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Children as young as 6 continued receiving AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in a 2021 U.K. clinical trial, even though U.K. government advisers were aware of a potentially deadly blood clot risk, a newly released document reveals. GB News first reported the story Monday.
The revelations arise from the minutes of a May 21, 2021, meeting of the Commission on Human Medicines, which advises the U.K. government on medicine safety, efficacy and quality. The meeting addressed a “very small but potentially very serious risk” of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT).
VITT is a life-threatening syndrome that causes blood clots (thrombosis) and low blood platelet counts (thrombocytopenia). It has been linked to both mRNA and non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, including the AstraZeneca shot.
The partially redacted document, marked “Official — Sensitive Commercial” and “Not for Publication,” shows that at least one member at the meeting argued that the trial “should be allowed to proceed” even though there is often “no successful intervention” available for VITT.
The minutes revealed that the U.K.’s Paediatric Medicines Expert Advisory Group agreed that the clinical trial — which enrolled 262 children ages 6-17, including 112 kids ages 6-11 — should continue, even though the clinical trial was temporarily paused in April 2021 to investigate reports of “extremely rare” blood clots.
The meeting’s participants — including several advisers with ties to AstraZeneca or Oxford University, the vaccine’s co-developer — reached this conclusion despite acknowledging that the vaccine’s “direct benefit” to kids was “quite remote” and that the benefit of vaccination “when balanced against risk is low.”
BREAKING:
Absolutely outrageous. Government advisers discussed behind closed doors the potentially fatal blood-clot risks of giving AstraZeneca Covid jabs to children as young as SIX in a clinical trial. Yet the trial continued despite healthy children being at extremely low risk from Covid. How was this ethically justified? Where was the transparency and informed consent? First do no harm. There must be accountability.
https://t.co/2ZIPzIOYJU
— Dr Aseem Malhotra (@DrAseemMalhotra) October 26, 2026
GB News cited a study published in The Lancet in June 2022, showing that children in the clinical trial received the second dose of the AstraZeneca shot 112 days after their first dose. According to GB News, this means that the children received their second doses “approximately two months” after the May 2021 meeting.
The Lancet study states that the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) Clinical Trials Unit approved the second doses after a “review.”
Alison Cave, Ph.D., chief safety officer for the MHRA, told The Defender that “emerging safety information, including concerns about thrombosis with thrombocytopenia, and the benefit-risk of further vaccination in trial participants, were subject to regulatory and independent expert scrutiny,” after the trial was paused.
Cave said that regulatory decisions are made “on the evidence available at the time and are kept under review as new evidence emerges, with the safety and interests of trial participants central to those decisions.”
But Dr. Angus Dalgleish, professor of oncology at City St George’s, University of London, said he was “staggered that the committee, with so many experts, remained quiet.” He called the committee “negligent,” stating that the serious blood clot risk served as “an immediate red flag to halt all vaccination of children immediately.”
Trial continued despite mounting evidence of blood clot risk
The clinical trial was launched in February 2021 — when “evidence already showed healthy children faced an extremely low risk of serious illness or death from Covid,” GB News reported. The trial focused on the vaccine’s safety profile, rather than its effectiveness in preventing infection.
The trial progressed amid increasing reports of serious adverse events linked to the AstraZeneca shot in the general population. GB News reported:
“By the time the experts met on May 21, 2021, Britain’s drug regulator had already received 332 reports of the rare blood-clotting condition linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, including 58 deaths.
“By November 2022, after the trial had ended, the number had risen to 445 suspected cases and 81 deaths.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the real-world safety data were sufficient to stop any trial involving children.
“Given the astronomical rate of adverse events in these trials, the AstraZeneca vaccine should have never been given to any children, period,” Hooker said. “If indeed these officials had followed the science, the vaccine would never have entered testing and would not have been on the market in the first place, especially for kids.”
