Juno News - Why university vaccine mandates are harmful and unnecessary

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:10.400 Coming up, hundreds of people rallied at Western University over the weekend to protest the school's three-dose vaccine mandate.

00:00:17.100 We talk about all of that with a fantastic panel. That's coming straight ahead.

00:00:21.340 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:24.680 Hello everyone and welcome to the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

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00:00:38.700 We had on the weekend a rally at Western University in my old stomping ground, London, Ontario.

00:00:45.760 And the rally was calling for Western to put an end to its vaccine mandate for students, staff and visitors.

00:00:53.000 Western has required everyone who wants to step foot on campus to be boosted.

00:00:57.300 And this is something that flies in the face of science, of reason, of individual choice.

00:01:02.900 It's been condemned by lawyers, by doctors, by professors, by students.

00:01:06.880 And Western is so far standing alone.

00:01:10.040 The University of Toronto has a booster requirement for students in residence, which is still wrong.

00:01:15.780 But Western is so far the only university in Canada to put a sweeping mandate on its entire campus community.

00:01:22.900 And not everyone, I mean, we'll talk about some of the weird sort of eccentricities of the policy.

00:01:28.800 But generally speaking, the policy is such that by October 1st, every student or faculty member has to be triple vaccinated for now.

00:01:38.220 For now.

00:01:38.760 It was a two-dose mandate last year.

00:01:40.280 Now it's a three-dose mandate.

00:01:41.420 So no surprise if it ends up becoming a four, a five, a six-dose mandate, which is why a lot of people who went along with it the first time around are saying now enough is enough.

00:01:51.720 And that was the message on the banner that the student protesters were holding up on Saturday.

00:01:56.880 This isn't just about Western.

00:01:58.300 This is about mandates in general and the way that we still have people imposing on us this 2020 mindset in a 2022 world.

00:02:07.300 I want to talk about this with a fantastic panel that we have assembled.

00:02:11.380 Dr. Martha Fulford, who is an infectious diseases specialist in Hamilton.

00:02:15.880 We have Bruce Party, who is a Queen's University law professor and the executive director of Rights Probe.

00:02:22.600 We have Professor Julie Panessi, who is formerly of Huron University College.

00:02:27.180 Now she's the ethics scholar at the Democracy Fund.

00:02:29.800 And Kendra Hancock, who we had on the show last week, the student activist who founded Students for Agency and organized that fantastic demonstration on the weekend.

00:02:39.820 All of you, it is great to have you aboard the program today.

00:02:43.520 Let me start with you on this, Kendra, because you started this thing really a week ago, less than a week ago,

00:02:49.260 because that was all the notice you've had from Western that this mandate was in effect and was going to be affecting you and your fellow students moving forward.

00:02:58.120 Just to confirm, has there been any response from Western at all, not in the context of you doing this protest, but about the mandate?

00:03:08.160 No. I believe they might have clarified one thing about the donor issue.

00:03:13.140 But no, in terms of the policy itself, they have not communicated anything to the student body since then.

00:03:19.080 What was your perspective of the showing that you had from the community and I'd say in many respects the country on Saturday?

00:03:26.700 It was great. It was a bit overwhelming. The support has been fantastic.

00:03:32.600 We couldn't have asked for a better day on Saturday.

00:03:34.700 We spoke to parents and alumni and students and to have everybody there together was nothing short of incredible.

00:03:42.040 Let me turn to you, Dr. Fulford, because you spoke and I thought you were absolutely spot on on Saturday about the first principle of medicine.

00:03:51.600 If someone knows nothing else about medicine and about the Hippocratic Oath, they know first do no harm.

00:03:58.080 And what I thought you articulated quite well is that the idea of mandates are really coming from this perspective that medicine is supposed to be one size fits all, which is not the case.

00:04:08.940 And you had said on the weekend has never been the case.

00:04:11.280 This is true. And we can talk about any medical intervention, but I mean, obviously, at the moment, it's the topic of vaccines.

00:04:20.260 But you know, we think of any vaccine before we even would think about talking specifically about COVID, that vaccines, we always have to have a clear understanding of what a vaccine does, what it doesn't do and who it benefits.

00:04:34.260 And it's actually very uncommon to have a one size fits all recommendation, even for for vaccines.

00:04:40.760 And so we always have a conversation about who is most at risk, who is most likely to benefit from from the vaccination.

00:04:46.820 And of course, these are the possible side effects.

00:04:49.660 So then when we come to the COVID vaccine, for me, it's very clear that some people and we have very good understanding out who's a very high risk for COVID.

