New Delhi: The parents of the children who died after getting administered with Covid vaccine have filed an additional affidavit in the Supreme Court stating many new studies exposing the “poor safety” of Covid vaccines, and the excess mortality post vaccination.
The testimonies from 40 vaccine victims (some of them still alive and suffering serious adverse events) have been included in this affidavit. The case has been listed for today in the apex court.
The affidavit also mentions the likely mechanism of vaccination causing the sudden deaths due to myocarditis.
The petitioners have stated that excess deaths were negligible before vaccination start but they spiked after vaccination started.
“We have added some of the studies that showed adverse events after getting vaccinated. For example in a study published in March ’21, it is seen that 2.9% of those who took vaccine had serious adverse events, 22% had medically assisted adverse events, and 11% had adverse events of special interest. These numbers increased by more than 50% in the long-term study published in August ’24 with serious adverse events becoming 4.8%, 32% suffering MAAEs, and 31% suffering adverse events of special interest,” said Venugopalan Govindan, one of the petitioners.
The Supreme Court will resume on Tuesday hearing arguments in the Covid-19 vaccine adverse effects case, in which the government’s stance on the inoculation drive has been challenged by two people who blame the vaccine for the death of their daughters.
In the last hearing in October, the government had sought dismissal of the petition filed in 2022 by Rachana Gangu (from Hyderabad) and Venugopalan Govindan (from Tamil Nadu), who alleged that their respective daughters– aged 19 and 20–died due to the adverse effects of the Covishield vaccine.
“Covid is long gone. Vaccination is long over,” the government counsel had told the court in October, seeking dismissal of the case. However, the counsel for the parents said, “Tens of thousands of people have died, including children.” He said the government “lied to the people of India saying that it was absolutely safe”. “All the parents all across the country gave the information filed in this case. They said… this is 110% safe. You can take it,” the counsel said. Hearing both sides, the judges posted the case for further hearing.
The government counsel reiterated that the government “only gave it free, but it was a voluntary vaccination programme”. The counsel said that “220 billion” vaccinations have been done in the country.
She also mentioned, while seeking dismissal of the case, that the judges had earlier affirmed the vaccination programme in one of the cases. Earlier, in an affidavit filed in the top court in response to the parents’ petition, the government had said that although it urged everyone to take the Covid-19 vaccine jab, it never forced anyone to get “vaccinated against their wishes”. It also said that the Covid-19 vaccination guidelines issued by the health ministry did not envisage vaccination without obtaining the consent of an individual.
The parents of the two young women had filed a rejoinder in the Supreme Court, refuting the government’s affidavit and alleging that the government had forced people to take Covid-19 vaccines through direct and indirect actions. The parents sought fast-track courts and vaccine courts for swift justice to those injured by vaccines and their families.
“The petitioners were also never given any information about serious adverse events of Covid vaccine from the vaccinator.” Besides seeking compensation, the parents, in their writ petition, sought appointment of an expert medical board independent of the government to forthwith investigate the deaths of their daughters, and to share the report of the investigation with them.
They also appealed the court to issue a direction to the proposed medical board to prepare a protocol for early detection and timely treatment for adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) due to Covid-19 vaccine. In their rejoinder, they alleged that the government failed to heed any early warning signals within the country about potential adverse events.
They said the government affidavit was misleading as it failed to mention that the package inserts available at the time of vaccination of their daughters did not mention any information about thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS).