The clinical trial’s results were published in the journal Vaccine last year, identifying five serious adverse events and four adverse events of special interest — although study investigators found that none of these injuries were linked to the vaccine. Some of the authors of the study were linked to AstraZeneca or Oxford.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., CHD’s senior research scientist, said several papers that were published by the time of the May 2021 meeting — including one in The New England Journal of Medicine — had already highlighted the risk of what he called a “cardiovascular catastrophe” linked to the COVID-19 shots.
Later data confirmed these early safety signals. Data obtained through a freedom of information request show that in 2021 alone, the MHRA received 48,472 reports of adverse events linking the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to heart conditions.
The U.K. and some European countries had already begun walking back previous AstraZeneca vaccine recommendations in response to reports of potentially dangerous blood clots.
In April 2021 — a month before the Commission on Human Medicines met to discuss the blood-clotting risk of the AstraZeneca vaccine — the U.K.’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advised people under 30 to opt for a different vaccine if they hadn’t yet received their initial dose.
The recommendation was extended to healthy adults under 40 on May 7, 2021 — two weeks before the Commission on Human Medicines’ meeting.
Some European countries also suspended use of the AstraZeneca shots for the general population or specific population groups during this period.
Denmark, Norway and Iceland suspended the AstraZeneca shot in March 2021 and were later followed by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
By the time all children participating in the AstraZeneca trial received their second dose, several of these advisories or suspensions had been in place for “nearly four months,” GB News reported.
‘Candid’ discussions on vaccine safety took place only behind closed doors
Dr. Bob Gill, a general practitioner with the U.K.’s National Health Service, said the decision not to stop the AstraZeneca trial involving children despite the known risks of the vaccines “demonstrates regulatory capture” by a “nexus of power” involving Big Pharma and government.
“We see this time and time again, where the regulators do not, for whatever reason, do what seems the obvious thing to do to protect patient safety,” Gill said. He added that the same nexus of power incentivizes a “target-based system” that incentivizes physicians to vaccinate a certain percentage of their patients.
Censorship in mainstream media and on social media platforms contributed to this capture, Gill said, as “dissenting voices were either smeared or silenced” if they questioned the safety of the COVID-19 shots.
Jablonowski said the minutes of the May 2021 meeting show that “candid discussions” about the safety and potential risks of the AstraZeneca vaccine took place, but only behind closed doors. “Outside those doors, there was no candid discussion amidst the lock-step censorship,” Jabloniwski said.
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UK fast-tracked COVID shot rollout against the advice of medical experts
A 2022 study published in the journal Drug Safety found that by May 2022, 443 cases of concurrent thrombocytopenia had been reported following AstraZeneca vaccination — including 81 deaths.
Over 80 lawsuits filed in the U.K. alleged injuries caused by the AstraZeneca shot.
In 2024, AstraZeneca withdrew its COVID-19 vaccine from the market — but claimed the withdrawal was due to waning global demand, not safety concerns or the legal challenges in the U.K.
Private WhatsApp messages shared with The Telegraph in 2023 revealed that U.K. politicians and public health officials made COVID-19 policy decisions based on political expediency rather than science, contradicting their public statements.
These documents, known as the “Lockdown Files,” showed that officials opted to fast-track the rollout of the COVID-19 shots, against the advice of some medical experts.
Related articles in The Defender
- UK Health Officials Covered Up Reports of Heart Damage Linked to AstraZeneca Vaccine
- UK Medical Advisers Warned Against Fast-Tracking COVID Vaccines, ‘Lockdown Files’ Reveal
- ‘Lockdown Files’: U.K. Health Officials Used ‘Guilt’ and ‘Fear’ — Not Science — to Control Public Behavior
- More Than 80 Lawsuits in UK Allege AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine Caused Deaths, Severe Injuries
- Woman Injured by COVID Vaccine Not ‘Disabled Enough’ to Qualify for Compensation
- Will AstraZeneca Have to Pay Medical Expenses for Woman Injured During COVID Vaccine Trial?