00:05:00.380 If that person gets COVID, particularly the beginning when we didn't have a lot of population immunity, there was a very high risk that person would do very poorly in hospital mass mostly advanced stage, certain medical conditions, and particularly people say who are profoundly immunocompromised.

00:05:14.860 And we also noted that obesity was was a significant risk factor for poor outcome.

00:05:19.940 People with those conditions were going to almost certainly do better if they chose to be vaccinated.

00:05:26.420 But the converse is also true that a young 18 year old, that person's risk of a poor outcome from COVID was was essentially zero.

00:05:36.500 And so that the benefit there is a lot less clear, but then there's a risk and we've known about the risk for well over a year.

00:05:43.020 However, just one in particular is is the risk of heart inflammation or myocarditis.

00:05:48.540 And so if I have a conversation with a patient, I always think medical ethics should be non-negotiable, quite frankly, is what is the benefit to you with your particular history and medical conditions?

00:06:01.060 This is where if you choose to be vaccinated, I think it will do a really, you know, you'll do better.

00:06:07.500 These are some of the side effects we've noticed, but but for you, I think that the benefit still weighs any potential risk.

00:06:14.440 But that conversation will be very, very different in a fit, young teenager or even a young adult.

00:06:20.880 And then that person is going to say, you know, COVID, sure, it sometimes causes a poor outcome, but it's very, very uncommon in young people.

00:06:29.140 It's been very clear.

00:06:30.540 We know these are the conditions that might put you at higher risk.

00:06:33.020 But if you choose to get the vaccine, you have in the range of, you know, we don't know the numbers, but but at least one in 5000 from what we're seeing, a risk of heart inflammation.

00:06:42.940 So the risk benefit conversation, of course, I'm in favor of vaccination.

00:06:48.480 I'm just saying I'm in favor of an individualized approach, which is first do no harm, ensuring my patients have true informed consent.

00:06:55.960 And then I always respect all the autonomy.

00:06:57.860 It's I'm a physician.

00:06:58.960 I have to adhere to medical ethics.

00:07:01.880 Speaking of ethics, I'll turn to you on this, Professor Panessi, because you noted, I think, quite ironically,

00:07:07.740 that you were fired for ironically doing what you had been hired to do, which was focus on ethics.

00:07:15.460 You were an ethics professor at Huron, which is an affiliated college of Western.

00:07:20.060 You would not comply with the vaccine mandate.

00:07:22.200 You've written a book about it.

00:07:23.740 But when we talk about academia here, I mentioned in my remarks on Saturday this section from Western's commitment to academic freedom,

00:07:31.540 which says it encourages students to engage in critical thinking.

00:07:35.100 And this has always been at the crux of what academia is about.

00:07:39.580 So why is it that this idea of medical ethics, of academic ethics have now been trumped by this vaccine mandate, not just at Western?

00:07:48.920 I think in this particular context with Western's booster mandate, it's egregious beyond where other schools are, but in general.

00:07:55.940 It's a good question.

00:07:57.300 This is the question.

00:07:58.300 I don't think, though, that that this mandate situation is trumping a broader culture of academic freedom.

00:08:04.400 You were right when you quoted Western's policy, but we have seen a slow, I would say, sort of stricture of freedom in the academic community for many years prior to this.

00:08:16.780 And so when the when the freedom policy says that students are free to to be curious, to to to think what they think, to say what they think, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry,

00:08:26.240 that is in some sense a vestige from from a former time.

00:08:30.180 I think the culture on campus is much different.

00:08:32.240 I actually spoke to a student at the rally on Saturday who said that the her professor said to the class, I know there are dirty, unvaxxed students here. 0.99

00:08:42.880 And that, from what I've heard from other students, is not anomalous.

00:08:47.880 It's more the rule than the exception to the rule.

00:08:50.520 And that kind of ideology, that kind of thinking is factoring into not only classroom dynamics, but also questions that students are getting on their exams.

00:08:59.760 So I think that academic freedom, there's a question about how much of it there really is when it started to shift.

00:09:06.440 And I don't think it's restricted just to the covid issue, but but this covid vaccination issue has just punctuated what I think has been building slowly for a long time.

00:09:14.440 Well, you know, this full well, Bruce, is not only a lawyer, but also a member of a university faculty right now.

00:09:20.980 There are a number of different fronts that we see this on.

00:09:24.220 There is, of course, a human resources aspect.

00:09:27.160 There's a privacy aspect.

00:09:28.440 There's a constitutional aspect.

00:09:30.240 And there's a moral aspect of this.

00:09:32.160 To go back to what we've heard from all of the panelists today about is this a right that belongs to the individual student or is this a right that belongs to a university or an employer or whatever the case is.

00:09:42.780 So what do you think is the most likely front on which we could emerge victorious in this?

