Here’s something for the Covid Inquiry to investigate.
In January, I wrote about the possibility of the ‘blame game’ starting between MHRA and Health Ministers. I had got hold of a letter dated November 17th 2020 from Professor Van Tam, then Deputy Chief Medical Officer (England), to June Raine, Head of MHRA, seeking her view on the suitability of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine Batch EJ0553 for Regulation 174 emergency authorisation. I had asked MHRA for a copy of June Raine’s reply to Van Tam but it said there wasn’t one and that ministers had taken all decisions regarding the Covid vaccines.
It’s taken me a while to find out what actually happened and I think it’s really odd. Judge for yourself.
In a normal world, MHRA would just have replied to Van Tam and copied it to ministers, given the significance of the issue. Instead, Lord Bethell, one of the Health Ministers, intervened and instructed MHRA to draft a reply for him to send to Van Tam, which he did on December 1st 2020.
