ATAGI heads are hitting back after copping blame for vaccine hesitancy, claiming age recommendations for various vaccines were not communicated correctly by governments.

Joe Hildebrand condemned the Morrison government’s decision to regurgitate ATAGI’s advice “almost unadulterated”, forcing non-medically trained Australians to read between the lines.

“No one in the bureaucracy ever expects that to happen – they give advice and then they expect the politicians to massage it or … make it clearer or cleaner or simpler.

“[Now] you’ve got all these laypeople trying to read what is effectively quite complex medical advice, almost right from the source, thinking … ‘that means if I’m aged between 50 and 60 I’m suddenly in terrible danger!’

“Of course, it doesn’t mean anything like that at all.”

Instead, ATAGI co-chair Professor Allen Cheng likened the ‘misconstrued’ vaccine advice to Coca-Cola versus Pepsi – most people would have a preference for one or the other, but when you’re thirsty (or there’s an outbreak of COVID-19), either will do.

Press PLAY below to hear Joe’s comments in full

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