The public hearing on Excess Mortality was profoundly poignant and unsettling in equal measure.
It has sparked further concerns and raised questions that require answering about excess deaths since the rollout of the COVID vaccination and why there is such a concerted effort to deflect closer scrutiny.
COVERSE and the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society (AMPS)
It was good to speak with a group of professionals that are prepared to dig into COVID ‘vaccine’ mortality. My questions were about suppressed or disguised data. It’s been well established that the modelling during COVID was not done well – potentially to support the government program regardless what the data was actually showing.
There are numerous methods through which excess mortality can be hidden. We simply cannot trust the government data when it stands in such stark contrast to the widespread experiences of everyday Australians.
A study of excess mortality in Queensland in 2021 offered warning signals. There was a huge spike in deaths immediately after the COVID injection rollout began, even before the virus itself arrived in Queensland. Similar patterns was seen in Western Australia and other parts of Australia. This spike then came back to near normal levels once the “vaccine” rollout slowed down.
It is not acceptable that instead of seeking to understand the reasons behind these findings, our health authorities are attempting to discredit this data.
Australian Health Department
I asked the Department of Health to explain peaks of excess mortality in 2022.
Significant peaks observed were higher than expected, with the explanation being that it can be contributed to COVID itself, although there was still a peak outside the average.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed it’s possible to match COVID jabs with mortality, however Australia’s Health Department appear to be quite reluctant to do this. They commissioned a report from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance to conduct an analysis comparing ‘similar populations with each other’ to give a “better sense of mortality”. Predictably, the outcome of this “critical research” is that COVID vaccines provided significant protection against mortality from COVID and extended this to all-cause mortality.
National Rural Health Alliance
The points raised by Susanne Tegen, Chief Executive of the National Rural Health Alliance, went to the heart of the struggles faced by rural and remote communities during the federal and state governments’ COVID response.
National Rural Health Alliance commented on limitations in mortality data. It strongly advocates for the creation of datasets demonstrating excess mortality in relation to remoteness.
The Alliance wrote in their submission that the absence of geographical data makes it impossible to fully understand the impacts of excess mortality on rural and remote consumers, and that “Tailored datasets and rural specific models of care are imperative to addressing ongoing healthcare inequities.”
Research should be prioritised to examine how pandemics and other disasters impact health systems in rural Australia.
Transcripts
COVERSE and the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society
Senator ROBERTS: Mrs Potter, I feel very ashamed of our country. As a result of lies, you’ve had your life altered completely and what we’ve given you instead of care is gaslighting. Thank you so much for your courage in being here. I also want to put on the record my appreciation to Senator Rennick for his previous two questions that Dr Neil answered and answered so capably. They were fine questions and excellent responses. Mr Faletic, you came before us at the terms of reference inquiry. I want to thank everyone for being here in person. Thank you for your commitment. You said in your opening statement, Mr Faletic, ‘newly disabled and chronically injured’, and there are thousands of them. You also mentioned in the terms of reference inquiry that doctors were coerced, so I don’t need to put questions to you. I would love to, but I’ve got some other questions. Dr Kunadhasan, you mentioned ‘peer reviewed paper unaffiliated by trial sponsors Pfizer’. Could we get that paper on notice, please?
Dr Kunadhasan: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: You also told us that more than 50 per cent of Australians took Pfizer. I’d like to learn more separately on notice. I’ll think of some questions for you with regard to your correspondence with Dr Lawler, because I read it in your submission and I’m stunned. I want to also acknowledge the courage of your stance. Dr Neil, on pharmacovigilance, if I could have a one-word answer at the moment because I want to get on to Dr Madry. Pharmacovigilance is not independent, is it, in this country?
Dr Neil: A one-word answer? I don’t believe it is sufficiently independent and the access is very difficult for the average doctor.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you send us the peer reviewed paper that you’ve published on notice, please?
Dr Neil: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Dr Madry, can you comment on the use of models used for predicting excess mortality, please?
