Chief Medical Officer and Health Secretary to ask for detailed justification for this delay, and the scientific evidence behind it. This follows a number of medical professionals speaking out about this decision, specifically the policy to administer the Pfizer second dose at 12 weeks instead of the recommended three, as they feel it goes against the true results of the trials.

Rosie Cooper MP commented: “I am deeply concerned by the NHS and Government’s commitment to the policy of insisting that the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine is administered after 12 weeks, without evidence to back this up.

“We continue to be told that the first dose gives 90% effectiveness, and that all the second dose does is increase this by 5%. If this is absolutely true, then why is this not a one dose vaccine?

“Other scientists have suggested that analysis of the Pfizer study shows the opposite, that the second dose in fact turbocharges the moderate immunity achieved by the first.

“The health service is trapped in the NHS England directive and is forced to continue to stand by this policy which I believe in a short time will be seen to have more holes than a Swiss cheese. Having met with the Medical Director for UK Vaccines at Pfizer, I was left with absolutely no doubt that they are against this!

“Already people are contracting Covid more than three weeks after their first dose. I am worried that this was a decision that the Government and NHS are now too committed to, to go back on. More needs to be done to investigate the repercussions of this hastily reached decision before it is too late!”

Another typically useless Labour MP, criticise, criticise, criticise.

Originally Posted by justbecause

Another typically useless Labour MP, criticise, criticise, criticise.

She's not criticising she's asking valid questions, why are we giving any second dose if the benefit is minimal?

A Labour politician yet again attacking the NHS. Whatever next?

Originally Posted by Alikado

She's not criticising she's asking valid questions, why are we giving any second dose if the benefit is minimal?

Only someone with no understanding of the English language would read Cooper's comments and arrive at your conclusion!

Other left leaning posters have stated that they have a right to challenge and scrutinise HMG and no rational person could disagree with them. However.

The question needs to be asked - what is the agenda behind the asking of such questions?
If people believe that the questions are being asked to help and protect the public then I ain't sending you to market with my cow because I've got enough beans.

The questions are, in the main, being asked with anything but altruistic principles behind them. They are, again in the main, malicious attempts to show HMG in a bad light purely for political gain.
There is however a bigger picture to consider. That right to critique and scrutinise carries with it a responsibility to exercise it with care and consideration for the consequences of asking it.

Incidentally, on Radio 4's PM programme last Friday, a professor conducting trials on another vaccine stated that the intervals quoted were nothing better than a thumbnail guide. He further said that the numbers were given primarily because the question had been asked and no real measure of reliance could be placed on them.
Also it needs to be borne in mind that - before Covid19 - any vaccine with a better tha 60% efficacy would have had its creators partying like it's 1999.
These and other public confidence issues are what should be front and centre in people's minds, not some perceived innate right of holding to account.

Some touchy Tory supporters are feeling defensive of the government

…a boost in polling figures is contingent upon no more misjudgments

Yet another Labour "politician" with about as much usefulness as a chocolate teapot. I thought that shower would buck their ideas up after the Magic Grandpa was booted out but that was a forlorn hope.

Labour's "policy" (if you can call it a policy) throughout this entire covid affair is to say nothing when crucial decisions need to be made and then when everything doesn't run 100% perfectly turn round and pontificate that the Government fouled up and that if Labour had been in power they would have done it differently. Calling that waste of space Starmer "Captain Hindsight" doesn't even scratch the surface of their incompetence and opportunism. They are absolutely hopeless.

The recommendations from the vaccine manufacturers is an interval of three to four weeks.

Overruled again by an inept Conservative Government who have no medical knowledge at all, just wanting to spread it out thinly so that they have one decent statistic.

Let's hope that their gamble pays off for all the vunerable now made to wait for thir second jab.

Originally Posted by Nash

The recommendations from the vaccine manufacturers is an interval of three to four weeks.

Overruled again by an inept Conservative Government who have no medical knowledge at all, just wanting to spread it out thinly so that they have one decent statistic.

Let's hope that their gamble pays off for all the vunerable now made to wait for thir second jab.

Before you unfurl your red flag Comrade Nash, check out the data on how one jab protects against being hospitalised and, crucially, how it protects against dying of Covid19.

I notice, yet again, that the left wing faction on this forum has followed 'party rules' in the use of the like & dislike buttons - pathetic in the extreme!

Originally Posted by Nash

The recommendations from the vaccine manufacturers is an interval of three to four weeks.

Has it occured to you that maybe that is because that was the interval that they used many months ago when they were conducting extensive clinical trials?

Obviously they can only recommend the interval that was tested.

It's just that experience over the subsequent months meant that the four UK Chief Medical Officers made their recommendation.
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ion-programmes

Originally Posted by Alikado

Is the manufacturers advice and instructions not the best advice to follow, that is the only advice that the vaccine is approved for.

You just keep following the party line in flogging the same dead horse!

Originally Posted by Alikado

Is the manufacturers advice and instructions not the best advice to follow, that is the only advice that the vaccine is approved for.

The Pfizer advice was based on a trial in a controlled environment, the biggest thing that people seem to keep forgetting is that this pandemic is an evolving thing. Things are changing on an almost daily basis.

Originally Posted by gazaprop

Before you unfurl your red flag Comrade Nash, check out the data on how one jab protects against being hospitalised and, crucially, how it protects against dying of Covid19.

I notice, yet again, that the left wing faction on this forum has followed 'party rules' in the use of the like & dislike buttons - pathetic in the extreme!

And before you display once again how this forum caters for even you thickies, parhaps you should put your mental limitations in your old kit bag and think. Before displaying your ignorance

Thickies, mental limitations - that's rich tovarishch!

These are the facts -

The situation changes daily, the original advice recommended a time frame, at no point was that time frame set in stone.
The administering of one dose does two things (with almost 100% efficacy), it prevents the need for hospital admissions and traumatic interventions such as intubation. Similarly, it prevents death. It also, by preventing these things stops the NHS being overwhelmed.

So, over to you and the rest of the brains trust - is it better to protect tens of millions from becoming seriously ill and dying or - follow outdated guidelines and, increase protection by an almost negligible factor for the few. Fingers could then be crossed.

Originally Posted by gazaprop

Thickies, mental limitations - that's rich tovarishch!

These are the facts -

The situation changes daily, the original advice recommended a time frame, at no point was that time frame set in stone.
The administering of one dose does two things (with almost 100% efficacy), it prevents the need for hospital admissions and traumatic interventions such as intubation. Similarly, it prevents death. It also, by preventing these things stops the NHS being overwhelmed.

So, over to you and the rest of the brains trust - is it better to protect tens of millions from becoming seriously ill and dying or - follow outdated guidelines and, increase protection by an almost negligible factor for the few. Fingers could then be crossed.

I do recollect that that Michael Gove is quoted as saying

"I think the people in this country have had enough of experts with organisations from acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong."

It does seem to be that so many ignorant people, like you, set themselves up as experts. So sad