THE State Government of Queensland has stopped a plan to delete data from the world’s biggest ever post Covid vaccination survey run by Queensland Health and three of the state’s leading universities.
The Covid-19 Vaccination Safety and Efficacy Trial (QoVAX SET) aimed to track immune responses and identify facotrs affecting vaccine safety and efficacy across the population including Aboriginal and Torrorest Strait Islanders, but was mysteriously stopped in June 2023 when Metro North Health cut all funding and shut the study down.
Earlier this year it emerged that Metro North Health, a branch of Queensland Health managing the study, had written to all study participants informing them that all biospecimens would be sterilised and destroyed and data archived and made inaccessible.
This prompted alarm and outrage and the threat of legal action by researchers , because destruction of clinical records data is prohibited for 15 years after a study ends, under state legislation.
In April, lawyer Julian Gillespie issed a formal legal notice to Queensland authorities demanding a halt to any destruction of the QoVAX data and specimens. Gillespie warned that the specimens were relevant to ongoing legal cases involving potential vaccine injury, and destroying evidence could violate Section 129 of the Queensland Criminal Code in addition to breaching the Public Records Act.
A petition was also launched in June, calling on the State Government to cease any plans to destroy the data and specimens.
The message appears to have gotten through to the Queensland LNP government as Health Minister Tim Nicholls has wirtten to the Clerk of the Parliament, the officer in charge of petitions, informing him that QoVAX research program data, biospecimens, and documentation were currently
stored in accordance with the Queensland Government General Retention and Disposal Schedule,
Health Sector (Clinical Records) Retention and Disposal Schedule, and Health Sector (Corporate
Records) and Retention and Disposal Schedule.
“I have instructed Metro North Hospital and Health Service to continue to retain research program
data, biospecimens, and documentation related to the QoVAX research program,” Nicholls wrote.
