Secondary schools in the UK have been plunged into the centre of the row over Covid vaccines for 12- to 15-year-olds, with anti-vaxxers at school gates and a headteacher threatened with legal action by one of his own governors.
Letters circulated by campaign groups and parents are accusing schools of sanctioning “medical experimentation” if they allow the Covid vaccination programme for 12- to 15-year-olds to go ahead.
Guidance published on Friday by the Department for Education (DfE) said that in cases where a teenager wanted the jab but their parent had not given consent, healthcare professionals would make every effort to contact the family before they proceeded, but that the parent “cannot overrule the decision of a Gillick competent child”.
The guidance also confirmed that the local School Aged Immunisation Service (SAIS), not schools, would be legally responsible for the delivery of the vaccine.
Read the full article in the Guardian here.
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