Response to interpellation 2024/25:421 on the basis for a statement on COVID-19 vaccinations
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
KD argues that the covid-19 vaccines are of good quality, safe, and effective against serious illness and death 1. KD emphasizes that the process for controlling vaccines is rigorous and extensive, and that the overall scientific picture shows that vaccinations have saved millions of lives 1 2. KD highlights that the Medical Products Agency performs a continuous safety follow-up and that there is a broad consensus in the scientific community regarding the vaccine's benefit 1 2. KD argues that one should rely on the overall scientific picture 1 2. KD considers that the vaccines have undergone a careful evaluation process and that the side effects are now at a very low level 2. KD considers it important to continue using the vaccine to prevent serious illness and death in risk groups 2.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Socialministern Jakob Forssmed (KD)
Madam Speaker! Elsa Widding has asked me which references and which reviewed studies I relied on in the statement in the Chamber on November 29, 2024, where I stated that the vaccines used against covid-19 are of good quality, that they have undergone rigorous testing, and that they have saved millions of lives.
I repeat what I have previously stated, that the process for controlling vaccines is rigorous and extensive, from the initial research stage to production, use, and follow-up. There is thus a large amount of data available which together clearly show that vaccination against covid-19 has saved lives – millions of lives.
There are uncertainty factors in all studies, which researchers also have a special responsibility to highlight in the presentation of their scientific studies. When it comes to vaccinations against covid-19, the scientific landscape today looks completely different compared to how it looked at the beginning of the pandemic. It therefore becomes extremely irresponsible to take a single study and highlight it as the ultimate truth in all situations. It should always be the collective scientific picture that constitutes the basis for decisions.
As I have stated previously, all medicines and vaccines, including vaccines against covid-19, undergo a thorough scientific trial before they can be approved. Clinical efficacy is weighed against the risk of side effects. Before a vaccine can be used, the investigations must conclude that the vaccine has a demonstrated positive benefit/risk balance.
It is national and international regulations that set the framework for the testing process, which aims to protect the population's health and safety. The vaccines against covid-19 have been tested and reviewed according to the same standards as other vaccines. Furthermore, the covid-19 vaccines have been closely monitored after they began to be used.
In Sweden, the Medical Products Agency is the responsible authority for the evaluation and follow-up of medicines' safety and efficacy, and also for vaccines against covid-19. As I have previously mentioned, the Medical Products Agency has been commissioned by the government to conduct a continuous, in-depth safety follow-up of vaccines against the disease covid-19. This assignment was extended in December 2024 to apply until 2027. The number of reports regarding suspected side effects of covid vaccines that reach the Medical Products Agency is now at a very low level.
Furthermore, it is part of the Swedish Medical Products Agency's mandate to report suspected side effects to the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which coordinates the safety monitoring of covid-19 vaccines in Europe. The EMA performs structured and regular searches in databases for suspected side effects and compiles scientific literature to identify whether there are signals of new possible side effects.
The current state of knowledge can be summarized as that vaccination against covid-19 is an effective way to prevent serious illness – despite the emergence of new variants of the virus – thanks to the development of new variants of the vaccines targeted at the newer virus variants. I feel confident that the vaccines used against covid-19 are of good quality, are safe, and are effective against serious illness and death.
Elsa Widding (-)
Madam Speaker! The Minister cannot point to a single study, reviewed and published, that indicates that the vaccines against covid-19 are safe and effective. Nor does he point to a single piece of evidence that supports his claim that they have undergone rigorous testing. If the Minister does not intend to look into the facts at all, not even take part in Pfizer's own data, but instead continues to demonstrate total ignorance and nonchalance, I wonder if there is anyone else in the government who one can speak to about these important matters.
The Minister received yesterday by email a large reviewed study in two parts which summarizes a long series of studies where evidence is presented for widespread damage caused by the new mRNA vaccines and the adenovector-DNA vaccines. There are 253 references on a total of 23 pages, and I have the study with me here in the rostrum. The study is unique, and it is based on many reviewed and published studies and therefore provides a thorough overview of the damages that have occurred as a result of the new technology for vaccines, which relied on human cells producing a foreign antigen that has evidence of pathogenicity.
The review is crystal clear on one point, Jakob Forssmed, namely that it was far too early to move from experimental gene therapy technology to mass vaccination of the general public. Feel free to ask those sitting in the stands today if they agree that the vaccine was safe and effective – possibly effective at destroying their lives. Unfortunately, my ex-husband is not in the stands today, and I think you know why. Talk about gambling with people's lives and health and then cowardly refusing to stand by the consequences.
Now, treatment methods are needed for the new pathology that is being noted in many organ systems. Urgent research and acute help are required for thousands of patients in Sweden, millions in the world, who suffer from long-term injuries caused by modified mRNA vaccines against covid-19.
Why, by the way, did we not do as several non-Western countries did, which used traditional protein-based virus technology for the development of vaccines against covid-19? Instead, in the West, the previously untested technology of modified mRNA was used, which was produced by pharmaceutical companies that have been favored by regulatory authorities in several Western countries.