00:09:48.020 Do you think it is going to be in law?

00:09:49.820 Do you think it's going to be through the university just realizing the error of its ways?

00:09:53.600 Where do you think that weak point is?

00:09:57.060 Well, there are some legal avenues to pursue, and I trust that they will be and hope they will be successful.

00:10:04.500 But I think even better than that is the possibility that the students themselves will take this into their own hands and say, I'm not doing this.

00:10:14.420 I mean, I love the name of Kendra's group, you know, Students for Agency, and agency is the key word here.

00:10:21.560 And in a way, this might be a moment of truth for a lot of people in her peer group.

00:10:29.980 It might be the moment to figure out, you know, a moment to have a real education in the sense that reading books won't provide to you.

00:10:40.300 In the realization that the world does not always work the way it's portrayed, and your elders might not actually have your best interests at heart.

00:10:50.080 And our institutions and our governments might not be the benign places and outfits that they're portrayed as.

00:10:57.740 And there's an old saying that education is not the filling of a pail, but the starting of a fire.

00:11:05.040 And maybe, just maybe, enough students will be in a corner now and realize the pressure that's being put on them in the interests of other people, other people's fears.

00:11:20.440 Because, as Dr. Fulford alludes to, the case for, on balance, these boosters being a net benefit to this age group is really not very good.

00:11:39.900 And so, if you're not given the opportunity to make your own cost-benefit analysis, that means you're being taken advantage of.

00:11:48.020 And, you know, I hope that enough students will say, not me, I'm not doing that.

00:11:54.060 I want to get to Dr. Fulford on that in a moment, but let me first get you on this, Kendra.

00:11:58.700 Because I know that the Twitter chattering class, which is never, I think, what you want to extrapolate too much from,

00:12:04.320 was kind of doing the frame-by-frame analysis of all the footage from the weekend and saying,

00:12:08.780 well, that person looks like they're not a student, and that person looks like it.

00:12:11.760 And you had a lot of people there that were parents, faculty.

00:12:14.080 So, I didn't take having an age demographic that wasn't just 20-somethings to mean anything significant here.

00:12:20.340 But are you finding that there are actually students that are prepared to speak up about this?

00:12:26.180 Because I know there was one gentleman who spoke who was a med student who didn't want to use his last name, understandably so. 1.00

00:12:32.200 And I spoke to some other students that, as well, didn't want to be identified on record.

00:12:36.340 And there is a lot of fear, students that don't want to jeopardize their academic career by even criticizing this.

00:12:43.180 So, what are you finding in the students you're talking to with, you know, classes set to start in just a little over a week?

00:12:49.720 It's been interesting to see.

00:12:51.000 We've had a lot of students come forward in private.

00:12:53.980 A lot of the parents we spoke to at the rally came without their children.

00:12:58.760 And they told us, my daughter's scared to be here, or my son's going into his third year, and he doesn't want to get another shot, but he didn't want to come today.

00:13:06.620 And there's a lot of hesitation.

00:13:08.640 And who can blame them?

00:13:09.920 They're put in a position where the pressure is already mounting.

00:13:13.580 And when you are, especially for the students coming out of high school, the students who haven't, maybe haven't been vaccinated at all yet, because it wasn't required, now have to get three, now have to wear a mask.

00:13:24.540 And they're going to a school, maybe Western, maybe a smaller classroom dynamic, such as King's in Huron.

00:13:32.640 And they want to make a good impression.

00:13:34.420 They want to network and meet professors and ensure good job perspectives after school.

00:13:39.940 And they want to fit in with their peers.

00:13:41.900 So speaking up is, you know, is becoming a much more difficult option for a lot of students.

00:13:48.140 So the fact that we have some momentum building between students is something we want to take advantage of.

00:13:52.620 And we want to make sure students do not get silenced by the university.

00:13:57.120 Dr. Fulfur, you said something on the weekend that really stuck with me, in that you talked about how people have different priorities.

00:14:05.380 And for some people, it might be taking every preventative treatment available, taking every vaccine available, really making sure they're the very portrait of health.

00:14:14.340 For other people, religious values or cultural values of some kind might be more important to them.

00:14:20.940 And that's an idea that I think is very difficult for a lot of people that may not have that same identity to wrap their heads around.

00:14:28.540 And I was wondering if you could elaborate on that, because that really seems to be one of the real fault lines here, is that people who are vaccinated themselves, who support mandates, don't understand or respect why someone wouldn't be vaccinated, it seems.

00:14:42.360 And this is, again, I think it comes down to the issue of patient autonomy, we've always respected somebody's decisions, there are some people who, for example, if they have a critical illness will choose every conceivable medical intervention to prolong life at any cost.

