British Indian medic calls for public apology over COVID vaccine mandates
London (PTI): British Indian cardiologist Aseem Malhotra, a vocal campaigner for a more evidence-based approach to all COVID vaccines, and a fellow medic on Friday called for medical bodies to publicly apologise for the implementation of COVID vaccine mandates they claim have fuelled distrust and conspiracy theories.
Writing in the peer-reviewed journal ‘Science, Public Health Policy and the Law’, Malhotra and research psychologist Dr Andrea Lamont Nazarenko call upon the public health establishment to address the shortcomings of COVID-era public policy and acknowledge wrongdoings.
Both authors acknowledge the need for decisions guided by the best evidence available in the early days of the pandemic but insist that such justification cannot extend indefinitely.
“Until the most urgent questions are answered, nothing less than a global moratorium on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines — coupled with formal, unequivocal apologies from governments and medical bodies for mandates and for silencing truth seekers — will suffice,” they write.
Dr Malhotra, an advisor to US health secretary Robert F Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Action, is campaigning for wider information access on vaccines as the Chief Medical Advisor to Make Europe Healthy Again.
In the journal commentary entitled ‘Mandates and Lack of Transparency on COVID-19 Vaccine Safety has Fuelled Distrust – An Apology to Patients is Long Overdue’, Malhotra and Nazarenko argue that science must remain the foundation of public health.
“The pandemic demonstrated that when scientific integrity is lacking and dissent is suppressed, unethical decision-making can become legitimised. When this happens, public confidence in health authorities erodes,” they write.
“The role of public health is not to override individual clinical judgment or the ethics that govern medical decision-making. This is essential because what once appeared self-evident can, on further testing, prove false – and what may appear to be ‘safe and effective’ for one individual may be harmful to another,” they add.
The article has been welcomed by international medical experts and scientists, who believe in an urgent need to rebuild public confidence in health authorities.
“It might be impossible to go back in time and correct these major public health failings, which included support of futile and damaging vaccine mandates and lockdowns and provision of unsupported false and misleading claims regarding knowledge of vaccine efficacy and safety, but to start rebuilding public confidence in health authorities (is) the starting point,” said Dr Nikolai Petrovsky, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Disease, Australian Respiratory and Sleep Medicine Institute, Adelaide, Australia.
“This article is a scholarly and timely review of the public health principles that have been so clearly ignored and traduced. Without a complete apology and explanation we are doomed to pay the price for failure to take up the few vaccines that make a highly significant contribution to public health,” added Angus Dalgleish, Emeritus Professor of Oncology, St George’s University Hospital, UK.
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What is Tax Holiday announced for foreign cloud firms till 2047 in Union Budget
New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday announced a major tax incentive aimed at attracting global cloud service providers to set up and expand their operations in India. Under the Union Budget proposals, foreign companies that offer cloud services worldwide by using data centres located in India will be granted a tax holiday until 2047.
Announcing the measure, Sitharaman said the move is intended to draw global investment into India’s digital infrastructure, generate employment and strengthen the country’s role in the global digital economy.
A tax holiday is a policy tool used by governments to encourage investment. It involves a temporary reduction or complete exemption from certain taxes, usually corporate or income tax, for a defined period. Such incentives are often offered to promote specific sectors, boost economic activity and create jobs.
Under the new proposal, foreign cloud service providers will be allowed to operate globally using data centres based in India, but services to Indian customers must be routed through an Indian reseller entity. This structure is meant to ensure local participation and regulatory oversight while still allowing global companies to base their infrastructure in India.
Indian companies that provide data centre services to these foreign firms will receive a safe harbour tax rate of 15 per cent. Safe harbour provisions offer certainty on tax liability by fixing profit margins in advance, reducing disputes and making it easier for businesses to plan their operations.
The Budget also includes measures linked to electronic manufacturing. Non-resident companies will be allowed to use bonded warehouses in India to store components. These entities will be taxed on a profit margin of just 2 per cent of the invoice value, translating to an effective tax rate of around 0.7 per cent. The government says this rate is significantly lower than what is offered by many competing countries.
Explaining the rationale behind the move, Sitharaman said the policy would encourage large-scale investment in data centres and related infrastructure, create local jobs and help India emerge as a global hub for digital and cloud services.