Preparations have been managed to be approved without them having been properly tested, and now we see the results. Nevertheless, the Minister speaks of a rigorous process. This is very strange.
Documents obtained under a request for freedom of information reveal that these mRNA vaccines were developed via the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed, a program under the supervision of the American Department of Defense. The Dutch Minister of Health has said that it was Nato that directed the pandemic measures in Holland. Who directed in Sweden?
The genetic vaccines were acute countermeasures against a national security threat, as it was initially claimed the pandemic was in 2020. Therefore, many of the FDA's normal long-term and time-consuming safety tests and toxicological protocols were bypassed. These vaccines have in no way undergone the rigorous process that is practice in vaccine production. Please refer to references 34–38 in the document.
Saving millions of lives is a slogan that the Minister still throws around. It is incorrect and is based, firstly, on early estimates of infection mortality and, secondly, on the vaccine companies' claims regarding efficacy. I will return to that. This has been undermined by new data, for example, modeling based on death tolls in China from February 2020 published by Verity et al. in The Lancet. But we know that the virus mutated further, and the modeling predictions did not materialize.
Last but not least, we have the incorrect assumption that the covid-19 vaccines protect against infection and spread of infection. That was not the case.
Socialministern Jakob Forssmed (KD)
Madam Speaker! Sometimes during these interpellation debates, one gets the feeling that the pandemic never happened, that there was no new difficult disease. We have heard the testimonies from those who worked in intensive care when the pandemic struck with full force against Sweden, Europe, and all countries in the entire world. The vaccines were incredibly important for us to be able to open our societies, not be restricted or have to self-isolate, as happened during the pandemic. It is not the same thing as saying we would have compromised on something.
Just as I have accounted for, the different stages have been gone through: preclinical, clinical, and then a multi-step approval process. This can also be followed up on afterwards. It is 13 billion doses of the vaccine that have been administered in the world. Reviews show that millions of lives have been saved thanks to the vaccines.
When the scientific community as a whole makes its compilations of this, it is clear that vaccines are a good and effective method against severe disease and death. The risk of infection has varied with different virus variants. It can also be that vaccines have less effect between virus variants and other things. Different studies also have different shortcomings. It is therefore necessary to look at the collective studies.
The studies that Elsa Widding presents have their value, but they also have their shortcomings, which the researchers themselves account for in the studies. They have not had access to data on risk or previous infections, which also play a role.
Individual studies must be interpreted with some caution, and one should then rely on a collective scientific consensus. In this case, there is no doubt that the vaccines are safe and have been important in counteracting severe illness and death – and still are. We must not sow doubt about this when there is no basis for doing so.
The authorities have a mandate to follow these issues. I have great confidence in them. It is there that the foremost expertise works to review, follow up, and initiate further studies. The Medical Products Agency has a mandate to follow up on whether it is possible that new side effects may arise as a result of the vaccine that were not previously known. They can, therefore, initiate studies on this. It is a matter of course. That is how we work, and that is how we shall work – with open eyes for what we do not yet know about a new and troublesome disease and about vaccines.
I maintain that the vaccines used against covid-19 are effective and safe. Then there are known side effects that are well-documented.
Elsa Widding (-)
Madam Speaker! There is fundamental knowledge in this area today. I believe the problem is that the Minister equates the scientific community with the vaccine industry.
To speak of effective vaccines against covid-19 is a pure lie. The State Council has received another document by email. It is the basis for the FDA's approval of Pfizer's vaccine from December 10, 2020. The details are in the document. But it is clear that the real effectiveness of these vaccines was far below 1 percent.
Here, it is important to understand the difference between relative and absolute risk reduction. I can take an example. Two people out of 1 million participants in a control group die from a disease. The control group is therefore unvaccinated. At the same time, only one person dies in the other group, the million who are vaccinated. Then the FDA claims that one gets a risk reduction of 50 percent; two minus one divided by two is 50 percent. So, obviously, one cannot count. But that is actually how it is done to obtain what we call relative risk reduction. I assume that it is this that makes the government call the vaccines effective.
The FDA granted emergency use authorization for Pfizer's vaccine, even though the absolute risk reduction was below 1 percent. The claim that they would be effective is therefore absurd.
How can, by the way, a vaccine that leads to the disease it is supposed to protect us from be called effective? In the scientific literature, one can read that repeated booster doses of covid-19 vaccines appear to induce tolerance and can contribute to recurrent covid-19 infection and long-covid. In short: The vaccine gives covid. That is what science, the collective assessment, has concluded today, Jakob Forssmed.
Even autopsies speak their clear language regarding the causal link between covid-19 vaccines and deaths. The total number of deaths due to covid-19 vaccines reported to Vaers has far exceeded the recall threshold for previous vaccine withdrawals by up to 375,340 percent. This can be compared with several other vaccine programs, for example, the vaccine against swine flu in 1976 which was recalled after 53 reported deaths.
Madam Speaker! There is today a comprehensive account of how the spike protein is produced and accumulates in all the body's organs. It does not, therefore, stay in the arm but spreads, as previously emerged from Pfizer's data, especially in ovaries, testicles, liver, and kidneys. It is perhaps not strange that the birth rates went down by 13 percent in 2023.
