Were ministers following the science, or the politics, on teen COVID vaccinations? Pt 1

Part 1: Who removed the myocarditis message from vaccine communications?

Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part Centrist investigation into teen COVID vaccination and myocarditis-related communications in August 2021. It draws largely on documents obtained via OIA requests by researchers Aly Cook and Sue Grey.

Part one asks why potentially relevant information about myocarditis was removed from public communications and whether the reasoning was scientific or political.

Part two asks why there is no reliable internal account of the Vaccine Ministers meeting at the centre of the decision sequence.

Part three asks why much of New Zealand’s media has largely declined to investigate either question. 

In brief

• On 13 August 2021, officials were considering whether to remove or soften wording saying longer gaps between Pfizer doses might reduce myocarditis risk.
• Four days later, CV TAG minutes recorded that the reference had been removed from communications and that “This has been actioned”.
• The Ministry has not identified who requested the change, which communication was altered or why.
• The documents establish the outcome, but not whether the decision was based on scientific caution, politics, or a communications strategy (based on their belief that the populace is too simple-minded to handle even minor distinctions?).

Did science or politics inform decision-making? 

In August 2021, New Zealand health officials faced what at least some in the approval process apparently thought was a sensitive question.

Should the public be told that leaving a longer gap between Pfizer doses might reduce the risk of myocarditis?

On 13 August, an internal COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group (CV TAG) draft document on vaccinating 12- to 15-year-olds said that wording about the possible benefit of more time between shots should either be removed or rewritten because the evidence was still emerging.

Four days later, official CV TAG minutes recorded that references to longer dosing intervals had been “removed from communications”.

“This has been actioned,” the minutes said.

What the documents do not say is who requested it or why. 

Removing uncertain wording on the advice of scientists because the evidence was too weak is one thing. However, if it was taken out because it simply made the government’s two-dose message harder to sell, is something else entirely.

The documents do not show who made the call or on what grounds.

Myocarditis concerns were already live

Myocarditis is a rare inflammation of the heart muscle associated in some cases with mRNA vaccination, particularly among younger males. It can also be associated with COVID-19.

By early August 2021, it was being discussed at senior levels inside the Ministry of Health.

On 1 August, Chief Science Advisor Ian Town emailed the then Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, about several vaccine decisions that required urgent clarity.

Town said there needed to be “absolute clarity” around vaccine communications and that he was not sure the necessary decisions had been documented.

Bloomfield agreed that the overall process needed to be “very tidy” and proposed bringing the relevant officials together to settle what had to be done, when it had to happen and what the public should be told. 

The correspondence shows that officials regarded myocarditis as both a clinical issue and a communications issue.

Advice had reached Vaccine Ministers

By 12 August, the matter had moved beyond the technical advisory group.

Town told CV TAG members that its myocarditis advice had been accepted by Bloomfield and “communicated in detail to the Vaccine Ministers Group”, a high-level forum of senior ministers and health officials overseeing major vaccine decisions.

Town also said the proposed rollout for 12 to 15-year-olds would go to Cabinet after discussion at the regular Vaccine Ministers Zoom meeting the following afternoon.

Draft clinical bullet points prepared on 13 August show the policy was not yet settled. They included a possible one-dose schedule for 12 to 15-year-olds.

The same document said:

“It was suggested that the wording around the potential benefit that an extended dosing interval may have with regard to myocarditis risk should be removed or re-worded.”

The stated reason was scientific uncertainty. That may have been legitimate caution, but the record does not show who made the call or whether scientific judgment was the only consideration.

From rewording to removal

Four days later, the 17 August CV TAG minutes recorded a firmer outcome:

“It was requested that references to increasing dosing intervals, potentially providing some protection against myocarditis, be removed from communications. This has been actioned.”

The progression is clear.

On 13 August, officials recorded a suggestion to remove or soften the wording.

By 17 August, it had been removed.

What remains unclear is who requested the change, which communication was altered, who approved the final wording and, most importantly, why the possible myocarditis benefit of a longer dosing interval was removed. 

Was the decision based on scientific caution about emerging evidence, or on political and communications concerns about complicating the government’s two-dose vaccine message? 

The Ministry does not identify who asked

Centrist asked the Ministry whether the request came from CV TAG members, Ministry officials, ministers, ministerial offices or the Vaccine Ministers Group.

The Ministry said the 13 August document summarised a discussion among CV TAG members and was “not a record of any Ministerial decisions or discussions”.

While the Ministry says the wording came from a CV TAG discussion, it still does not say who asked for it to be removed four days later. 

When Centrist asked whether the Ministry was confirming that the request came from CV TAG members rather than ministers, it did not directly say yes.

Instead, it said no relevant additional records existed beyond those already released.

Asked what communication had been changed, the Ministry said communications products were routinely updated and refined before publication. It said there was no record showing how the discussion was influenced by any specific Ministry communication.

The Ministry’s response, therefore, does not establish that ministers ordered the removal. But neither does it provide the missing decision trail needed to determine who did.

Why the missing name matters

Knowing who requested the removal would help determine what kind of decision it was.

A request from scientific advisers may have reflected uncertainty in the evidence.

A request from communications officials may have been concerned with how an emerging risk was presented.

A request from ministers or their offices would raise a political question about what the public was told.

We know the result. What remains murky is the why, which could be inferred if we knew how the decision was reached. 

Part two examines the meeting that may have helped answer those questions, but which the Ministry says was not minuted and left no notes.

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