Note: an Addendum has been added this November 24th, to include new evidence from an article published in the prestigious journal “Circulation” and confirming the considerably elevated risk of cardiovascular accidents.
This letter from Marc Wathelet, PhD, Expert in Molecular Biology and Immunology, is addressed to the Belgian Minister of Health, Frank Vandenbroucke, click here，and analyzes not only the mandates imposed on health care workers but also the vaccination of children and the “Safe Ticket” vaccination passport intended for the general population. The content of the letter is relevant not only to the Belgian situation but also to that of other countries adopting this kind of coercive measures, that are particularly questionable as for their public health benefits.
(The letter is available in French at this LINK)
Dear Mr. Vandenbroucke , Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health
Thank you for your response to our letter concerning the compulsory vaccination of health care workers, which you justify based on a certain number of assertions which are however not supported by documentation of scientifically established facts.
On the contrary,
the scientific data available to date contradict all of your arguments and, as detailed below, we can only conclude that the compulsory vaccination of health care workers is not only useless, but also counterproductive from a public health perspective. Such compulsory vaccination also violates the principles of bio-ethics and medical ethics as well as our human rights.
1) Compulsory Vaccination of Health Care Workers is Unnecessary
Mandatory vaccination of health care workers is unnecessary because studies show beyond a reasonable doubt that it does not prevent the contamination of an individual, nor does it reduce the viral load of infected people, and therefore their ability to transmit the virus to others.
In appendix A you will find a long list of facts, scientific publications and official statements from qualified agencies and individuals, such as Dr. Fauci, who confirms our assertion that vaccination does not prevent the disease. the contamination of an individual and his ability to transmit the delta variant circulating today to others.
We will only take a recent example here: on September 23, the Irish Examiner announced that in the city of Waterford, 99.7% of those over 18 were fully vaccinated, which is the highest total in the entire European Union. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40704104.html . On October 11, Waterford News & Star reported that the city had the highest incidence rate in Ireland https://waterford-news.ie/2021/10/11/waterford-now-has-highest-incidence-of-covid-in-ireland/ .
There is only one conclusion to be drawn, which cannot be disputed in good faith: beyond studies, in the real world, in practice: vaccination does not make it possible to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the community.
2) Mandatory Vaccination of Health Care Workers is Counterproductive from a Public Health Point of View
The message that COVID vaccines would be “safe and effective,” an unsupported claim if only for the lack of the necessary hindsight, was hammered out constantly for months in all the media. One of the negative effects of this campaign is the acceptance of this assertion as an established fact, not only by the population but also by its leaders.
As a result, vaccinated people respect less behaviors such as social distancing or wearing a mask. And since they are more likely to be asymptomatic when infected, which makes them less aware of the risk they pose to others, they are actually more likely to spread the virus than non-vaccinated people.
In practice, this means that the COVID Safe Ticket (Belgian vaccination passport) is not only useless but also counterproductive. It is a license for vaccinated people to infect others, whether they are vaccinated or not.
The same reasoning applies to health care workers, even if they observe social distancing more scrupulously: vaccinating all health care workers will not prevent the contamination of “sick or vulnerable people because of their great age” which you are rightly concerned about.
We agree with you that “people taken care of have the right to maximum safety”. We offer two non-exclusive alternatives to the compulsory vaccination of health care workers, which will be much more effective in preventing nosocomial infections:
a. Have all nursing staff, vaccinated or not, tested at high frequency. In this regard, note that nasopharyngeal tests are not without risk, as reported by the Academy of Medicine in France https://tinyurl.com/7fnj6nu8 . Two other safer methods can be considered: an oro-pharyngeal antigen test or an oral PCR test.
b. Establish a voluntary ivermectin prophylaxis program: There are 14 studies that support the effectiveness of this approach https://ivmmeta.com.
Finally, the compulsory vaccination of health care workers is counterproductive from a public health point of view because those who still refuse to be vaccinated will no longer be able to work, and therefore the number of health care workers, already in short supply, will be even smaller, with a negative impact on public health.
In France, there are ~ 300,000 unvaccinated health care workers (~ 10%) https://tinyurl.com/47j2pd5v , and 15,000 of them are already suspended from their job https://tinyurl.com/5ejfxewf . In Belgian hospitals, 9.4% of health care workers are not vaccinated and in elderly / nursing homes, 13.1% are not https://tinyurl.com/4fzvma6m .
3) The Illusion of Herd Immunity
You say: “Scientists say that 70% of the total population (including children) would need to be fully vaccinated for everyone to be protected. With the Delta variant, which is more contagious than the first variants, we continue to aim for that 70%, but we are striving to achieve the highest percentage possible.”
This opinion seems to be shared above all by the experts appointed by the government. On the contrary, many scientists had anticipated that vaccinating during a pandemic was not a sufficient approach to control the virus, and events proved them right (see Appendix A for a list of citations).
