Member's statement: Vaccine Injured and Bereaved Awareness Event
Member's statement by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 24 June 2024
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Vaccine Injured and Bereaved Awareness Event
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4497420
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I want to raise awareness of an issue that has shamed the Assembly since September of last year. The vaccine injured and bereaved community has been trying to hold an awareness event in the Long Gallery and had proposed a date in September 2023. Although the DUP was only too willing to sponsor that event, SDLP MLAs, on instruction from their leader, were not allowed to do so.
Sinn Féin MLAs were also not allowed to sponsor that event, even though SDLP and Sinn Féin Members opposite have helped constituents who happen to be vaccine-injured. It is an absolute disgrace that parties and MLAs are not allowed to sponsor events for people who have been injured by medicine like those affected by the blood transfusion scandal and hyponatraemia. Those people and the vaccine-injured and bereaved are the same. I plead with the parties opposite — and with the Alliance Party, some of whose MLAs also refused to sponsor the event — to search their hearts and consciences and allow the vaccine-injured and those bereaved by medicine to hold an awareness event in this Building, which should be open to all, to tell their story. To tell how medicine hurt them; to tell of their experiences of the symptoms that they go through daily; to tell how they cannot get proper, clear pathways of care and how they have been gaslit and even called anti-vax, even though they received the vaccine. Things need to change for the better. I ask those MLAs who have a conscience to meet some of the vaccine-injured people on the steps of Stormont next Tuesday, 2 July, when they will be protesting.
276 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.35 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.81).
- Subject area: Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits.
- The overall probability was low and the text did not adopt any identity-based framing.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.20 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.07 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.08 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.09 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.36 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.49 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.35 | Between thresholds |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.81 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.01 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.11 |
| Adopts it | 0.07 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.61 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.29 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.04 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.03 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.03 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:48 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
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