Scott Morrison's attempt to influence ATAGI advice on AstraZeneca vaccine is misguided

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On Wednesday Morrison told a news conference he (or the government) made a "constant appeal" to the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) to review its advice on AstraZeneca according to the balance of risk.

On Thursday he said on radio: "I've just simply said balance of risk is changing, guys, so how is that impacting on your advice, and it's time to think about that.".

Indeed ATAGI has already altered its advice on AstraZeneca in light of the Sydney outbreak.

On July 13 it said where there was an outbreak and the Pfizer supply was constrained, people under 60 without immediate access to Pfizer should "reassess the benefits to them and their contacts from being vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca, versus the rare risk of a serious side effect".

The article also said: "The latest policy decision to avoid use of this vaccine in adults < 60 years in Australia is entirely consistent with past vaccine risk–benefit policy decisions when rare but serious adverse events were identified."?

It's up to the government whether it accepts whatever ATAGI says — as ATAGI's remit indicates, it only "advises".

It would be legitimate — if difficult and some would say irresponsible — for Morrison at any point to say he thought ATAGI wrong, that other advisers were telling him something else, and so the government rejected ATAGI's advice.

If ATAGI was pliable, he could say, "this is the new health advice — everyone should follow it".

At his Thursday news conference, Morrison tried to re-spin his pressure on ATAGI.

Actually, on numerous occasions, the government has made a virtue of just accepting health advice without question.

They write: "Ask yourself whether ATAGI made the right call by refusing to properly account for social benefits in its advice, which encouraged millions of Australians to delay vaccination.".

The ATAGI episode is just the latest chapter in the evolving story of the role of health experts in this pandemic

But at Thursday's news conference he said: "I'm certainly sorry that we haven't been able to achieve the marks that we had hoped for at the beginning of this year