Juno News - Parents have a right to make an informed decision on vaccinating their kids

00:00:00.000 I'm very concerned about the very shallow and somewhat misinformed way we're talking about

00:00:09.840 vaccines for 5 to 11 year olds in Canada right now, just days after Health Canada has approved

00:00:15.720 the beginning of a vaccine rollout for that age category. And if there is one piece of advice,

00:00:21.520 one recommendation I would have for Canadian parents, it's very simple. Go and read the

00:00:26.180 Health Canada documents approving the vaccines for this age cohort for yourself. The documents

00:00:32.520 presented by NACI, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, they've presented two documents,

00:00:38.920 one a six-page summary, another a 24-page detailed document, more detailed document,

00:00:44.160 outlining questions about the vaccine, concerns about the vaccine, and explaining why they have

00:00:49.680 approved it. It's a very interesting document and it presents, I would say, a more nuanced picture of

00:00:55.240 the conversation than we're getting from a lot of the exuberance about the vaccine we are hearing

00:01:00.080 on social media, or hearing in the media, or even from some doctors and specialists talking about it

00:01:05.700 on television, on the radio. I'm not here to tell you what choice to make for yourself, for your

00:01:10.820 families, and so forth. There's a lot of people very excited to get this vaccine for their children.

00:01:15.220 There's a lot of people who have some questions and concerns. But I think if we want to talk about

00:01:19.520 listening to the experts, if we want to talk about, you know, being informed, having the facts,

00:01:23.940 and so forth, I don't think that anything can be hurt by people actually reading these documents

00:01:29.260 that have been produced by this National Advisory Committee, the one that did ultimately give the

00:01:34.360 thumbs up to this. I will say there is one very interesting point that they make multiple times

00:01:39.800 in this document, which is that they say, due to the nature of this issue and some of the unanswered

00:01:45.800 questions around pediatric vaccinations, parents and kids should be respected and supported

00:01:50.520 for whatever decision they make, whether to vaccinate or to not vaccinate, and they should not be

00:01:56.380 stigmatized because of that decision. So I think one of the more concerning things I've seen of late

00:02:01.820 is a news story saying that 70% of Canadians responded to a poll and said that they would support

00:02:07.180 expanding vaccine mandates, vaccine passport throughout Canada, to 5 to 11 year olds, meaning

00:02:12.960 that if they soon do not get the vaccine, they should be excluded by society.

00:02:16.640 It's a de facto mandatory vaccine, as we have pretty much seen the vaccine passports play out

00:02:22.540 for older age cohorts. And I would encourage everybody who is trending towards that line of

00:02:27.880 thinking to just read these documents, because some of these lines from that advisory committee,

00:02:33.120 basically saying one should not be stigmatized for deciding not to get the vaccine,

00:02:37.800 well, that's basically them clearly saying, look, some folks are not going to get it

00:02:41.980 for, you know, whatever reason, and you need to be respectful of that. So that is clearly not calling

00:02:47.980 for the ostracizing of individuals who don't get the pediatric vaccine. One other thing I'll say

00:02:52.740 that they say in this report that's been presented is that negative side effects that appear greater than

00:02:59.900 one in 1,000 have not been picked up by any clinical trials or studies. So they do not yet know

00:03:07.000 about anything that may be of a greater incidence rate than one in 1,000. But like I said, all I'm

00:03:12.280 really trying to communicate here is go out, read this document for yourself. Do not take my word

00:03:17.580 for it. You can find it online. I've tweeted it out, the government's own advisory committee report

00:03:22.400 up on the Health Canada website about their thoughts and what they have to say about the pediatric vaccine.

Juno News - November 22, 2021