Who is running pharmacovigilance?

Ebeneezer could add up.

In our last Dickensian post, we remarked that the MHRA was failing to respond to detailed questions about the possible important harms of Covid-19 vaccines. MHRA was pleading poverty of resources just like Dickens’s Ebenezer Scrooge. Remember, the focus is the worst possible outcome - deaths.

MHRA does not have a sterling record of responding to FOIs. Between 2008 and 2017, a low proportion of requests (41%) were successful. In comparison, the then most recently available data from the USA Food and Drug Administration in 2015 showed that of 10,611 FOI requests processed, 8130 (77%) were fully disclosed.

Here is a synopsis of the MHRA reasons for the refusal; it seems that Bob was on his own even then. Being Ebenezer Scrooge’s one and only employee, Bob Crutchit, sits in a cold and dirty room bent over his ledgers, overworked and underpaid in A Christmas Carol.

We wrote, “Given the plot theories swirling around possible Covid vaccine harms can anyone think of a higher priority? We are the…