ANDREA ROWE is an osteopath of 17 years’ clinical practice with eight years of tertiary level study and two health science degrees. She owns and runs a private community clinic which provides employment for nine West Australians and serves thousands in their health choices. She is not an anti-vaxxer, as she and her three children are fully vaccinated under all prior WA health department schedules. 

DID you know that on Friday October 1, 2021, over 400 government healthcare workers held a peaceful protest outside the health department at the changes affecting their employment regarding the mandate to have the Covid-19 vaccine?

These Tier 1 frontline care nurses and doctors will risk a fine of up to $20,000 if they enter a public health care department building.  

In what appears to be a divide and conquer strategy, subsequent health department workers risk the same from November and December 1.

That’s administrative staff, cleaners, canteen workers, lab technicians.

For choosing to not take an un-trialled medication with widespread, international reports of adverse reactions, they will lose their ability to continue working. 

A vaccine which does not prevent contraction or transmission of Covid-19. 

These concerns are not held only by conspiracy theorists looking for spiritual validation as Kim Myint infers in his article. 

They are the scientific opinions of many immunologists, vaccinologists and medical doctors worldwide.  

Including Dr Robert Malone who invented MRNA technology and Dr Michael Yeadon who was vice president of Pfizer for 16 years.  

Both express grave concerns on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and can explain in detail how the concept of herd immunity being provided once we reach a magical figure of 80 or 90 per cent vaccination rates is completely unfounded in science. 

133 UK medical doctors and health workers sent a letter to their government on August 22 outlining their concerns on the false assumptions the pandemic response was based upon.  

A week later, the UK government voted against instituting vaccine passports. http://www.covid19assembly.org/. 

In a NSW unfair dismissal case of an aged care worker refusing a flu vaccine, the Fair Work Commission decision paper (under Fair Work act 2009 s 604 – Appeal of Decision in the Case of Jennifer Kimber v Sapphire Coast Community aged Care Ltd (C2021/2676)) on September 27 2021 made several points verifying these statements and concerns.

They include:

• Part 2, 105 – The stated position of the Australian government is that the (Covid) vaccine is Voluntary. Mandatory Vaccination can not be justified; 

 • Part 2, 113 – Covid vaccines are not designed to stop Covid;

• They are only provisionally approved for use in Australia and are accordingly still part of a clinical trial; 

• There are side effects to the Covid vaccines that are now known. That side effects exist is not a conspiracy theory; 

• The long-term effects of the Covid vaccines are unknown, and this is recognised by the TGA in Australia;

• Consent is required for participation in clinical trials;

• Part 2, 115 Coercion is not consent. Coercion is the practice of persuading someone to do something under force or threats. Some have suggested that there is no coercion in threatening a person with dismissal and withdrawing their ability to participate in society, if that person does not have the Covid vaccine. However, nothing could be further from the truth;

• Part 2, 117 – 129 cover the international laws on informed consent being potentially breached by mandatory vaccinations in the workplace; and,

• Part 2, 139 states critically there is another alternative to vaccines to assist employers in meeting their WHS obligations, that being testing. Given that there is no doubt that those who are fully vaccinated can catch and transmit the virus, testing (whether rapid antigen or otherwise) will provide employers with a level of comfort that a worker does not have Covid and therefore will not transmit Covid to others (that being the risk that is to be managed) in the workplace.

On the basis of these concerns I would request as a West Australian health worker and citizen that the directive on mandatory vaccination for WA health care workers be reversed and these workers be allowed to continue working in their professional roles. 

They are not a risk to the population. There is no pandemic of the unvaccinated. 

We are in the midst of a fear-fuelled misinformation agenda. 

These people and other industry workers under the same pressures are not a danger to anyone else. They are West Australians who want to provide for their families and pay their mortgages. 

There is a basis for having vaccine hesitancy that is not a conspiracy.

If current rates of vaccination are indicative, approximately 50 per cent of Australians hold concerns and have valid questions that their GPs can not answer.

There is woefully little open discussion of these questions within the mainstream media. Anyone raising them is painted as a dangerous extremist rather than a thinking, reading individual seeking to find information to make informed consent.

I would also like to state that there are ethical and legal issues with any business in Western Australia being encouraged to discriminate employment and regulate customer entry within their business on the basis of vaccination status.

Business owners can not provide informed consent on medications.

They also may be vulnerable legally should the vaccine prove to be less than safe in future.