From MailOnline:
The NHS should launch specialised clinics to people who have suffered long-lasting illness after getting a Covid jab, an MP said today.
Sir Christopher Chope, Tory MP for Christchurch in Dorset, called for the health service to ‘take seriously’ the need to help the unlucky few who’ve become seriously unwell after getting the life-saving vaccines.
…Sir Christopher made the comments at the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the victims of vaccine damage, which he chairs.
The article goes on to discuss the “extremely rare side effect of AstraZeneca’s jab” that led to 45 confirmed deaths due to clotting. However, we then get the following detail:
…Sir Christopher also invited Dr Aseem Malhotra, an NHS-trained cardiologist, to give a talk on ‘curing the pandemic of misinformation on Covid through real evidence-based medicine’.
…Dr Malhotra argued that Pfizer’s Covid vaccine should be immediately suspended until all of the raw data on the vaccine’s effectiveness is made available.
There’s also a photo of Malhotra, which forms part of how the article is previewed when shared on social media.
Although Malhotra is only introduced about halfway into the article, his appearance wasn’t just some sort of appendage – originally, the launch of the APPG was supposed to have been a showcase for Malhotra’s recent review paper, but due to the launch being postponed after the Queen’s death he instead held his own press conference elsewhere.
John Bye has assembled some details about what happened at the APPG meeting – his Twitter thread can be seen here. According his account of an audio recording, “attendees who have actually been affected by adverse reactions often had to shout over MPs to be heard, while cranks from Aseem Malhotra to Mark Sexton [blogged here] had a field day”; Malhotra spoke for 45 minutes; and attendees who spoke from the audience included Tess Lawrie of HART (see below) and Mohammad Adil, who was suspended by the General Medical Council in 2020 for calling the Covid pandemic a “hoax” – Chope reportedly said that his suspension was “outrageous” (I blogged about Adil here).
According by Bye, one attendee said they felt “let down” by all this, eliciting an “indignant” response from Chope. Given this context, it is reasonable to suppose that AstraZeneca victims are being used to give spurious credibility and moral standing to Malhotra’s unrelated claims (1), and much else besides. Indeed, when a doctor named Alastair McAlpine dismissed the event on Twitter as “nonsense” and expressed unguarded satisfaction that only a few MPs had attended (“Lol”) he was immediately accused of mocking the victims and has now had to lock down his Twitter account due to a pile-on (encouraged by the anti-vax pop duo Right Said Fred).
The APPG has been variously called the “All-Party Parliamentary Group for the victims of vaccine damage” (Mail Online) and the “All-Party Parliamentary Group on Vaccine Damage” (Malhotra’s press conference blurb), although the formal name is the “All-Party Parliamentary Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Damage”. Christopher Chope is the chair; other MPs listed as officers are the Conservative MPs Edward Leigh, Desmond Swayne and Greg Knight, along with Graham Stringer from Labour. According to James Freeman Wells, who appears to be Malhotra’s impresario, Malhotra’s invitation was “supported by Sir Jeremy Wright MP, Andrew Bridgen MP, Sir Desmond Swayne MP & Danny Kruger MP”.
Another thread by Bye, from October 2021, is useful as background to how the APPG has come about, highlighting the likely involvement of the anti-Covid vaccination group HART (Health Advisory and Recovery Team). His account is pieced together from HART’s leaked chatlogs, extracts from which are included as screenshots.
As he explains, “HART’s strategy (set by founder Narice Bernard and political fixer Bernie de Haldevang) was to work as a ‘scientific partner’ to the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee and Covid Recovery Group, providing them with evidence to use to sway government policy”. Bernie de Haldevang apparently had the confidence of Andrew Rosindell MP, and he used ” Rosindell as a gateway to Liam Fox and the CRG’s Mark Harper and Steve Baker.” HART members later had a meeting “with Graham Brady, Andrew Bridgen and other MPs”. After that, the “Brady connection” was useful “when William Wragg and Christopher Chope ask questions in Parliament about post-vaccination deaths.”
Those questions were about vaccine effectiveness rather than adverse reactions, but HART’s view was that they could be pointed “in the right direction”. Brady then conveyed a letter to Chope from HART (written by Jemma Moran, who was also at the APPG meeting), and a few months later Chope put forward a “Vaccine Damage Bill” in Parliament. This new APPG is the natural follow-on from that.
UPDATE: John Bye adds:
Also attending the APPG meeting were conspiracy theorists Maajid Nawaz and Matt Le Tissier, and HART’s Ros Jones, Clare Craig, Norman Fenton, Martin Neil *and* Tony Hinton.
Meanwhile people who actually suffered adverse reactions struggled to find seats.
As evidnce for the latter, he notes a Tweet from a vaccine injury support group (CV1) stating “No one listened to us yesterday because the focus was not on us. We are very dissapointed that we all made the effort to come to a meeting where we had to fight for seats and shout to make our voices heard”.
Footnote
(1) Malhotra’s allegations have become increasingly extravagant as his media profile has grown: he now claims that Covid vaccination likely explains “all unexplained heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias, & heart failure since 2021”; that Pfizer knew that their vaccine would cause the effects he alleges; and that the pharmaceutical industry is a “psychopathic entity” with control over governments and medical guidelines. He also uncritically endorses social media narratives alleging vaccine deaths, and he has done a right-wing media round involving GB News, Russell Brand, Fox News (Laura Ingraham) and, erm, a shock jock from Tucson named Garret Lewis. Acting as a gateway into the conspiracy milieu, he also Re-Tweets supportive comments from the likes of John Mappin (UK QAnon enthusiast) and Maajid Nawaz. Attempting to convince his professional peers, though, appears to be less of a priority.
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