The Alberta Medical Association has spoken out over the Province’s recently released report on Alberta’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a statement, the AMA says, “This report is anti-science and anti-evidence. It advances misinformation. It speaks against the broadest and most diligent international scientific collaboration and consensus in history.
“Through science and evidence, we were able to learn together while observing and adjusting to the twists and turns of COVID’s destructive evolution. Science and evidence brought us through and saved millions of lives.
“This report sows distrust. It criticizes proven preventive public health measures while advancing fringe approaches. It makes recommendations for the future that have real potential to cause harm.”
Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi mirrored the AMA’s concerns, adding, “Danielle Smith and the UCP blew $2 million of our money to pay some of the biggest anti-vax extremists in the world. Why? There’s no way she would actually implement these authoritarian ideas? Or would she?”
The Province released the report quietly and without an accompanying news release on Friday, January 24. There isn’t any mention of the report on the Province’s Alberta Health official website, nor even its social media.
The report was commissioned at a budget of $2 million in late 2022.
“At a time when our hospitals are struggling to stay afloat and patients are waiting for care every hour of every day, the $2 million price tag for this product could have been much better spent.”
The report’s 269 pages contains grievances over the province’s pandemic response, including the mask mandate, lockdowns, rapid tests used for screening. It promotes ‘herd immunity’ and a physician’s right to promote alternative treatments like ivermectin and hydroxycholoroquine.
The report recommends that the Alberta government halt the use of all COVID-19 vaccines without full disclosure to patients regarding safety and efficacy issues by their physician, saying that based on evidence that has emerged to date — most of which was supplied by the vaccine manufacturers — it “cannot be concluded that these COVID-19 vaccines are safe.”
It also recommends requiring media to disclose dollar values of their public health and pharmaceutical contracts when reporting on health-related matters.
In a statement to Global News, the office of Alberta’s health minister, Adriana LaGrange, said the “Alberta government will review and consider this report and its findings, however, no policy decisions have been made in relation to it at this time.”
Leslie Cholowsky
Editor