Katie Doyle
Christchurch, June 14, 2021
A Christchurch woman is furious a flyer from the group Voices For Freedom ended up in her letterbox. It contains nine claims about Covid-19 and the vaccine, and asks readers “are you fed up with Covid yet?”
The woman, who RNZ has agreed not to name, said that she had health problems that put her at serious risk of dying from Covid-19.
She is now fully vaccinated and said that she had jumped at the chance to do it.
Doctor’s right advice
“My doctors have told me that is what I should be doing, my specialists and all the people that take care of my health. I have a big team because my condition is rare and really severe and they have all told me to get it done,” she said.
In a statement, Voices For Freedom said, “over 500,000 Fed Up Flyers have been printed and distributed nationwide by thousands of Voice For Freedom supporters.”
Associate Professor at the University of Auckland and Vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris said that the flyer was misleading and contained a lot of emotive language.
“Such as ‘banned’ and ‘we are not allowed to know’ and ‘health authorities are ignoring this’ and ‘experimental’. Those are all sort of things that provoke emotion, and the statements are sort of quite vague. But it leads you to kind of think that ‘maybe there must be some conspiracy going on here,’ so it’s very misleading,” she said.
Dr Petousis-Harris pointed to several claims in the flyer, including one stating the Pfizer vaccine was experimental.
“The vaccine completed, including efficacy and safety assessments and there were no steps missed. As with all vaccines, studies can go on for some time after that to make sure that you use those very precious participants for as long as you can,” she said.
Vaccine studies are extended
Petousis-Harris said that vaccine studies were always in play when products were being used, and studies would always be going on.
“It is not experimental. I think that is deeply misleading. It is authorised all over the world and hundreds of millions of people have received it, so many lives have been saved. People should be very careful when researching the Vaccine and seek information from places of expertise, like research institutes,” she said.
The Advertising Standards Authority confirmed that it had received three complaints about the flyer. It has also received a complaint regarding a separate mask leaflet also printed by Voices For Freedom.
Katie Doyle is a journalist at Radio New Zealand. The above story has been published under a Special Agreement with www.rnz.co.nz
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