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    13

    Sept 2021

    Last Updated: 13/09/2021
    Health
    Health

    Harrogate law firm leads legal challenge over child vaccines

    by Calvin Robinson

    | 13 Sept, 2021
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    Truth Legal has been instructed to challenge the government and stop children getting vaccinated without fully informed consent from their parents.

    andrew-gray-truth-legal
    Andrew Gray is the director of Truth Legal.

    A Harrogate law firm is to lead a legal challenge against the government's decision to recommend covid vaccines for 12 to 15-year-olds.

    Truth Legal has been instructed by Consent, a Gloucestershire-based healthcare charity, to challenge the government and stop children getting vaccinated without fully informed consent from their parents.

    Professor Chris Witty, the government's chief medical officer, today recommended administering a single vaccine for 12 to 15-year-olds after concluding it would have wider benefits for mental health and education.

    Ministers will now decide on whether to accept the recommendation.

    However, Consent is set to launch a legal challenge after raising concerns that experts still have mixed views over the decision.

    Andrew Gray, founder and solicitor at Truth Legal, which is representing the charity, said: 

    “We are representing Consent in their quest of investigating what protocol the government is intending to follow to guarantee the safety of our children and ensure that parental consent is a key element of consideration. 
    “We have written to the Department of Health, Public Health England and NHS England to demand their policy on the vaccination of children. We still await their reply.”


    The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which advises the government on immunisation, previously recommended against vaccinating children because the “individual health benefits” were small.



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    However, Professor Whitty said a single dose of a vaccine would “make a material difference”.

    Oliver Müller, a trustee for Consent, said: 

    “We are very concerned that children will be able to consent to a medical treatment, which even experts are divided over and which may not be in the child’s best interest.
    “Even parents may not have enough information to make a fully informed and therefore legally valid consent decision. We are prepared to go to court and have retained leading counsel and solicitors at Truth Legal.”


    Truth Legal, whose head office is on Victoria Avenue, also has offices in Leeds.