00:15:00.200 And that might involve very invasive surgeries, it might involve really toxic chemotherapies, even understanding that, that, you know, the chances of a good outcome are poor, but they still want that outcome no matter what.

00:15:15.100 There are other people who might choose to say the quality of life is more important, and they refuse all treatment.

00:15:22.020 We have, there are a great many people, for example, who refuse all blood products, and now maybe I personally don't share that belief, because I don't, I'm a physician.

00:15:34.900 On the other hand, I would never, ever impose my thoughts on the pros and cons of a blood transfusion on somebody who is fundamentally religiously opposed to that.

00:15:45.020 And this, this idea of respecting the sort of the values and the beliefs of other people in our society has always, at least up until now, been a fundamental part of the kind of medicine I was taught to practice.

00:16:00.720 There's one thing I just want to backtrack a little bit on, one of the justifications for mandates, which clearly do trample on a lot of these principles I'm talking about,

00:16:09.960 was that it would, that they would, that being vaccinated would also keep other people safe.

00:16:15.420 And this is a really important thing to clarify.

00:16:18.300 The individual benefit for the vaccination remains, and of course, that would be most seen in somebody who's at high risk in the first place.

00:16:28.300 But this thought that the vaccines stop onward transmission is pretty obviously not happening.

00:16:35.140 And the studies are very, very clear that the vaccines, and even possibly a booster, maybe they reduce transmission for two to four months.

00:16:45.920 If they do, it's not by very much.

00:16:48.680 And so that, that community value, or that sort of public health value, that somehow we're going to stop all transmission simply is not there.

00:16:56.520 And so that is a rationale for imposing, you know, a medical decision on somebody with, with very coercive means, because we are clearly coercing young, young people.

00:17:09.120 If we're saying, do this thing you don't want to do, or you cannot come to school, get an education.

00:17:14.920 Is, is that even that argument that maybe we have to sacrifice individual rights for, for the greater good is simply not true.

00:17:23.720 And, and I think anybody looks around at what's happened with Omicron, what's going on now, it's, it's very clear.

00:17:29.480 So that in no way does, what is, does this take away from the individual decision to decide whether or not you want this, that, that my beliefs and my values say it's better to, to get a boost than not.

00:17:41.400 But that's for me, or for the individual making a decision, it's not for the benefit of anybody around you.

00:17:46.160 And this is a really important clarification, because I still hear a lot of people saying, oh, it's to keep everybody safe.

00:17:51.220 And, and it, it, it's not stopping transmission, which means that we really do need to return to exactly, you know, what you're saying in your question, which is respecting people's individual values and what's right for them.

00:18:05.200 That, I think is a tremendous point.

00:18:08.520 And I'd like to get you, Julie, to continue along that vein, if you don't mind, because one thing that would also strike me, if you look at the list that Western has published of who this applies to and who it doesn't, is that Western knows it's not a public safety, which is why there are certain situations.

00:18:23.940 Like if you're a, an entire visiting athletic team, you don't need to be triple vaccinated, but if you are a parent going to your child's convocation, you do.

00:18:32.340 And if you are, as the text says, if you're a visiting donor or visiting alumni, you don't need to be.

00:18:37.700 But if you're a visiting donor who is enrolled as a student, you do.

00:18:41.340 So if it's, if everyone is a disease vector, you have to have a policy that applies to absolutely everyone.

00:18:46.920 So do you think, Julie, that these sort of exemptions they put are indicative that they themselves don't believe in this idea that you being vaccinated is to protect someone else?

00:18:59.500 Well, it's very hard to see because on paper, on the screen, it's very hard to see the rationality of it.

00:19:05.980 As you pointed out just now and on Saturday, viruses don't distinguish on the basis of economics or on the basis of political participation or on the basis of ideology.

00:19:16.920 Or on the basis of whether or not you're an athlete, you know, so it's very hard to understand.

00:19:21.420 We certainly have been hearing a possibility that the Western Faculty Association has very much been pushing for this.

00:19:29.320 I also spoke with a member of senior administration on the weekend at another Ontario university, one that's close by,

00:19:36.680 who said that there was some thought among senior administration at all the universities in Canada that,

00:19:41.560 that they would move in lockstep with one another about these mandates that Western would announce first and that the others would follow.

00:19:49.200 Western did announce early comparative, you know, relative to them, and it has not gone well for them.

00:19:55.460 So it's very hard to understand, you know, but I have to emphasize, you know, making this announcement at this point,

00:20:02.400 within two weeks of the start of class and ambushing students who have, and it's not that they can't say no at this point.

