KUCHING: Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing has questioned whether there have been convincing and authoritative studies carried out by the country’s Institute of Clinical Research (ICR) since its establishment to advocate for booster jabs.
He said ICR, which is under the Health Ministry (MOH) and publicly funded, has huge allocations but has only been citing data gleaned from foreign countries including the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“They seem to be solely toeing MOH’s line and coming up with confusing and unintelligible statements,” he said in a Facebook post on Saturday (Feb 12).
He pointed out that ICR’s latest statement cited research from Hong Kong and Brazil showing that mixed vaccinations can provide stronger protection.
However, he said, this was refuted by a British infectious disease expert who said that the efficacy of vaccinations for children under 12 is not significant.
“If MOH takes the information from foreign experts or institutions seriously, will the British expert’s remarks make them halt the child vaccination programme that was just started?
“With COVID-19 present in this country for the past two years, has the ICR actually performed its own clinical research on the pandemic? If so, why does it continue to refer to foreign countries’ data every time the topic comes up?
“Have we seen the data and analyses done on how to cope with it, or is the ICR unable or unwilling to share its views or strategies?” questioned Tiong, who is also Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) president and Dudong assemblyman.
In rebutting a Pharmaniaga statement on the efficacy of the Sinovac-Sinovac-Pfizer mixed regimen against the COVID-19 Omicron variant, he said ICR had come out to clarify the issue, but had instead created more confusion with its statement.
“Many have questioned whether there is a special relationship between the Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin and Pfizer in constantly pushing the latter’s vaccine despite public pressure from all quarters to allow recipients to choose their brand of vaccine boosters.
“Instead, we are seeing them restricting school children to the Pfizer booster. This is a puzzling decision and no satisfactory answer is in sight,” he said.
He questioned why the government does not allow people to choose their preferred brands of vaccines instead of allowing this controversy to build about mixing vaccines and trying to force the people into blindly using specific brands of vaccines.
“If mixing vaccines really won’t bring any side effects, how does MOH explain what happened in November last year when the ministry’s senior principal assistant director of traditional and complementary medicine received the booster and then suffered from colds and soreness constantly before tragically passing on suddenly?” he said, questioning how many people had faced side effects or even lost their lives suddenly after being vaccinated.
Tiong said the health system was unclear about the causes of these deaths and simply dismissed them as being attributed to the victims’ prevailing conditions.
He stressed that the health authorities needed to investigate the links between the side effects and various vaccines being used.
“I wish to stress that the Minister and Director-General of Health must stop acting like newscasters, holding press conferences to drone on about the daily confirmed data and where new clusters occurred, which are better confined to statements to news outlets.
“Their press conference should instead further explore the transmission paths of these clusters, how to prevent and suppress the infections, and properly advise the people on what actions need to be taken,” he said.
