EXCLUSIVE: Health department's stinging reply to Pauline Hanson after she vowed to refuse a coronavirus vaccine and accused officials of inflating COVID deaths
- Australia on Tuesday signed an agreement to buy a vaccine once approved
- The vaccine will be extensively safety checked before being rolled out
- Pauline Hanson has vowed not to take a vaccine if it was made compulsory
- A government spokesman accused her of spreading conspiracy theories
The federal government has accused Pauline Hanson of peddling conspiracy theories after she vowed to refuse a coronavirus vaccine.
Scott Morrison signed a deal to buy a vaccine once it is approved but the One Nation leader said 'I won't be having it' because she feared it would be 'inadequately tested'.
A Department of Health spokesman said it 'rigorously assesses vaccines for safety, quality and effectiveness' and that 'conspiracies about untested vaccines are false.'
Scott Morrison (pictured) signed a deal to buy a vaccine once it is approved but Pauline Hanson said 'I won't be having it'
Senator Hanson also accused the government of inflating the virus death toll by including people who died from underlying conditions.
'Covid-19 is a virus, I understand, but when you falsify the deaths of people that say they died of Covid when they actually died of other underlying issues… to put a vaccine into my body that hasn't been tested is not happening,' she said.
The health spokesman said this was insulting to families who have lost loved ones to the deadly illness.
'Misinformation and conspiracy theories regarding those who have died of Covid-19 are inaccurate and insensitive to those who have died of this disease,' the spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.
The government defines a Covid-19 fatality as a death in a probable or confirmed case unless there is a clear alternative cause that cannot be related.
The final attribution of the virus to a person's death, whether it is their primary or underlying cause, is provided later by a doctor or a coroner for the death certificate.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison tours the Astra Zeneca laboratories in Macquarie Park, Sydney on Wednesday
Senator Hanson made her comments in a Facebook video on Thursday morning after the prime minster said he would make a vaccine 'as mandatory as possible'.
The 66-year-old, who is not an anti-vaxer and has vaccinated her four children, said the jabs should be optional.
'I tell you what, I'm not happy about this,' she said in the video filmed in her garden in Scenic Rim, Queensland.
'I'm quite angry because you have no right to say that I have to have this vaccination, because I tell you what, I won't be having it.'
'I don't have the flu vaccination, that's my choice, even though I know 1,200 Australians died last year, yet you never shut down the country.'
'But that is my choice, and I'm just telling you and the PM that I will not have it, and you will not force me to have it. It will be my choice what I do. So what's going to be your choice?'
Mr Morrison on Tuesday agreed to buy a vaccine being developed at Oxford University once it is approved, which could be late this year.
Licensed by UK drug firm AstraZeneca, the jab is already in phase three trails on thousands of people in the UK, Brazil and South Africa - with no dangerous side effects spotted so far.
Earlier trials found it generated a strong immune response and a four-fold increase in antibodies against coronavirus in 95 per cent of participants.
Mr Morrison said he wanted the vaccine to be 'as mandatory as possible' but later clarified it would not be forced on anyone.
'It's not going to be compulsory to have the vaccine,' he told Sydney radio station 2GB.
'There are no mechanisms for compulsory… I mean, we can't hold someone down and make them take it.'
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The prime minister confirmed there would be policies to encourage people to take the vaccine.
According to Heath Minister Greg Hunt, these may include banning people from flying or receiving government support payments if they do not take the jab.
'Nobody's going to force anybody to do anything as a compulsory measure, but we will certainly be encouraging people to take this up,' Mr Morrison said.
'There will be a lot of encouragement and measures to get a high rate of acceptance.
'What we want to achieve is as much vaccination as we possibly can, should the vaccine actually prove successful.'
