Kamla promises to respond to Deyalsingh on covid19 claims

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says she will respond next week to Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh's call for her to retract a statement she made about covid19 vaccines at a UNC public meeting in Chaguanas on September 9.

In a text message sent to Newsday hours before the reopening of the new parliamentary term on September 13, Persad-Bissessar said, "I will deal with those issues re Deyalsingh on Monday (September 16) at the (UNC's) MNF (Monday Night Forum). Prefer to deal with parliament issues today."

The venue for the September 16 meeting is still to be determined.

On September 9, Persad-Bissessar claimed "a fake vaccine" was used during the covid19 pandemic and resulted in 5,000 deaths.

She repeated her promise that a future UNC government would hold a commission of enquiry into the PNM's "mismanagement" of the pandemic.

"We will pursue justice on behalf of the 5000 dead covid victims through the criminal and civil courts.

The Health Ministry cited the number of pandemic deaths as 4,000.

In a statement on September 12, Deyalsingh said, "The assertion that a 'fake vaccine' was administered to citizens is an affront to the entire public and private health sector and implies that our doctors and nurses and other publicly spirited individuals who administered these vaccines were complicit in a hoax."

Persad-Bissessar's allegations, he said, may also suggest doctors and nurses breached their sacred oaths.

"This pattern of malicious politicisation of serious public health matters undermines public trust and confidence and serves no constructive purpose. It is an abuse of freedom of speech."

Deyalsingh also said a Privy Council ruling in the case of Dominic Seuraj and others against the Attorney General in 2021 and a related judgement by High Court Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh showed "all decisions made in the management of covid19 were based on established science."

Deyalsingh added that science was also what guided him in the procurement and use of vaccines.

He demanded that Persad-Bissessar make a full retraction of her statements.