You say that “Vaccination reduces the circulation of the virus”. This is contradicted by the articles cited above about the delta variant (Appendix A), the example of the City of Waterford, and now a large study shows that the increases in COVID-19 are indeed not linked to the levels of vaccination worldwide (cf the comparative study of 68 countries, as well as 2,947 counties in the United States) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7 .
4) The Dangers of COVID vs. the Dangers of Vaccination
You say, “If we’re afraid of variants, we certainly need to vaccinate more today.” Since hard data indicates that vaccination does not work in practice, even when everyone is vaccinated, the solution cannot be to vaccinate more!
There is no reason to be afraid of variants: on the one hand the lethality of the Delta variant is one tenth of the Alpha according to Public Health England, and on the other hand the lethality of COVID is intrinsically weak. It is mainly linked to the presence of comorbidities (99% of deaths occur in people with comorbidity, 96% in people with multiple comorbidities, Appendix B ).
Importantly, this lethality is comparable to that caused by other respiratory infections. Therefore, neither the COVID Safe Ticket nor the compulsory vaccination are justifiable from a public health point of view!
Those at risk have had the opportunity to be vaccinated or can take prophylactic treatment if they choose not to be vaccinated. The situation of these individuals cannot therefore justify putting other healthy individuals at unnecessary risk.
The risks inherent in COVID vaccinations, in the medium and long term, simply remain unknown, due to the lack of the necessary hindsight (we note, however, the prolonged post-vaccination syndrome, similar to long COVID). The short-term risk is evident despite the intense efforts of the health authorities, mainstream media and big tech to suppress all information on this subject.
For example, the Israeli Ministry of Health published an article on its Facebook page about severe adverse reactions, that it described as very rare only, to find itself inundated by a deluge of contrary opinions from its citizens (14,000 in a few hours), opinions that were swiftly deleted. Denying this reality is not a solution to the problem.
Facebook is routinely removing any group that identifies adverse reactions to vaccines, groups with tens of thousands of users in the United States and elsewhere. By what right? In French speaking countries alone, the (non-exhaustive) collection of screenshots of these individual reports testifies to the catastrophic scale of the phenomenon https://tinyurl.com/337947zx .
Pharmacovigilance databases around the world are all reporting an increase in severe adverse reactions and deaths from COVID vaccines ( http://www.vigiaccess.org/ [WHO]; https: //vaers.hhs .gov / [United States]; https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/the-yellow-card-scheme/ [United Kingdom]; https://www.adrreports.eu/en/search.html [Eudravigilance, European Union]).
Analysis of VAERS data, for example, shows a much higher incidence for COVID vaccines than for influenza severe adverse events (28 times more) and deaths (57 times more, see Appendix B). What’s the use of these pharmacovigilance sites if such data are brushed aside as irrelevant, when on the contrary, they should call for the suspension of the vaccination campaign?
The fact-checking sites, financed by the pharmaceutical industry, come to the rescue of the official narrative by affirming that there is no proof that these deaths are attributable to the vaccines. This is to reverse the burden of proof!
According to a report from the French medications agency ANSM (January 28, 2021), the official pharmacovigilance rule is this: “The analysis of reported cases takes into account clinical, chronological, semiological and pharmacological data. It may lead to the vaccine’s responsibility for the occurrence of an observed adverse event being dismissed only when another, certain, cause is identified.”
In fact, an audit of data reported to VAERS shows that only 14% of deaths following vaccination can be attributed to another cause, and it is not just anyone filling such reports, as 67% of the reports have been made by a doctor. Similarly, in Eudravigilance, 79% of the reports regarding a death were filed by a health care professional.
In reality, all of the Bradford Hill criteria are mostly observed, which means that these vaccines are the cause of most of the reported adverse reactions. When autopsies, which are too rarely done, are performed, between 30 and 100% of deaths are attributable to vaccination (see annex B).
These databases are poorly designed, leading to erroneous reports on both sides of the debate. For example, we see circulating for Eudravigilance a figure greater than 25,000 deaths following vaccination against COVID. A more rigorous analysis indicates 7,174 deaths as of October 9, 2021. VAERS analysis gives a number of deaths of the same order of magnitude (7,680, as of October 8, 2021).
These pharmacovigilance systems are passive, leading to a very significant underreporting of the real number of cases. A factor of 5 seems conservative, but regardless of the exact number, what is indisputable is that people in good health, without co-morbidities, young people, die from vaccination or are seriously injured.
A rotavirus vaccine was withdrawn from the market in 1999 because of only 15 cases of intussusception. The swine flu vaccination campaign in 1976 was halted after 25 deaths. We are at about 3,000 times more at the minimum (appendix B). How many more deaths will it take before we realize the obvious?
Data shows that those who are cautious about vaccines are more educated on average than those who favour vaccination, contrary to how they are portrayed in the media.
