On December 2nd, the President of the Austrian Medical Association, Prof. Thomas Szekeres, wanted to raise the universal recommendation of the Covid vaccination to be compulsory for doctors in a circular – and then received sharp criticism. In an open letter, numerous physicians contradicted Szekeres’ attempt to prevent individual consultations on the vaccines and pointed to a lack of data on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines. Szekeres then “countered” with a “fact check” by the Chamber and so-called experts from MedUni Vienna and the National Vaccination Committee and wanted to refute the arguments of the critical doctors. Unsuccessful.
355 doctors have now detailed the so-called “fact check”. in a letter disassembled. The doctors stick to it: There is still a lack of essential data on the Covid vaccines for a final assessment. A general obligation to vaccinate, as decided by the National Council, is neither justified nor ethically justifiable on the basis of the studies and findings currently available.
The doctors argue as follows:
Positive tests are not “incidence”
What the “experts” of the medical association call “incidence” is not the frequency of an illness, but the frequency of a positive corona test. However, the detection of a pathogen is not necessarily associated with an infection or disease. Furthermore, the frequency of positive corona tests is fundamentally dependent on how many tests are carried out, also due to the increase in false positive results. “So it is not just the number of positive test results that is important, but also the proportion of positive test results in the total number of tests carried out. This was 2-3% in autumn 2021, while it was still around 20% in the previous year,” explains DDr. Christian Fiala, who co-signed the letter.
Low vaccination effectiveness at Omikron
The data show that infection with Omikron leads to significantly lower rates of severe cases and hospitalizations than previous SARS-CoV-2 variants, and that neither vaccination nor boosters have a relevant effect on the hospitalization rate. It is not disputed that younger patients with COVID are also being treated in the intensive care units. However, without reliable information on the causes of treatment and vaccination status, the age structure of the PCR test-positive intensive care patients alone is not suitable to justify compulsory vaccination for the entire population. A study by Onder et al. has also shown that 99.2% of the patients who died from COVID had relevant concomitant or previous illnesses. Almost 75% of the deceased even had two or more diseases.
Called for more transparency towards patients
It is also noted that the risk of side effects from COVID vaccinations is underestimated due to underreporting. Even Pharmig assumes that only 6% of vaccination complications are reported at all. “We expressly oppose taking data out of context and stand for the transparent communication of all medical-scientific knowledge from the doctor to the patient, so that a participatory, informed and individual decision can then be made about the implementation of a medical measure,” he said Sönnichsen finally.
