Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion back­bencher Dr Rai Rag­bir has re­buked com­ments by his par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the COVID-19 vac­cines and de­fend­ed their use, which he said was cer­ti­fied as safe by in­ter­na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties.

“While it is her (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) right to crit­i­cise Gov­ern­ment poli­cies, those crit­i­cisms must be ground­ed in facts, rea­son, and log­ic. The de­vel­op­ment of ef­fec­tive health pol­i­cy re­quires hon­esty and ad­her­ence to sci­en­tif­ic truth, not po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring,” Rag­bir added in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

He is­sued this af­ter Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh on Thurs­day called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­tract a claim she made at Mon­day’s UNC cot­tage meet­ing about peo­ple be­ing giv­en “fake vac­cines.”

Deyals­ingh said the con­se­quences of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “ir­re­spon­si­ble and bla­tant­ly false ut­ter­ances cast as­per­sions” not just on health­care med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, but al­so on re­spect­ed re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies such as WHO, PA­HO and CARPHA.

Rag­bir, whose com­ments echoed Deyals­ingh’s con­cerns, said health­care must be ground­ed in facts, “not po­lit­i­cal spin.”

“As a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, I wish to ex­press my agree­ment with the Trinidad News­day’s ed­i­to­r­i­al ti­tled ‘Court­ing Mis­in­for­ma­tion’ re­gard­ing the crit­i­cal role of facts and ev­i­dence in health­care. Med­i­cine can­not—and must not—be guid­ed by po­lit­i­cal rhetoric or mis­in­for­ma­tion. Lives de­pend on the ac­cu­ra­cy and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of health­care pol­i­cy and its im­ple­men­ta­tion.”

He con­tin­ued, “In light of re­cent state­ments made by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in which she said, ‘peo­ple were giv­en fake vac­cines,’ I urge her to re­con­sid­er the nar­ra­tive be­ing pushed. While it is her right to crit­i­cise gov­ern­ment poli­cies, those crit­i­cisms must be ground­ed in facts, rea­son, and log­ic. The de­vel­op­ment of ef­fec­tive health pol­i­cy re­quires hon­esty and ad­her­ence to sci­en­tif­ic truth, not po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring.”

Rag­bir said the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic posed an “un­prece­dent­ed chal­lenge glob­al­ly.”

“The COVID-19 vac­cines dis­trib­uted to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go were rig­or­ous­ly test­ed and cer­ti­fied as safe by in­ter­na­tion­al health or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) and the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO).

“To ques­tion the safe­ty of these vac­cines with­out ev­i­dence is to un­der­mine the col­lec­tive ef­fort of our front­line health­care work­ers and ex­perts who fol­lowed sci­en­tif­ic pro­to­cols to pro­tect our cit­i­zens. The da­ta is clear—vac­ci­na­tion sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced the num­ber of se­vere COVID-19 cas­es and saved lives, es­pe­cial­ly among the most vul­ner­a­ble,” he added.

— Gail Alexan­der