The plight and high level of risk faced by the hundreds of thousands of people with blood cancer, and others who are immune compromised, has been scandalously airbrushed out of the pandemic story.

The UK’s NHS has utterly failed in its duty of care to us because it has refused to proactively offer post vaccinations antibody testing to all blood cancer and immune compromised patients. And it has refused to tell us that the vaccines may not work for us.

Blood Cancer UK recently completed a survey of its members who report just 20% of them had been warned by doctors or nurses that the vaccine might not work for them. This is outrageous especially when you consider that this group of patients are likely to be more informed and more pro active than a group who were not in contact with a patient charity.

All #bloodcancer and other #immunocompromised MUST be WARNED vaccines may not work for us TESTED for antibody response PROTECTED from infection risk and TREATED with monoclonal antibodies not neglected and left to die https://t.co/3cceR9iNw7

— Adrian Warnock (@adrianwarnock) July 8, 2021

A much higher proportion of people who are currently in hospital with COVID19 have blood cancer than you would predict from the rate of this diagnosis in the population.

Gemma Peters, Chief Executive of Blood Cancer UK, said:  “We have known since the start of the vaccination programme that immunocompromised people were less likely to be protected by the vaccines. Over the last few months of research that we have funded, we have shown that many blood cancers and treatments have a significant impact on vaccine response. So I am really worried that many people with blood cancer have not yet been told this, and so cannot make informed decisions to better protect themselves even after their second jab.

“The Government needs to communicate with every immunocompromised person to tell them that they are at risk, and to make this lifesaving message a key part of its communications. Given the rising infection rate, failing to act quickly could result in unnecessary deaths.”

https://bloodcancer.org.uk/news/80-of-people-with-blood-cancer-have-not-been-told-vaccines-may-not-work-for-them/

The NHS has also failed to rapidly adopt monoclonal antibodies unlike previous treatments when they were shown to work to treat covid19. For some of us our only hope of surviving an infection with COVID19 would be having had one of these infusions. Yet there is no talk whatsoever about making them available.

Exciting new Israeli data shows that there is an impressive 93% reduction in the general population risk of hospitalisation in double vaccinated individuals even from the new delta / India variant.

Clearly not everyone responds to vaccines, however. And I am told that we estimate that roughly 3% of the population are immune compromised for one reason or the other. In the UK 500,000 people are immune compromised in one way or the other. So surely this group are now at much higher risk right now since mild and asymptomatic infections with the new variant CAN occur in vaccinated healthy individuals, and transmission rates are much higher with this new variant.

The UK government has failed us by making decisions about society in general that do not take account of our needs, and by not offering us basic protections like the right to continue to be furloughed if we do not respond to vaccines.

It is understandable that our political leaders want to open up the economy since vaccines are clearly doing their job for many people and breaking the link between infection rates, hospitalisations and deaths. We do see this clearly in the UK too with huge numbers of infections with this new variant NOT leading to huge numbers of deaths and hospitalisations.

Sajid Javid our new Health Secretary explained today in the UK Parliament that this reduced risk of the NHS being overwhelmed has led them to decide to allow the cases to rise. Which may be fine if vaccines have worked for you but is NOT fine for those of us for whom they do NOT work. Here is how the Telegraph reports this:

He noted that around 27,000 new cases of Covid-19 were detected yesterday, but the number of people hospitalised with the virus in England stood at around 2,000, far below the figure of around 20,000 at a similar point during the second wave.

The Health Secretary added that he does expect infections to keep rising, and by July 19 daily rates could reach 50,000.

Beyond that, they will continue to rise “as high as 100,000 – I have been very upfront about that”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-new-covid-lockdown-rules-july-19/

We could see a dramatic surge of severe illness and death in blood cancer and other immune compromised patients unless something is done urgently to inform, warn, support, and protect us with the only viable treatment if a third vaccination shot still fails us: monoclonal antibodies.

But the government could save what may end up being many lives of people with blood cancer and other immune compromise, by at least keeping the mask rules in place. Whilst everyone else is shouting “freedom” many of us are going to be retreating back into our homes fearful of catching the new delta / India strain whilst knowing we didn’t make antibodies to the vaccine and are at much higher risk of death than any other group seen after vaccination.

We need to speak up and let our voice be heard. Why not share this article with your social media circles, your friends, family, doctors, and politicians?

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