A dangerous document that puts lives at risk

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This article was published 29/01/2025 (282 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A task force commissioned by the Alberta government to review that province’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has released its final report and, in doing so, has put the health of millions at risk.

The task force’s mandate was to review health information data and the Alberta government’s decision-making processes regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, while also recommending how to better navigate a future pandemic.

That sounds reasonable, but the findings and recommendations of the panel are far from reasonable.

The task force recommends “halting the use of COVID-19 vaccines without full disclosure of their potential risks, ending their use in healthy children and teenagers, conducting further research into their effectiveness, establishing support for vaccine-injured individuals, and providing an opt-out mechanism from federal public health policy.”

It promotes “infection-acquired immunity” (characterized by many as “herd immunity”) and alleges — contrary to clear scientific findings — that there is no “quality data” that supports the conclusion that vaccines provide better protection from severe disease than natural exposure. It recommends that public health information “avoid ideological bias geared toward maximizing vaccine coverage.”

The report also argues that Alberta should no longer impose mask mandates in order to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses because “there is no benefit for masking asymptomatic individuals.”

Beyond that, the panel recommends that the Alberta government should amend its Human Rights Act in order to protect “public discussion of alternative medical treatments.” It encourages the government to prevent professional regulatory bodies from utilizing “professionalism or codes of conduct” in order to prevent the off-label use of medications.

Specifically, the report calls for the province to allow doctors to prescribe alternative treatment options for the COVID-19 virus, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, despite the fact their safety and effectiveness for that purpose has been repeatedly debunked by multiple scientific studies.

In response to the many reckless conclusions and recommendations contained in the report, several of Canada’s leading health-care professionals have been quick to express their concerns.

Manitoba’s Dr. Joss Reimer is the president of the Canadian Medical Association, which represents all of Canada’s doctors. She also helped lead Manitoba’s response to the pandemic. She says that the report “promotes misinformation and has the potential to create mistrust of the medical and scientific communities.”

Dr. Shelley Duggan, the president of the Alberta Medical Association, says the report is “anti-science and anti-evidence.” She argues that it “advances misinformation (and) sows distrust.” She is concerned that it “criticizes proven preventive public health measures,” advances “fringe approaches” and “makes recommendations for the future that have real potential to cause harm.”

Dr. Brian Conway, the medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre, told Global News that the report “is completely dangerous … It’s taking a lot of pieces of information completely out of context.”

Dr. John Conly, the former head of the University of Calgary’s medical department, is named as a contributor to the report but has demanded that his name be removed from the document. He says that his interaction with the task force solely consisted of a one-hour interview, and that he’s actually “a big promoter of vaccines.”

It is easy to dismiss the findings and recommendations in the report as the predictable product of a collection of anti-vax kooks and conspiracy theorists, and it’s just as easy to recommend that it be ignored by the public. The fact the task force was commissioned by the Alberta government, however, and reportedly given $2 million to do its work, gives the task force and its report more presumptive credibility than either deserves — and that’s what makes the contents of the report so dangerous.

When the next pandemic emerges, as it inevitably will, the findings and recommendations within the report could cause governments to reconsider, diminish or delay their response to the threat, needlessly putting lives at risk.

Similarly, many of those who are concerned about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines generally — not just COVID vaccines — will view the report as validating their concerns. That mis-perception could easily result in fewer children being vaccinated for such illnesses as chickenpox and measles, potentially leading to otherwise preventable outbreaks that endanger the lives of citizens, children in particular.

The guiding principle of health care is to “do no harm.” The Alberta report violates that rule by a large margin. By manipulating the facts and science regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, it jeopardizes the health and well-being of Albertans and, indeed, all Canadians.

It is a dangerous document, for which Danielle Smith’s Alberta government bears the blame.