A Spanish judge has ruled in favour of a mother who refused to get her child vaccinated against the Chinese coronavirus, agreeing that the risks to the child from the vaccine are higher than the potential benefits.
The case saw the father of the child, a 15-year-old boy, call for the Tenerife court to judicially authorise the vaccination of the boy, while the mother, who is divorced from the father, had argued that the vaccine posed more risks than benefits to her son.
The judge agreed with the mother, stating that the benefits from the vaccine to the boy were “very scarce” and said that the possibility of adverse reactions to the jab was “much higher,” Spanish newspaper El Mundo reports.
The judge listened to testimony from the father, the mother, and the boy who stated that he wanted to take the vaccine, saying that he was concerned unvaccinated people “have a worse time” when contracting the coronavirus. The father in the case argued that his son should be vaccinated, stating that he believed “it is best” for the child to take the vaccine because it “is good and will protect him”.
The judge, however, stated, “the effects of the vaccine in the medium and long term are unknown, since the clinical trials have not ended,” and added that while public authorities recommend the vaccine to children, they have often given out advice, only to contradict themselves later.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, the health authorities discouraged the use of a mask, which is now mandatory in closed spaces,” the judge stated as an example.
“It is difficult, if not impossible, to balance the adverse effects in the medium or long term of the COVID vaccine when they are unknown at the present time,” the judge said and added, “what is being put on one side of the scale is a question, an unknown, for which to date no one can offer an accurate answer, because no one has been vaccinated against COVID for several years.”
He went on to note that pharmaceutical companies have been convicted for adverse effects from medications years after their release, giving the drug thalidomide as an example as well as a Spanish case involving the smallpox vaccine in the 1970s.
The mother in the case was granted a period of two years to decide whether or not her son should take the vaccine or not.
In Spain, five coronavirus vaccines have been approved by health authorities, including the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna RNA jabs as well as the Johnson & Johnson, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Novavax vaccines.
The case comes after another Spanish court ruled to prevent a mother from contacting or approaching her two children as part of her bail conditions after she fled with them to Portugal last November in order to prevent them from being vaccinated.
Another court ruling regarding children and vaccines was made in Canada this month as well, which saw a judge in the French-speaking province of Quebec deny visitation rights to a father because he is unvaccinated.
The judge argued that despite the child being fully vaccinated, the vaccination status of the father proved too much of a risk for visitation and stated that the court would revisit the case in February.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com