And the reality of serious adverse effects due to vaccination is confirmed by the fact that it is precisely health care workers who do not want to be vaccinated, despite their education and the fact that they are generally in favour of vaccination (they are not anti-vaxxers!), because they are on the front line and can see the damage these vaccines cause.
It is therefore deeply immoral to make vaccination compulsory, whether it concerns health care workers or any category of citizens. Likewise, it is unethical to encourage the vaccination of groups of individuals who were excluded from the Phase 3 of the clinical trials, in particular pregnant women and those under the age of 18.
Children deaths due to COVID are extremely rare and observed exclusively in individuals suffering from severe co-morbidities. Therefore the deaths of healthy children already recorded following vaccination should lead to an immediate moratorium on the vaccination of children. This should also apply to pregnant women, especially given the absence of information on the long-term effects of these injections.
Compulsory vaccination violates not only ethics, but also fundamental concepts of rights, as demonstrated by Alessandro Negroni, professor of philosophy of law at the University of Genoa. “In light of European and international law, genetic anti-covid vaccines constitute a medical experiment on human beings. From an ethical as well as a legal point of view, no one can be obliged to submit to a form of medical experimentation in the absence of free and informed consent.” http://www.mediaplus.site/2021/10/09/les-vaccins-genetiques-anti-covid-sont-une-forme-dexperimentation-medicale/
We hope that you will take this analysis into account and that you will realize that we must abandon the idea of compulsory vaccination with experimental products for anyone, as well as the implementation of a COVID Safe Ticket based on anything else than a recent test.
Let us also abandon therapeutic nihilism, and treat infected individuals early, as medicine had always done before the start of this crisis.
Yours faithfully,
By ReinfoCovid Belgium and the non-profit “Notre Bon Droit”
Analysis by Marc G. Wathelet, Ph.D. (Molecular Biology)
APPENDIX A – Data on the Effects of Vaccination on Infection and Transmission
The effect of vaccination on the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and its transmission to others was modest in the initial studies, but the rapid decline in immunity in vaccinated individuals and the appearance of more contagious variants makes this effect negligible today, as discussed in detail in this document https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/questions-sur-limmunisation-et-la-transmission-de-marc-wathelet/?published=t , drafted as part of a legal action by the non-profit organization “Notre Bon Droit” in opposition to the “COVID Safe Ticket” — the Belgian Government’s vaccination passport.
This document dates from July 28, 2021, and contains 50 references and the studies that have appeared since that date only confirm this analysis:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v1
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13372
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.19.21262139v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.12.21261951v2
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264262v1.full.pdf
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.02.21262979v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264260v1.full.pdf
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7
https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2114583?articleTools=true
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02183-8/fulltext
Data from Public Health England up to the 40th week of 2021.
The most recent data from Public Health England indicate that in all cohorts the rate of infection is higher in vaccinated than in unvaccinated people from the age of 30. In these conditions, the obligation of vaccination is simply absurd.
The CDC and Dr. Fauci recognized the impact of the greater contagiousness of the Delta variant and did reinstate the wearing of the mask for the vaccinated https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/dr-fauci-on- why-cdc-changed-guidelines-delta-is-a-different-virus.html.
In addition, the document cited above https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/questions-sur-limmunisation-et-la-transmission-de-marc-wathelet/?published=t also compares immunity against SARS -CoV-2 acquired following vaccination and that following natural infection and shows that the latter is more robust, wider and more balanced regarding the production of antibodies and T cells. It also lasts longer than the vaccine-induced immunity, which translates into better and longer lasting protection against infection for individuals having recovered from COVID compared to vaccinees.
Health care workers are among those who have been most exposed to the virus so far, so it would be absurd to impose a vaccination on them when, for many of them, their natural immunity is more effective. Here too, the studies that have appeared since only confirm this analysis:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.12.21261951v2
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/374/bmj.n2101.full.pdf
The #Covidrationnel collective in Belgium, which includes around thirty university professors, researchers and doctors, carried out a similar analysis and reached the same conclusions: https://covidrationnel.be/2021/10/06/de-source-sure/
These studies are confirmed by observations in the real world, in the jurisdictions with the highest vaccination rates such as the Seychelles, Gibraltar and Iceland. The high rate of vaccination does not prevent significant waves of infections that follow shortly the vaccination campaign.
More recently, in the city of Waterford in Ireland where 99.7% of the people over 18s are fully vaccinated, https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40704104.html , one observes the highest incidence rate in Ireland (618.9 infected per 100,000 over the last 2 weeks) https://waterford-news.ie/2021/10/11/waterford-now-has-highest-incidence-of-covid- in-ireland /.
A recent global study shows increases in COVID-19 cases are indeed unrelated to immunization levels across the world (68 countries and 2,947 counties in the United States) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/ s10654-021-00808-7 .
