Why weren't doctors, nurses and pharmacists warned not to collaborate with coercive and mandatory COVID-19 vaccination?

Devastating failure to protect the public by the regulators of the medical profession

In September 2021, the regulator of health practitioners in Australia, Ahpra, responded to my repeated calls for the defence of voluntary informed consent for vaccination, acknowledging that “Practitioners have an obligation to obtain informed consent for treatment, including vaccination. Informed consent is a person’s voluntary decision about health care that is made with knowledge and understanding of the benefits and risks involved”.

Yet in June 2021, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly and the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), and then Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Premiers and Chief Ministers in National Cabinet destroyed the principle of voluntary informed consent for vaccination when they announced COVID-19 vaccination was going to be compulsory for residential aged care workers.

This opened the floodgates for coercive and mandatory COVID-19 vaccination around Australia.

Why didn’t Ahpra and the National Boards challenge this assault on voluntary informed consent for vaccination? This is a devastating failure by Ahpra and the National Boards to protect the public from coercive and mandatory medical interventions.

Please see below my email to Ahpra and the National boards, calling them to account for this situation, as also discussed in my recent interview with Melinda Richards on TNT Radio.

This matter is also relevant to consider in other countries where coercive and mandatory vaccination was imposed upon populations - how did regulators and professional organisations let this happen?

(Thanks to Kate Smyth and Emma McArthur for their advice on this correspondence.)

Email forwarded to Ahpra on 5 July 2024:

Original email accessible via this link.

For the attention of:

- Martin Fletcher, CEO, Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra)

- Anne Tonkin, Chair, Medical Board of Australia

- Members of the 15 National Boards

Dear Martin Fletcher, Anne Tonkin and Members of the National Boards, in 2021, why didn't Ahpra and the National Boards issue a Position Statement warning practitioners - e.g. doctors, nurses, pharmacists - not to collaborate with coercive and mandatory COVID-19 vaccination, which contravenes practitioners' legal and ethical obligation to obtain voluntary informed consent for vaccination? 

In June 2021, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly and his colleagues on the AHPPC capitulated to the demand of then Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Premiers and Chief Ministers in National Cabinet to make COVID-19 vaccination compulsory for residential aged care workers, see the timeline in this article, copy attached.

This was a political decision, not a health decision, as raised by the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation at the time.

This destruction of the principle of voluntary informed consent for vaccination opened the floodgates to coercive and mandatory COVID-19 vaccination around the country, e.g. with then Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announcing in September 2021 that a 'vaccinated economy' was being implemented in Victoria. 

The plan was to exclude people from their livelihood and participation in society as a penalty for refusing to submit to COVID-19 vaccination, with the medical establishment expected to cooperate with this coercive and mandatory vaccination agenda.

Ironically, in the same month, September 2021, I finally received a response from Ahpra to my repeated calls for the defence of voluntary informed consent for vaccination, with National Complaints Manager Amanda Watson advising me that Ahpra and the National Boards primary role is "to protect the public", and confirming that:

Practitioners have an obligation to obtain informed consent for treatment, including vaccination. Informed consent is a person's voluntary decision about health care that is made with knowledge and understanding of the benefits and risks involved. (My emphasis.)

The Medical Board and Ahpra's Good medical practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia, 4.5 Informed consent notes:

Informed consent is a person's voluntary decision about medical care that is made with knowledge and understanding of the benefits and risks involved. (My emphasis.)

The Australian Immunisation Handbook states under Valid consent:

For consent to be legally valid, the following elements must be present...It must be given voluntarily in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation...It can only be given after the potential risks and benefits of the relevant vaccine, the risks of not having it, and any alternative options have been explained to the person. (My emphasis.)

Martin Fletcher, Anne Tonkin and Members of the National Boards - why didn't Ahpra and the National Boards challenge the plan for compulsory vaccination hatched by the Scott Morrison-led National Cabinet, and CMO Paul Kelly and the AHPPC? 

Why didn't Ahpra and the National Boards warn practitioners - e.g. doctors, nurses, pharmacists - not to collaborate with this attack on voluntary informed consent for vaccination? Given Ahpra's primary role is "to protect the public", this is a devastating failure.

The rot started with the Ahpra Position Statement 9 March 2021, which lays out "the National Boards' expectations of Australian registered health practitioners in regard to: being vaccinated against COVID-19; administering COVID-19 vaccines; and providing advice and information about COVID-19 vaccination", and calls for practitioners to 'educate' the public about the importance and safety of COVID-19 vaccines "to ensure high participation rates". The Ahpra Position Statement notes practitioners with "a conscientious objection to COVID-19 vaccination...must be careful not to discourage their patient or client from seeking vaccination", and warns that any promotion of "anti-vaccination statements...is not supported by National Boards and may be in breach of the codes of conduct and subject to investigation and possible regulatory action". (See superseded Ahpra Position Statement attached).

The 9 March 2021 Ahpra Position Statement dogmatically promotes the then Morrison Government's COVID-19 vaccination policy, essentially threatening practitioners to support the COVID-19 vaccination rollout without question, and fails to confirm the vitally important obligation for voluntary informed consent for COVID-19 vaccination.

Now, with reportedly 71.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in Australia, across a population of 26 million, including 2.4 million children, I contend there is no valid consent for these medical interventions which were aggressively pressed upon the community, including with threats of exclusion from society for non-compliance.

Coercion and mandates preclude voluntary informed consent for vaccination. 

There is no valid consent if people cannot say 'no' without penalty.

For further background on coercive and mandatory vaccination in Australia, please see my detailed article Misfeasance in Public Office? The Destruction of Voluntary Informed Consent for Vaccination, copy attached.

I request your early response on this matter.

Sincerely

Elizabeth Hart

Independent researcher investigating the vaccine industry and conflicts of interest in vaccination policy

vaccinationispolitical.net

elizabethhart.substack.com