00:20:10.040 And I certainly hope if they, if it is not their free choice to get this booster dose,

00:20:16.260 I certainly hope they do say no and that they will incur the consequences of that and try to find alternative options.

00:20:24.480 But what Western should have done, I mean, nothing scientific has changed since the spring.

00:20:29.900 If anything, as Dr. Fulford has said, it's becoming less and less clear that there is any benefit to the vaccination for the population,

00:20:38.920 especially for a young population like, like Western's population.

00:20:42.380 So it's not like they've gained any new information that they didn't have a month ago or three months ago

00:20:47.580 to suggest that the students are more at risk or that the faculty is more at risk than they might have been.

00:20:52.340 So this is something they should have publicized.

00:20:54.780 And then the students would have had in March or June, even an option to apply to or enroll or transfer to another university in the province or out of out of province at a college.

00:21:06.960 They could have had the option to enroll at Fanshawe and actually know a couple of students who are pursuing that option or not or not pursue their studies at all.

00:21:15.220 Now they've paid some portion of their tuition and there's a financial penalty for withdrawing at this point.

00:21:19.880 As Bruce was saying earlier, you know, what is the the goal of education is not to put ideas into the student's mind,

00:21:26.960 but to sort of light a fire of curiosity so that they can pursue their own ideas.

00:21:31.300 And I think, you know, in sort of sync with that idea is that the mark of a truly free, successful education system is that the students feel free to disagree with their educators.

00:21:42.400 And if you have created a context in which they do not have that freedom, if there isn't a culture or a spirit or an atmosphere of that kind of freedom,

00:21:49.980 then that's a sign to us that we are failing massively as educators and institutions.

00:21:55.500 Yeah, though, that's very well said.

00:21:57.400 And it was interesting, Bruce, last year when Western was one of the earlier ones to put in a vaccine mandate,

00:22:03.680 they were very boastful when they had like a ninety nine point nine percent vaccination rate.

00:22:08.720 And they said, you know, we're so proud that we've gotten our campus up to, you know, basically one hundred percent vaccination.

00:22:13.920 I'm like, well, that doesn't seem all that impressive when you threaten to expel and fire anyone who's not vaccinated.

00:22:20.780 I think it's like that that's one of the easiest things to do.

00:22:23.100 It's like Australia has mandatory voting.

00:22:25.380 So, yes, Australia will have a very high voting rate because there's a criminal penalty if you don't vote.

00:22:29.980 So when students do go along with this because they are coerced, because they feel no other option, that is not a win.

00:22:39.100 But the people that promote these mandates view it as a win, which is, I think, even worse,

00:22:43.560 because they're enjoying the fact that they've been able to make someone who otherwise wouldn't have done this do this.

00:22:49.420 You're putting your finger on what's actually going on, Andrew.

00:22:54.400 Every now and then I get there.

00:22:55.920 Yeah, no, but the occasional claim that this is about keeping other people safe, as Dr. Fulford alludes to, is, I mean, I don't think very many people would seriously make that claim now based upon the data.

00:23:08.960 So it's really a paternalistic, patronizing idea that, you know, in some kind of abstract way, vaccines are good and we have a population and we think you should do this and therefore we're going to make it mandatory.

00:23:25.380 And it's hardly a thing to gloat about that you have made your population do a certain thing and they've gone along with it.

00:23:36.080 In an institution that is supposed to be promoting independent thinking, to gloat that you've managed to get 99% of your student body to go along with it is no victory.

00:23:47.000 That that's, that's, that's a very bad sign, you know, in some ways for, for many students, many young students, this may be for some of them, the, the, the first real crisis or the first real political crisis anyway,

00:24:04.800 in terms of dealing with external authorities who want to tell you what to do in a way that it's contrary to your own interests and it's very important for them to, to recognize the moment and not just go along, to be very careful, to think it through, act deliberately so that they don't do something they may regret for the rest of their lives, both in health terms and in terms of being,

00:24:31.340 showing some integrity to themselves, to be able to look in the mirror and say, you know what, I did think for myself, I did act in my own best interests.

00:24:41.160 Don't just put your head down and go with the crowd. This is not the moment for that.

00:24:46.680 Kendra, you may, you would know better than me and those, the rest of us on the panel here, but Western, it does not seem like from my perspective, has done all that much to try to be accommodating with online classes, for example.

00:24:59.660 You know, I was talking to a couple of people on the weekend who had said that the online offerings are, are minimal, especially compared to last year when it was a bit of a hybrid and two years ago when eventually it was all online.

00:25:10.480 So it's not even like this is something that they're approaching in good faith and making sure that students that aren't able to come to campus have options and quite the contrary,

00:25:18.380 because students who are online students still have to be vaccinated if their class has an in-person exam.

