BBC resident doctor Dr Chris Smith is very uneasy about the mandate
“…I don’t think you can ransom someone’s job over so great an uncertainty”.
Dr Smith
Below you’ll find the BBC’s resident celebrity doctor, Dr Chris Smith (aka ‘The Naked Scientist’), express grave concerns about the NHS vaccination mandate – including its lack of a scientific, evidence-based rationale. Dr Smith has been a fiercely loyal purveyor of the mainstream vaccination narrative since March 2020. He is regularly on BBC radio at least two or three times a week as their resident expert on Covid vaccines.
This forthright statement will be an acute embarrassment to the government and to Health Secretary Sajid Javed, to have such a normally loyal supporter of vaccination giving such a damning verdict on their NHS mandate. This transcript could even be used as evidence in a court case against the mandate.
Full Transcript
Radio 5 Live, Colin Murray Show, Tuesday 18 January 2022
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0013gnt
Start at 2 hours 9 mins [available online for 30 days from 18/1/22]
The ‘Naked Scientist’ and resident BBC expert doctor Dr Chris Smith answers a listener’s question on the NHS vaccine mandate.
Colin Murray [CM]: Angie’s messaged in – this is a sober one: we treat everyone with respect who comes on the programme and texts in. Angie had Covid in March 2020. She’s been on a study for over a year where she has a blood test every month to check her antibodies. She still has good levels of antibodies almost two years after infection. She’s been around and lived with people with Covid and has not been reinfected. She wants to ask you, Chris, what you think about the fact that she’s going to lose her job because she’s not been vaccinated – she works for the NHS. [unclear…]
Dr Chris Smith [CS]: I was literally reading some headlines saying that dismissals are going to have to start soon – probably within a couple of weeks. And I felt very uneasy, because I’ve had the HR department at my hospital saying, can all us lot who work there please send in our evidence of vaccination; and I said, “Look – are we to be treated like children now? Can we just not tell you whether we’ve been vaccinated or not?” And apparently no, you’ve got to produce these bits of paper; and [big sigh] – it made me feel a bit uneasy actually that, you know, I can’t be trusted. I can be trusted to save someone’s life; I can be trusted, you know, with their deepest darkest secrets; but I can’t be trusted to be honest about my vaccination status. And I said, no, I’m not sure I like the direction of travel…
Um, people are uneasy about this situation: we think about 95 per cent of staff in the health service have been vaccinated, and that gives us very high levels of protection. We only normally achieve about 50 per cent against the flu; so the fact that we’ve got to such high levels of protection is very reassuring. But at the same time we have a duty of care to our patients. At the moment the current guidance is that everyone should be vaccinated because if we catch the infection we can pass it on to our patients, and that can cause outbreaks on wards, it can cause loss of life. It could also cause outbreaks amongst other staff – this can lead to people being off work and not having enough staff.
I think this will probably be relaxed longer term, but currently they’ve decided – this is a line in the sand, these are the rules, this is what we want to do, regardless or not of whether people have had the infection or not. Very very tricky… – err, this individual is not alone; you probably saw the reports in the newspaper last week where a doctor in Kings College in intensive care was talking to the Health Secretary, and said, “Look – I’ve not been vaccinated; I’ve not been vaccinated because I’ve had the infection, I’ve got high levels of antibodies, and the vaccine’s not gonna give me anything I haven’t got already”. Sajid Javed disagreed with him and said, well I’ll take you to task on that. Um, but that’s his perspective.
CM: [Interrupting] Who’s right scientifically? – who’s right there? The doctor in that moment – what’s the difference…
CS: [Talking over Murray] We haven’t done a trial where we have not got data where you can say we took two identical people – a pair of twins or something – one of whom has had the infection, one of whom’s had the vaccine, and we’ve followed them up and exposed them, and looked at who’s better protected. We’ve only got indirect evidence for this; and there will be people who’ve had the infection who’ve got really high levels of antibody and are protected – definitely. There will also be people who’ve got the infection, got it mildly, didn’t get a very good response and are probably highly re-infectable. But this is very very difficult: I think we’re on very shaky grounds because I think, you know – it’s a valid point: if you’ve had the infection recently, or in the past, and you have high levels of anti-body, how protected are you? Well actually, we don’t know for sure; and for that reason I don’t think you can ransom someone’s job over so great an uncertainty.
If this was something where this is a black-and-white case, then it would be simple. But it’s not black and white; it’s more nuanced, and I think that this is getting very tricky and very uncomfortable, very quickly – and I do wonder what the government’s next move will be: whether or not they decide that they’re absolutely going to continue with this. It could rob them of perhaps 5 per cent of their workforce, which, with an employer who employ on the scale of the NHS, and at a time when hanging on to staff is a problem, I think it could represent quite a significant misstep. On the other hand, it will significantly pull the rug from under their credibility if, having said they’re gonna do this, they then step back from this and say, ‘Actually we’re not gonna do that’. And so I really… – I can see why they want to put a line in the sand and say they want to do this, but I’m not sure they’re on firm ground with the arguments they’re making.
ENDS