Dr Madry: I want to thank Mrs Potter. You moved me. That’s part of the reason we do some of this work. There’s been an epidemic of bad modelling during this pandemic. Stanford Professor John Ioannidis published a paper about how bad the modelling was. When we do modelling we need to apply a range of models to look at best case and worst case scenarios. Models rely on assumptions. Those assumptions can be wrong. I know time is short, but a quick comment on the models that the government is relying on at the moment for predicting the numbers of excess. That model changed last year and predicted lower numbers. There are a number of fundamental issues with that model. It uses a time series modelling that one wouldn’t use in a modern analysis, fitting a sine wave, which doesn’t actually fit the sort of seasonal trends. A strange thing happened. The standard years were 2015 to 2019, and then there was a decision to reach back to 2013 and it turned out 2013 is a low year for mortality; 2019 is a high year. So, if you wanted to tip up the baseline and make the excess less, that’s what one would do. In our submission, we’ve provided a range for what it should be. The estimates at the moment are very much at the low end of the estimates. We need to look at the low end, the high end, and the real result should be somewhere in between. There’s another issue about subtracting all COVID deaths from and with. We know the convention shouldn’t be to count the deaths that are with someone who dies from cancer, for example, who tests positive with a PCR test. They shouldn’t be subtracted. We know influenza was down during those years. So, should we be subtracting all of those deaths? Because clearly some of the COVID deaths were deaths of frail elderly people who, sadly, would have died anyway. So, if we’re trying to come to what’s the clear non-COVID excess there are more professional ways to look at that. Modelling has been done poorly. That’s well established. I think independent groups like ours that can talk to what’s really happening have a better understanding and can try to fit ranges to those models. Especially when it’s a high-risk situation where people are dying and getting injured, we need to understand the best case and worst case scenarios.
Senator ROBERTS: What other data is needed to clarify what could be causing the non-COVID excess mortality?
Dr Madry: If you wanted to rule out COVID vaccinations as a possible cause of this excess, with these datasets that Senator Pratt was talking about where there’s a linkage between immunisation registers and mortality registers we understand that a linking of tables has been done by the Institute of Health and Welfare and the ABS. Basically the data that’s needed is the date of last vaccination and date of death on an individual record basis. We can go through that and find out if there trends that shouldn’t be there. They should be independent, but there could be trends. If we can get access to that, we can provide some insight.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you intend to apply for access to that data?
Dr Madry: Yes. Since we’ve heard more about this we do intend to apply for it.
Senator ROBERTS: You said you did an analysis of mortality in Queensland. What did you find?
Dr Madry: Queensland kept out COVID until right up to the end of 2021. So, with Queensland we had a 10- month window where we could look at mortality without the effects of COVID. Any deaths from COVID in Queensland were from cruise ships or out of the state. We purchased data from the ABS with narrow age ranges. What became clear was that in the older ranges, which is where we saw in the database of adverse event notifications a lot of the deaths occurring—ages above 60—we saw the trend of mortality start going up in the second quarter of 2021. That went up right until the end of the year. That was clearly a warning signal.
Senator CANAVAN: Have you looked at Western Australia, which had a similar experience? When I look at the ABS data, again, the deaths seem to start ticking up in late 2021, even before the WA border was open.
Dr Madry: Western Australia has a few more months, because they opened up in March, I understand. We’d have a full one-year window with Western Australia. The reason I picked Queensland was partly financial, because you have the largest state with the longest time. South Australia and Western Australia would be other ones that would be worth looking at.
Senator ROBERTS: Dr Neil, there are many ways excess mortality can be hidden. Classification of causes of death—can you answer yes or no to each one as to whether or not it’s possible to hide a death?
Dr Neil: Excess mortality typically just considers all-cause mortality. Then there’s a secondary sort of inquiry as to what the subcauses might be.
Senator ROBERTS: So with doctors placed under coercion, we could hide a death due to a COVID injection by classifying it as ‘not due to an injection’?
Dr Neil: There are two avenues to highlight a death as a doctor where as a doctor you might have the opinion that it’s a vaccine death. One would be by registering the death on the pharmacovigilance database, and 75 per cent of the deaths were registered by doctors. The other would be to write a death certificate—I believe that’s rarely done—in a way which would note a vaccine injury as a cause of death, but it is possible.
Senator ROBERTS: They can be statistically hidden or misclassified, correct.
Dr Madry: Correct. Misclassification is one of the biggest problems we have as analysts.
Senator ROBERTS: A barrister I talked to said you can hide evidence, and the best place to hide it is in plain sight.
Dr Madry: That’s a very wise statement.
Senator ROBERTS: Are these things being done?
Dr Madry: Is it being hidden? There are certainly strange things happening where the ICD cases with categorisation going into vague categorisations; it might have been very specific cardiac, respiratory. There are strange things going on. We can detect those things happening. As you said, from a forensic point of view, being able to see those sorts of things is insightful in itself. Even though it may make it harder to find the actual result we’re looking for, that’s important.
Senator ROBERTS: So, keeping on theme of hiding data, we can also have alternative narratives, such as long COVID instead of vaccine injuries? We can also have the use of labels to denigrate people, shut them up, condition an audience that it could be something else, propaganda to dissuade people’s perceptions? Do any of these things tie in with you?