00:25:24.160 So to come in person for that three hours in April, you need to be fully vaccinated in October.

00:25:30.320 So when you're looking around here, students that are still holding out hope that this will change in the next week, what are the options realistically that you have?

00:25:40.740 And I mean, in your case, you're in a master's program, which I know is even narrower as far as options you have compared to undergrad students.

00:25:47.540 The options are slim, and that's the, that's the case.

00:25:52.420 We heard from students last year who went to submit exemptions, both the religious creed exemptions and the medical exemptions, who got their exemptions denied.

00:26:00.260 There were plenty of students who had genuine medical exemptions who were denied.

00:26:03.800 And when they, when they reached out to, you know, their own students council or the accessibility resource center through campus, they were told, it's okay, you must just be, you know, this must be just kind of like an outlier will help you.

00:26:16.600 And then they were put to the side.

00:26:18.000 And that didn't become the exception.

00:26:20.400 That was the rule.

00:26:21.680 So there is a contradiction in effort.

00:26:24.260 And I'd say like the motivations behind things and the concern for students that doesn't really appear to be there.

00:26:30.440 So yes, I'd say that I'd say most of the online classes are not going to be available for students who do not have the three doses.

00:26:39.440 That was the case last year because of those in-person exams.

00:26:42.820 I don't think I could name five classes that would actually have an online exam personally.

00:26:47.680 So the limit, the options are limited and they, we can assume that's because they want you to be put into a corner.

00:26:56.200 They don't want students to be able to make that choice for themselves, which is sad as, you know, as Bruce was saying, but these students, especially coming out of high school are typically 18 and older.

00:27:06.640 We can vote.

00:27:07.680 We can choose the political trajectory of our country, but we can't choose what we want to do with our own health.

00:27:12.900 Well, have you heard from students that got the two doses last year because Western or another university made them, but this year they're saying, you know what, the booster is a bridge too far.

00:27:25.900 Students that went along but are not prepared to this time.

00:27:29.240 Yes, I'd say that that was actually a good portion of the students we heard from from the rally who got it, thought it was a sort of an admission fee for freedom.

00:27:40.880 You know, we were going to resume normalcy.

00:27:42.980 That was what we were told.

00:27:44.240 We went through a year of online schooling and mental health issues and struggles and lack of resources and feeling completely isolated.

00:27:51.600 We were told, OK, if you do two shots, you can come back to campus.

00:27:55.160 Things will only get better from here.

00:27:56.880 And now that is not the case.

00:27:58.420 That was the lie that we were sold and people are going to put their foot down and rightfully so.

00:28:03.040 Yeah, and I think there is understandably a fear that people could have that is not going to be over.

00:28:09.920 I mean, Dr. Fulford, you were mentioning about how there may only be a real tangible benefit on transmission for a few months.

00:28:16.140 So it could be very likely that Western in January is saying fourth dose or whatever the advice goes there.

00:28:21.960 So when you hear about some of these concerns, whether it's from someone that has a religious objection or someone that perhaps has had a vaccine injury or knows someone who has had one, and it goes back to that individualized approach.

00:28:36.520 But institutions have also been very reticent to honor exemptions.

00:28:40.740 You've had doctors that have been very reticent to give exemptions.

00:28:43.340 And I'm wondering if you could speak to how that issue has factored in here, not even just with Western, but in general with vaccine mandates, this politicization of exemptions.

00:28:54.360 I mean, it's something extraordinary for me to see.

00:28:58.100 I mean, to the point that our college, the College of Physicians and Surgeons Ontario even sort of said that there'd be very, very few reasons for an exemption.

00:29:06.940 You know, under normal circumstances, the medical history of a patient of mine is confidential.

00:29:16.920 In the past, before COVID, if I wrote a letter for somebody for medical reason, one of the actual, you know, I don't say rule, but we weren't supposed to talk about the actual details of a person's medical history.

00:29:30.800 So I would say this person is exempt, you know, please excuse this person for whatever, because the reason might have been, could be a mental health issue.

00:29:39.980 It could be perhaps the person had in the past HIV infection.

00:29:44.540 It might be for severe mental health struggles.

00:29:48.300 I mean, we don't reveal a patient's medical history.

00:29:50.980 This is very confidential between the physician and the patient.

00:29:53.960 And now we're suddenly in a position where not only are we supposed to breach that, in a lot of cases, we're supposed to disregard our patient's sort of values and preferences.

00:30:03.520 For some, we were supposed to disregard their history.

00:30:07.040 There were actually, you know, some people saying, well, myocarditis is mild.

00:30:11.480 They could just get another dose.

