Dr Aseem Malhotra, a British Asian cardiologist, and research psychologist Dr Andrea Lamont Nazarenko have called on medical bodies to issue public apologies over Covid vaccine mandates, saying they have contributed to public distrust and conspiracy theories.
In a commentary published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, Public Health Policy and the Law, the two argue that public health authorities must address the shortcomings of Covid-era policies and acknowledge mistakes.
They note that while early pandemic decisions were based on the best available evidence, that justification cannot continue indefinitely.
“Until the most urgent questions are answered, nothing less than a global moratorium on Covid-19 mRNA vaccines — coupled with formal, unequivocal apologies from governments and medical bodies for mandates and for silencing truth seekers — will suffice,” they write.
Dr Malhotra, an advisor to US health secretary Robert F Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Action, also serves as Chief Medical Advisor to Make Europe Healthy Again, where he campaigns for wider access to vaccine information.
In the article titled Mandates and Lack of Transparency on COVID-19 Vaccine Safety has Fuelled Distrust – An Apology to Patients is Long Overdue, the authors write that science must remain central to public health.
“The pandemic demonstrated that when scientific integrity is lacking and dissent is suppressed, unethical decision-making can become legitimised. When this happens, public confidence in health authorities erodes,” they write.
They add: “The role of public health is not to override individual clinical judgment or the ethics that govern medical decision-making. This is essential because what once appeared self-evident can, on further testing, prove false – and what may appear to be ‘safe and effective’ for one individual may be harmful to another.”
The article has been welcomed by international medical experts who say rebuilding trust in public health institutions is essential.
“It might be impossible to go back in time and correct these major public health failings, which included support of futile and damaging vaccine mandates and lockdowns and provision of unsupported false and misleading claims regarding knowledge of vaccine efficacy and safety, but to start rebuilding public confidence in health authorities (is) the starting point,” said Dr Nikolai Petrovsky, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Disease, Australian Respiratory and Sleep Medicine Institute, Adelaide.
“This article is a scholarly and timely review of the public health principles that have been so clearly ignored and traduced. Without a complete apology and explanation we are doomed to pay the price for failure to take up the few vaccines that make a highly significant contribution to public health,” added Angus Dalgleish, Emeritus Professor of Oncology, St George’s University Hospital, UK.
(With inputs from agencies)