We also know that the production of the spike protein takes place over a longer period due to cellular production of a foreign antigen. Here I want to highlight some problem areas. We have the toxicity of the spike protein. Then we have the lipid nanoparticles, which are inflammatory and are used to transport this mRNA. Particularly concerning are the two adjuvants ALC-0315 and ALC-0159, which have never previously been used in a medicine and which, according to the manufacturers, are not intended for human use. So safe and effective it was.
Then we have the synthetic mRNA. We do not know how long the toxic spike protein is produced in the body. So much for the Nobel Prize, Jakob Forssmed!
Since then, we have had widespread biodistribution, meaning that the lipid nanoparticle and the mRNA go to all the body's organs, especially to ovaries and adrenal glands but also to the brain, eyes, heart, testicles, uterus, pituitary gland, spinal cord, spleen, and bone marrow. There are as many references as one could want regarding this. Please check references 5, 6, and 7 in the document!
Then there is the problem that human cells produce a foreign protein in our ribosomes that can cause autoimmunity.
All of this is established science today. It is not possible to just gloss over it and claim something completely different. Why can I not see the references for the claims?
Socialministern Jakob Forssmed (KD)
Madam Speaker! As I began by saying in my response, it is the overall picture, when one weighs together the available studies and the available data that exist, that needs to apply. The common scientific assessment is that vaccines are one of the most effective methods for preventing deadly diseases and saving lives. This also applies to the vaccines against covid-19.
In the scientific community, there is a broad consensus on this. Just one example of this is that the authors of the mRNA vaccine were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, in competition with other methods that improve people's lives or save lives.
I repeat once again that the covid-19 vaccines, like other medicines and vaccines, have gone through a thorough multi-step evaluation process. Each vaccine undergoes a preclinical and a clinical evaluation where the vaccine is tested and evaluated regarding both protection against disease and side effects. Once the vaccine has been approved, any side effects are monitored continuously. As I have also explained, Läkemedelsverket has been commissioned by me and the government to conduct in-depth monitoring of this to follow the development and keep a watch for whether side effects appear that have not been known before and then be able to initiate studies regarding this.
New vaccines are approved centrally within the EU. This also means that every approved vaccine is reviewed by experts from all member states. This is an incredibly rigorous and extensive process where experts from all member states are involved. As mentioned, we subsequently have monitoring mechanisms to follow up on that. And the reported side effects of the vaccine to the Medical Products Agency are now at a very low level.
I have great confidence in the process that exists for the control and monitoring of medicines and vaccines. It is very important that we have good such processes which also read the science and follow the scientific developments surrounding our vaccines and incorporate that into their assessments.
It is important that we continue to use the vaccine to prevent serious illness and death in risk groups and that we follow the Public Health Agency's recommendations. It is, after all, still a disease that causes suffering and in some cases death. Therefore, it is important that especially people in risk groups have good protection against serious illness.
Elsa Widding (-)
Madam Speaker! Can there be anything more important for a nation than being able to ensure that citizens do not die or are harmed by medical experiments with dangerous injections, which are imposed upon them without established tests for efficacy and safety and which are now being banned in several American states? The unparalleled number of side effects appear to be associated with the spike proteins produced by the gene-based technologies used by Pfizer, Moderna, Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
Before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the use of such technology was experimental and mostly limited to manufacturing proteins for the treatment of metastatic cancer. No mRNA vaccines had ever been approved for general use before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to reference 37, and viral vector-DNA vaccines had only limited use for Ebola, dengue fever, and Japanese encephalitis, according to reference 38.
Expert-reviewed data contradicts the claim of safe and effective vaccines manufactured with the help of these new technologies. The fact that Moderna and other large pharmaceutical companies plan large-scale production of mRNA vaccines for many other diseases in the absence of a complete and detailed investigation is therefore deeply concerning.
It is strange and tragic that the Minister rejects and cannot refer to a single study that supports his incorrect claims with devastating consequences for public health.
The judgment of history will be harsh, Jakob Forssmed. It is as certain as amen in the church.
Socialministern Jakob Forssmed (KD)
Madam Speaker! If we look at history, we see that the development of vaccines has been one of the greatest events in human history. It has saved lives and given people quality of life. Not least children who never previously had that chance have survived thanks to broad vaccination programs.
Covid-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives, and it is important that we continue to vaccinate those who should receive vaccines and that we continue to be careful and rigorous when it comes to monitoring, evaluating, and following the effect of the vaccines.
The Covid-19 vaccines have, says Elsa Widding, been used without accepted tests for efficacy and safety, but that is not the case. They have undergone extensive tests for exactly this. I have explained how it works, with a preclinical and clinical phase and thereafter an approval process in several steps. Now they are fully approved for use. Billions of doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been used in the world, and relatively few side effects have been reported.
It is important to have a high level of preparedness to protect citizens from serious illness and death. This is an important mission for every government, and it is an important mission for me. I take it most seriously.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.