Safety of Chemicals, Medicines and Vaccines

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Countess of Mar]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their definition of “safe” in relation to chemicals, medicines and vaccines.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

No effective medicine or vaccine is entirely risk free. A medicine or vaccine will get a licence only if its benefits outweigh its risk of side-effects, taking into consideration the seriousness of the medical condition being treated or vaccinated against. Chemical safety is assessed using established approaches to toxicology and risk assessment. Every substance can be toxic, depending on dose, exposure route and frequency of exposure.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that these products have to have a licence because they bear risks? Would it not be better, while recognising that it is in the interests of the health of the whole community that people are vaccinated, or that they take certain drugs or use certain chemicals, to acknowledge those risks and at the same time acknowledge that some people will be damaged? It is a question of “good for all the people all the time”, or “good for some of the people some of the time”, and it is not going to cover everybody. We need to protect people who may be damaged, particularly with vaccines when parents are altruistic enough to have their children vaccinated and they then become damaged.

[Baroness Barran]

I agree with the noble Countess that vaccines and medicines do bear a risk. The Government acknowledge that risk, both in the way they are regulated and the clinical advice that goes with them, and in the follow-up that we do after a product is launched. I absolutely echo and recognise the concerns that she raised about the concerns of some parents and their children. We continue to take every report of a suspected side-effect extremely seriously.