Stonewalling by the UKHSA on the H5N1 influenza case

Triple standards

Those who followed our tortuous investigations of the 5.5. Million doses of Avian Influenza H5N8 vaccine will recall the recent human case reported in England and our threat assessment in the Avian influenza trilogy:

The Avian Influenza Trilogy

As fans of Ronald Reagan's aphorism, “Trust but verify,” we wrote to the UKHSA asking for confirmation of the case. As you recall, there does not appear to be a clear case definition, and we were interested in the laboratory tests carried out, as test results do not identify individuals.

Here is the answer:

You can view the correspondence dated 19 February here.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot verify. Should we trust?

This is a strange refusal, as the UKHSA’s double standards are evident. In our post linked above, we mentioned our reader’s notification of this paper by Isabel Oliver et al. reporting a case in a flock keeper in early 2022. The case report extensively reports the information we were after in our FOIA request. Oliver’s affiliation is given as UKHSA.

In additio…