Dr Neil: As a society, we’ve been concerned about the culture in medicine that tends towards censoring doctors from speaking about some of the key issues of pandemic management, including the vaccine. We believe that’s real, we believe we can document it, and it could well have had an effect on the information that’s able to come to light.
Australian Health Department
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again today. On that last question that Senator Rennick asked, Dr Gould, are you familiar with the Australian Bureau of Statistics submission?
Dr Gould: Yes. If you just give me a moment, I will fumble on my iPad to have that. What page, Senator?
Senator ROBERTS: It is on page 7 of their 14-page submission—top of the page, graph 1. Have you done any work on trying to understand and explain the first peak in March 2021 and the next peak in August 2022? Can you tell me the causes of those peaks? Take it on notice if you want.
Dr Gould: I’m not actually seeing a peak in March 2021.
Senator ROBERTS: You are not seeing the actual deaths?
Dr Gould: Yes, I’m looking at the same graph as you, I believe, with expected, actual and—
Senator ROBERTS: There is a peak well outside the upper range.
Dr Gould: Oh, yes, there is a small period—
Senator ROBERTS: It’s quite marked.
Dr Gould: The graph that you see, the expected mortality, is a modelled number. We have talked about this before. And, as with any modelled number, it has strengths and weaknesses, so that is acknowledged. There are a number of different ways—
Senator ROBERTS: This is a startling peak.
Dr Gould: Yes, so—
Senator ROBERTS: Is that all due to the model?
Dr Gould: The peak you are referring to is a peak because it goes above the confidence intervals of the model, so it is a function of the model and it is also a function of mortality.
Senator ROBERTS: It is way, way, way above.
Dr Gould: I’m concerned that we are looking at different graphs. I’m not seeing a large peak in 2021—
Senator ROBERTS: Graph No. 1. End of February, early March 20—sorry, 2022.
Dr Gould: Oh, 2022.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m sorry, you’re right. What is the explanation for the big peak there?
Dr Gould: You see a very significant peak with the actual number, so that is the dark red number, and that represents total mortality over that period. And it is higher than expected. Importantly, this graph also shows what it looks like without COVID, so that is the—dare I say, salmon coloured or pink coloured line—which is a much less dramatic peak, so that indicates how much COVID itself contributed to that large peak. That said, I would acknowledge that, without COVID, the light pink line is still outside of normal expectations. So that would be considered a period of excess mortality.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you done any work on explaining why that is the case? It is above the mean of the range and it’s above the upper limit.
Dr Gould: Again, the ABS reports look at different causes of death, and complementary analysis of the Actuaries Institute also looks at potential causes there. That includes ischaemic heart disease.
Senator ROBERTS: So we go to the ABS?
Dr Gould: The ABS is—
Senator ROBERTS: Okay, thank you. I want to follow up on a question from Senator Rennick that I did not hear that you answered, and that turned on something I asked earlier in the second session. The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed in estimates last week that it is possible to match ABS deaths data against COVID status to see what the respective death rates for vaccinated and unvaccinated Australians are. Have you done that analysis? I did not hear you respond to Senator Rennick.
Dr Gould: Again, it is the same concept where I was talking about the time series analysis. We need to be really careful about producing—
Senator ROBERTS: Have you done it?
Dr Gould: I will get to that. Producing raw mortality counts by vaccination status is of very limited value. Obviously, the counts we would expect to be higher for vaccinated Australians because the vast majority of Australians were vaccinated. So we needed an appropriate denominator. So that work needs to be done. We also need to—
Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me, Dr Gould, you can still have comparison of people who have had one vaccine, two vaccines, three shots, four shots et cetera.
Dr Gould: Yes, and what I wanted to get to: you could do that with raw mortality rates, but, as we have discussed, age is a really important factor for mortality, so age standardisation is really important there. But there are other forms of work there that we need to do to ensure that we are comparing like populations with each other—so, effectively we are comparing statistical apples with each other. And that was the whole purpose of the research that we commissioned by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance—that they could do that challenging but really critical work so that they could give a better sense of the mortality outcomes for people—
Senator ROBERTS: What is the answer?
Dr Gould: The answer is that it is very clear that COVID vaccines provided significant protection against mortality from COVID. They also extended that research to all-cause mortality. As we have said, COVID was the last—
Senator ROBERTS: Could we get a copy of the report please?
Dr Gould: Absolutely. It is publicly available, and we would be happy to send you a link for that.
Senator ROBERTS: Where abouts?
Dr Gould: I can’t quote the exact web address, but it is—
Senator ROBERTS: When did you ask them to do that report?
Dr Gould: I believe the date is current to 2022. We could take on notice when we started conversations about the report.
