In high tones, Deputy Minister of Health Irini Agapidaki rejected the research cited by Nikos Papadopoulos MP Nikos Papadopoulos as “baseless and misleading”, that “there are serious side effects from the vaccines against Covid-19.

The Deputy Minister of Health, responding to a relevant topical Question in the Plenary Session, called it “unacceptable, with arbitrary arguments and distorted investigations to mislead and terrorize the citizens, spreading fake news” against the Covid-19 vaccines.

This, he said, “is terribly sad for an elected member of parliament and a doctor”. Mrs. Agapidaki accused the “Niki” party of attempting “heavy and cruel antiembolism propaganda”. He recalled what Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus had said, that those who “turn against vaccination have sketchy views”, and Metropolitan Dionysios of Corinth, who said that vaccine deniers “do not dip their tongues into their minds before speaking” and “whoever does the vaccine is more Christian because it respects man and science.”

Regarding the study referred to by the MP, who said that “25 Germans died in 20 days after their covid-19 vaccination”, the deputy minister clarified that “the study in question was intended to investigate common findings and describe common characteristics of myocarditis in people vaccinated against SARS-Covid who did not receive treatment for myocarditis” and added: “Among just 35 cases examined by the University of Heidelberg, autopsies revealed other causes of death due to pre-existing diseases in patients and were therefore excluded from further investigation. Of the remaining 25 people, only in five cases were there autopsy findings of suspected myocarditis, three had underlying problems (hypertension, COPD, diabetes mellitus and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis), and finally the researchers could not bring any functional evidence and connection between of the vaccine and myocarditis in the cases they studied. There is no study that records 25 German deaths from the Covid vaccination.”

Regarding the “recent” supposed study from Norway where it allegedly “showed that 23 elderly people died after being vaccinated against Covid”, the deputy minister said that “this is not recent at all since it was done in 2021, when vaccination was in its infancy stages”. “Norway was one of the first countries to introduce vaccination, up to the days of the survey they had carried out only 43,740 vaccinations, and vaccinated vulnerable citizens who were most in need first. The study refers to severely frail and therefore vulnerable to serious illness in the elderly, and these 23 deaths recorded were in very old and frail people in nursing homes, who were dealing with existing illnesses and were at the end of their lives. From this study no connection of the vaccine with their death was recorded, on the contrary these deaths, as stated by the chief physician, were included by the researchers themselves in the expected mortality of the general population for the age group in question. explained the deputy minister and noted that “despite the research you refer to, Norway until August 2021 proceeded with 4 million vaccinations”.

Responding personally to the MP, Mrs. Agapidakis told him that “I am personally saddened by what is being brought to Parliament because – although your party is known for its anti-scientific anti-vaccination positions – an allegedly scientific documentation with Fake News is presented and you attempt to present it as serious arguments from serious scientific journals” and added that “I cannot convince you, but I am addressing the citizens who must believe in science and not in the lies presented as science”.

The deputy minister pointed out that “to date, 13.5 billion vaccinations have been done all over the world, that is, proportionally, the entire population of the earth has been vaccinated twice”, commenting that “according to your data, we should all be on the street… ” and underlined that “vaccines saved lives”.

The presiding vice-president of the Parliament Odysseas Konstantinopoulos, intervening in the discussion of the current question, said “that we are many doctors in the Parliament, we may have many opinions” noting that “it is very easy and you may hear various easy-to-digest things or read a lot and various things on the internet but we should be informed about them by the doctors.”