00:30:13.860 You know, sure, some people recover from myocarditis, but some don't.

00:30:17.400 Some have permanent damage.

00:30:18.620 We had people in our intensive care unit from vaccine-induced myocarditis.

00:30:22.440 Again, I'm not saying it was that common, but it was real, and it remains real.

00:30:28.180 And so we need to, for me, I mean, we need to go back to honoring that sort of physician-patient relationship and honoring that.

00:30:40.880 I mean, I tried to write some letters, for example, for people who had just recovered from COVID.

00:30:45.520 A person who's just had infection develops a very strong immune response to this.

00:30:50.240 And it is, for me, immunologically, epidemiologically highly bizarre to say somebody who's just recovered from infection needs to be vaccinated.

00:31:02.040 This is sort of unprecedented for me.

00:31:04.700 Prior to COVID, we always actually accepted proof of immunity for most infections.

00:31:10.160 And so a lot of this became strange.

00:31:12.900 I, you know, HR would reject letters of exemption where I said this person has documented proof of recovery.

00:31:20.220 There is no reason this person be vaccinated for at least six months, which is actually as per Massey guidelines.

00:31:27.320 And they were still being rejected.

00:31:29.140 So it's very unusual.

00:31:31.360 And it made me, I personally felt extremely uncomfortable in what was going on in terms of, again, and I'm going back to medical ethics.

00:31:43.120 Because we, when talking about these vaccines, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of understanding what they do do, who benefits, but also what they don't do.

00:31:54.700 And, and, and that's this part about, they don't stop a person from testing positive and they don't stop a person from transmitting.

00:32:02.380 There may be some small decrease in, in transmission for the first few months, but, but that's what the studies unequivocally show.

00:32:10.220 And the studies unequivocally show that men under the age of 40 are at a higher risk for myocarditis from the vaccines than they are from the infection themselves.

00:32:20.660 And the, this information should be transparent, it should be open, and it should be part of the conversation when encouraging, or at least when discussing with a patient, whether or not that individual should, you know, basically risk and benefits to that individual.

00:32:38.500 One of the interesting demographics I've heard more and more people fall into is those who know someone who's had a vaccine injury, and because of that knowledge, they're a bit reticent, which I totally understand.

00:32:51.880 I mean, I have talked to people that had a very terrible reaction from a first dose or second dose.

00:32:56.620 They can get a doctor to sign off on that and say, okay, you're exempt because of this reaction.

00:33:01.060 But if you have a loved one that went through that, and you may say, well, I'm not sure if I want to go through that as well, that doesn't get you an exemption, even though I think you have a very real reason to be frustrated about this.

00:33:12.660 And I'll go to you on this, Julie, because I think all of these different situations really show the complexity of this.

00:33:18.620 There is, there was a woman I met on Saturday who's a member of a faculty.

00:33:22.360 She was really enthusiastic, got her first dose, and had a terrible reaction, had partial paralysis.

00:33:28.900 You know, doctor recognized it, Western recognized it, but now Western wants to make her reapply for her exemption, and she's worried that because she's not as acute this time, she could have an issue, or that she just has to go through it again.

00:33:42.540 And, you know, you can point to lots of different people that have very good reasons for not wanting to, but I feel in a way, once you go down that road, you're missing the mark to some extent, because the whole point is that it's not Western that should be the arbiter of this.

00:33:56.840 Well, that's exactly right, and reasons come in all kinds of different forms.

00:34:01.200 And informed consent, which is, as Martha has been saying, it's so core, not just to medical practice, but to who we are as persons.

00:34:10.680 And now we're at a place in our country where young people have to choose.

00:34:15.740 You choose between your right to have an education and your right to bodily autonomy, your right not to have your body invaded.

00:34:24.160 And making an informed choice, it's not about, it's not as though, as a group, we're going to figure out what the best medical choice is, and then we download that to each individual.

00:34:35.600 And if you don't make that choice, then we consider you not to have the capacity to make an informed choice, right?

00:34:42.540 So informed consent and capacity assessments are very complicated, and my concern now is that someone who chooses not to be vaccinated is considered not to have the capacity to make an informed choice to be vaccinated or not.

00:34:55.420 I mean, I think we've been at that point in the country, and I hope we're turning around, but I think, I would hope to say, I hope people who are listening realize that one of the very best reasons why this should always be a matter of personal choice

00:35:07.040 is because you, not your professor, not Western, not our Prime Minister, will bear the consequences if it goes badly for you.

00:35:17.280 And for that reason, and almost no other reason, it should be up to you and your choice should be supported.

00:35:23.600 You know, I did want to say, I've had some really encouraging, I mean, there's a question going forward, what do we do about all of this?

