A group of Quebec doctors and scientists is disappointed with the response from the province’s medical college regarding its efforts to engage on the issue of the safety of COVID-19 vaccination.
After sending several letters and obtaining a meeting with the Collège des médecins du Québec (CMQ) to express its concerns, the organization Réinfo Québec received a response from the CMQ president in late March.
“We wish to remind you that the Collège des médecins du Québec is a professional order and not a scholarly society,” CMQ president Mauril Gaudreault wrote in a March 26 email obtained by The Epoch Times.
“Therefore, it is not our responsibility to evaluate the many elements that you have raised during our meeting.”
Gaudreault then encouraged the group to instead raise its concerns with two provincial health bodies which he said would be more “appropriate discussion partners.”
Dr. René Lavigueur, a family physician and member of Réinfo, told The Epoch Times that even if the CMQ is not a scholarly society, he believes it has a duty to look into the matter as the ethical authority for the profession and as a defender of the public.
“When speaking about the [physician’s] code of ethics and the principle of precaution, one doesn’t need to be a scholar,” Lavigueur said.
The Epoch Times contacted Gaudreault and CMQ media relations for comment but didn’t hear back.
Although the issue of approving new medicine falls under the jurisdiction of Health Canada, with the provinces also having their related guidelines as the health-care providers, Réinfo wants the CMQ to look into the issue of vaccine safety given that it is the regulator of the physician profession in Quebec.
Réinfo Québec said it has also engaged the provincial health authorities, but without success.
The group has been active in the province since 2021, and has been critical of many different aspects of pandemic management by authorities.
Réinfo sent an open letter to the CMQ and Quebec’s public health directorate last October, saying that doctors have a duty to obtain free and informed consent from patients. It says this principle was not respected during the pandemic for a number of reasons, including that the COVID-19 vaccines were not tested along normal timetables.
The federal government issued a rare interim order in September 2020 to bring the products to market faster by creating an alternative pathway for their approval.
Dr. Celia Lourenco, the Health Canada official with final authority on the approval of vaccines in Canada, said under cross-examination in a court case last year that despite not following the normal pathway for drug approval, the review process was still robust.
“We did not change the requirements in terms of the evidence standard,” she said in June 2022 while testifying in defence of the federal travel vaccine mandate as part of court cases launched by citizens arguing that the mandate was unwarranted and unconstitutional. The action was dismissed in federal court and is being appealed.
Health Canada spokesperson Anne Génier told The Epoch Times that as with all COVID submissions for new drugs, the department “expedited the review process through the use of agile tools such as rolling reviews.” This means studies from the manufacturers are being received progressively and the products are approved before the full body of research is complete.
This “can shorten the overall time from the time a vaccine submission is provided to Health Canada and when it may be approved,” said Génier.
The federal government revealed in February that vaccine manufacturers sought and were given broad protection from liability for rushing products to market.
“So that’s why these companies said, ‘If I’m going to deliver you this product that I haven’t tested in my normal way, I want to have different conditions,’” Liberal MP Anthony Housefather told the House of Commons Committee on Public Accounts on Feb. 16. Housefather serves as parliamentary secretary to the minister of Public Services and Procurement.
While Dr. Lourenco said the review process had been robust, she mentioned that the COVID vaccines would not have been approved at the time had they shown their current level of effectiveness against infection, but said they’re kept on the market for their prevention of severe outcomes. Vaccine effectiveness wanes over time.
Health Canada’s website says that “Evidence indicates that vaccines and boosters are effective at helping to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death due to COVID-19,” and that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of the disease.
No Follow-Up
Réinfo says its October letter allowed the group to obtain a meeting with the CMQ in December where it presented its arguments, but there was no promised follow-up.The March 26 response from the CMQ came after Réinfo sent the college a follow-up letter on Feb. 9, again highlighting concerns on COVID-19 vaccination, and specifically as it pertains to children.
Health Canada recommends COVID-19 vaccination for children to help protect against severe outcomes. “Most children and youth who get COVID-19 have mild or no symptoms” but some “require hospitalization for complications, such as difficulty breathing,” says its website.
“The benefits of vaccines authorized in Canada, including for children, continue to outweigh the risks,” says spokesperson Génier.
Réinfo has called for the suspension of COVID-19 vaccination of children, citing their low risk of severe outcomes from the disease and the unknown long-term consequences from the injections.
The letter was signed by 121 scientists and health-care workers, including Dr. Lavigueur.
The group notes that some countries have stopped vaccinating the youth against COVID-19, such as Denmark, which also cites the low risk of severe illness. Switzerland has mostly stopped COVID-19 vaccination altogether, saying nearly everyone “has been vaccinated and/or contracted and recovered from COVID-19.”
Lavigueur says he understands the CMQ’s argument that they’re not a scholarly society, but wonders if it means the CMQ can “place itself on the sidelines of science.”
The doctor, who practises in the Gaspésie region in the eastern part of the province, says the CMQ, as an independent body, is the last line of defence to protect the public.
He admits that the issues Réinfo has engaged the college on involve complex scientific aspects, but says some of them are already widely discussed and recognized issues, such as the risk of vaccination-induced heart inflammation.
Health Canada says myocarditis and pericarditis are “rare reactions” following mRNA COVID-19 injections, but that they “seem to be occurring more often than expected” in adolescents and young adults.
Réinfo says the condition is not as rare nor as unremarkable as claimed. “A heart disease with a risk of serious mid-to-long term damage cannot be qualified as benign,” it wrote in its October letter.
The letter cites a 2022 study by Thai scientists, published in the peer-reviewed MDPI journal and referenced in the U.S. government National Library of Medicine, which found that 29 percent of its around 300 adolescent study participants experienced cardiovascular issues after receiving a second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, ranging from heart palpitations to inflammation.