Senator ROBERTS: If you could please. What is the death rate comparison amongst vaccinated and unvaccinated Australians? I know you said there are many qualifications but, filtering through the qualifications, what is the death rate?
Dr Gould: It is lower for vaccinated Australians as per that research.
Senator ROBERTS: Could we have those numbers please?
Dr Gould: The way that they describe it is actually in terms of the protection against death from the—
Senator ROBERTS: Not the death rates?
CHAIR: Just one moment please, Dr Gould. Senator Roberts, just the last five minutes you have been interrupting quite regularly while they are answering—
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair.
CHAIR: Could you maybe wait until they finish and then ask your next question.
Dr Gould: I think that research should answer a lot of your questions.
Senator ROBERTS: Has anyone ordered you not to analyse deaths, or excess mortality, or to do so in a certain way to hide anything?
Dr Gould: Absolutely not.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
National Rural Health Alliance
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for being here, Ms Tegen. Your submission’s third paragraph includes this statement: The absence of geographical data makes it impossible to fully understand the impacts of excess mortality on rural and remote consumers. NRHA strongly advocates for the creation of datasets demonstrating excess mortality in relation to remoteness. We need to ensure that the committee notes this, Ms Tegen. Is this something that must be in this inquiry’s report?
Ms Tegen: Absolutely.
Senator ROBERTS: What about preparedness? You should have been aware that there was a preparedness plan for rural areas for a flu epidemic. Were people in rural areas aware of such a plan, and was it followed?
Ms Tegen: I am not sure whether they were all included in such a plan. If there is a federal plan, it needs to be taken to those rural communities. A classic example, again, is through the PRIM-HS model where, at a local level, they start looking at, ‘How do we manage a risk like this if it comes to our region?’ It’s no different from a fire plan or a flood plan that rural communities have. It’s really interesting. Why is it that the Defence Force and police forces are all funded to do this, to support their workforce to do this well? We need to do it in health. It needs to be done under a national health strategy, and there needs to be a compact between federal, state and local government, with the community.
Senator ROBERTS: I must commend the witness, Chair, for providing clear, concise and very strong advocacy. It’s refreshing. What discussions, meetings and planning occurred in the early stages of responding to COVID to guide your response in rural areas to COVID, once we were told there was supposedly a major virus on the loose?
Ms Tegen: The National Rural Health Alliance started a series of teleconferences and updates with not only its members but also its Friends of the Alliance, which are the grassroots people. In addition to that, we held meetings with the government to provide real-time feedback to those communities, and the clinicians. Again, clinicians on the ground were really stretched in rural areas because they already had workforce shortages. It needs to be revisited, taking into account the learnings of the populations and the response on the ground.
Senator ROBERTS: Your submission raises the topic of a shortage of health professionals in rural areas. You have said it repeatedly today. How did the shortage of health professionals in the bush make the impact of COVID worse, and what can be done about it?
Ms Tegen: It burned out a lot of the workforce. It made people feel that they weren’t supported, because as soon as we felt that COVID was finished and it was ‘business as usual’, they are still trying to recover from what happened over the last four or five years. They still feel that they are not supported. We are now focusing on the future workforce, yet we are not able to support or provide more bolstering for the current workforce. The communities are back to normal in terms of living their life. They’re working in an environment where there is a higher inflation rate.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s tough.
Ms Tegen: It’s tough. These communities are the most underfunded. If you’re looking at agriculture and primary industries, they are the only communities around the world that are not subsidised. Here we are, expecting them to deal with health issues, with global markets and with weather patterns. We don’t expect that from the city. Why do we expect it from the country? It is because it’s out of sight, out of mind.
Senator ROBERTS: One of the things I’m picking up, between the lines, is that you don’t see the imposing of systems and processes from the city on rural as being effective. You are calling for a national rural health strategy. You’ve also made the point that people need to be accountable for their own individual health.
Ms Tegen: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t that something that could be said about the whole country’s health?
Ms Tegen: Absolutely. By increasing the amount of data that is available, by increasing an understanding of health care, not only the healthcare system but also your own health, you are more likely to be able to deal with your own health issues because you have an increased health literacy level. I will make a comment about the death recently of a person that was raising the awareness in the population. That was Michael Mosley. Australians loved watching him. He increased their understanding of health care. Norman Swan is increasing the understanding of health care. His Coronacast was listened to by millions of people around Australia. Rural Australia still has a very high readership of and listening to the ABC, and those initiatives were really important to rural people. We need to make sure that they are not forgotten, and that we have a social contract to do something about this, rather than having reforms and inquiries, and nothing happening with them.