00:35:30.060 And I've had some really encouraging emails from people in the Western community who are donors, who said, after they saw the rally on Saturday, so Kendra, this is a testament to all your effort there.

00:35:39.740 They are writing strong letters to the President's Office, to VP External Affairs, and threatening to withdraw support if this mandate isn't rescinded.

00:35:50.020 So I think we're at a really crucial moment.

00:35:52.080 Western is in a terrible position.

00:35:53.620 I would not want to be responsible for, you know, for Western's public image right now, but that could, we're at a precipice, right?

00:36:03.020 It could come or go depending on what students do in the next days, in the next week or two, and we have to do everything possible to support them.

00:36:11.300 There is, Kendra, you might know this better than I, but University Students Council is having a vote on the 31st, I believe, so two days from now, about whether or not to challenge the university's mandate.

00:36:21.080 That would be huge. I mean, I think the more students can come together and say, this is not really about the science anymore.

00:36:27.720 This is about the fact that we are independent, autonomous people, and we're paying tuition to make ourselves more so, and you're trying to counter that at every turn, and we're not going to take it anymore.

00:36:39.840 Yeah, and I think on that note, too, I mean, you look at the number of students that are triple vaccinated already, and if you just extrapolate from the age data that's available, it's probably about a third.

00:36:51.980 And that's a lot of people that need to decide to go along with what Western's doing without seeing a huge drop in enrollment for the upcoming term.

00:37:00.060 I'll be fascinated to see those numbers. I'll give you the last word on this, Kendra. I'll ask you, first off, are you optimistic that this will change in the next week?

00:37:09.860 And also, you said at the beginning that Western has clarified this donor thing, so I would love for you to explain what you've learned on that.

00:37:17.640 Oh, gosh, the donor thing. That was, I think I was just tagged in it.

00:37:20.440 There's so much information coming through where I didn't give too much of a look, but I think they've been very careful to not make it very public,

00:37:26.760 because if it was public, I would have seen it. We do know that they're very slick sometimes in their messaging, but yeah, I would have to look into that for you.

00:37:37.900 No, that's okay. Yeah, because just for, if you hadn't seen the video, I found, and other people pointed out as well,

00:37:43.040 that Western says if you're visiting the campus because you're a donor, you're exempt from the vaccine requirement, but also if you're a prospective donor.

00:37:50.280 So I like waved a $5 bill in the air and said it's going to take me a whole year to think about whether I want to give this to them.

00:37:55.100 But in any case, the real question, are you optimistic at this point?

00:37:59.360 Yes, 100%. We are optimistic because we are Western. Students are Western. Without us, they have nothing.

00:38:08.580 We are, they're a publicly funded institution. They rely on us as paying customers.

00:38:13.580 They rely on these alumni donors who are upset, and they're in a terrible position, to be honest.

00:38:19.940 And they went through this without any student consultation. And I think if they did the bare minimum student consultation,

00:38:25.440 they would see the overwhelming direction this is going and would know if they're in the wrong.

00:38:30.940 So I am optimistic because this is what's right. This is what is supported by the data.

00:38:35.440 It's supported by the science. It's supported by public health and the people who pay to go there.

00:38:40.860 So I think we will win this.

00:38:43.700 Well, keep up the fight for sure. Kendra Hancock of Students for Agency and a student at Western.

00:38:49.400 Bruce Party, who is a Queen's law professor and executive director of Rights Probe.

00:38:53.840 Dr. Martha Fulford, a former infectious disease, well, current infectious disease specialist,

00:38:58.520 but formerly a staff physician specifically dealing with children.

00:39:02.240 And she's done tremendous work over the last two and a half years in that regard.

00:39:05.560 Dr. Martha Fulford and ethics scholar for the Democracy Fund, Dr. Julie Panessi.

00:39:10.520 So we've got a lawyer, a doctor, a Western student and an ethicist all saying this is wrong.

00:39:15.980 I think you have to listen to that, Western. But all of you, thank you so much for your efforts on this and for coming on today.

00:39:20.980 It's been a pleasure.

00:39:22.760 Thanks, Andrew.

00:39:23.980 Thank you.

00:39:24.840 That does it for me. What an absolutely tremendous panel.

00:39:28.640 My thanks to Bruce, Kendra, Martha and Julie. It was truly wonderful.

00:39:32.860 And like I said, when you have a lawyer, a student, a doctor, an ethicist all saying this is wrong, Western has to pay attention.

00:39:39.200 We are going to wrap it up there.

00:39:41.240 We will talk to you in a couple of days time with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North.

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Juno News - August 30, 2022

Why university vaccine mandates are harmful and unnecessary

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