The writer is in Australia
A ‘GLOBALLY significant’ bank of biosamples from an Australian study into the immune effects of covid vaccines is set to be destroyed, two years after the award-winning research project was defunded by the Queensland Government.
It says that ‘there is no longer a scientific and public health need to retain these biological samples for future study’.
Intended ‘to better understand the short, medium and long-term impacts of Covid-19 and Covid-19 vaccines in Queensland’, the QoVAX Safety and Efficacy Statewide Study boasted 10,000 adult participants across 86 per cent of the state’s postcodes, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, generating over 100,000 biospecimens and 11million data points for analysis across multiple phases.
With its digitally-integrated biobank and linked data repository, QoVAX promised to enable research addressing epidemiology, genomics, virology, and immunology, as well as unforeseen complications of covid vaccines, and long covid outcomes.
‘The study will provide us with a clearer picture about what factors – such as our genetic makeup, lifestyle and general health and wellbeing – influence a person’s vaccine response in this real-world situation,’ said QoVAX Director Professor Janet Davies at the outset.
Data collection began in August 2021, with a pilot study reportedly finding that while people in all age ranges had developed antibodies after two doses of covid vaccination, the response was lower for people aged over 50.
However, less than two years later, in June 2023, the study was defunded with no official explanation, jeopardising several unfinished research papers. Professor Davies was removed as project lead, and QoVAX was handed to Queensland’s Metro North Health. Sample collection ceased, data was shelved, and government web pages for the once-hyped initiative were deleted.
Experts and participants have since been calling for the resurrection of the QoVAX project, but in a letter to study participants Metro North Health confirmed that the study will be permanently shuttered, with all samples and data to be destroyed.
‘Metro North Health has determined that, for a range of reasons including the many mutations of the Covid-19 virus and similar studies from Australia and worldwide, there is no longer a scientific and public health need to retain these biological samples for future study,’ said the letter, sent on March 19 2025.
‘Therefore, these samples will be appropriately sterilised and disposed of. All study data collected as part of the QoVAX-SET study will be archived for the specified time-period as required by law however, it will not be accessed or used for any future purpose.’
A copy of the letter sent to QoVAX study participants. De-identified original sighted by me
Professor Davies called the decision, on which she was not consulted, ‘incredibly disappointing’.
‘It’s a terrible example of research wastage and loss of a globally significant opportunity to realise benefits and generate knowledge through research based on the unique samples provided by the 10,000 Queenslanders who gave consent and participated,’ said Professor Davies, who heads the Allergy Research Group at Queensland University of Technology.
QoVAX was one of the only real-world studies to have access to a ‘comparison set’ of participants who had been vaccinated, but had not been infected with the Covid virus, which took off in Queensland only after the state borders opened in December 2021.
This is how data scientist Andrew Madry was able to identify, in a separate study, that an increase in all-cause mortality in Queenslanders aged 60 and over was associated with the covid vaccine rollout in 2021, but not with community spread of covid, which came later.
The collection of biosamples and data from this comparison set was all the more significant in light of the fact that the vaccine manufacturers unblinded the placebo arms in their randomised controlled trials (RCTs) within months of the trials beginning, preventing the collection of medium-to-long-term trial data on vaccine effects.
Professor Kerryn Phelps AM, a GP and former president of the Australian Medical Association, said that the QoVAX biobank and dataset was ‘extremely valuable’ to research which is needed to inform diagnostic and treatment protocols for covid vaccine injuries and long covid.
In her GP practice, Professor Phelps manages patients who are suspected to have either one or a combination of these conditions. Professor Phelps suffered ‘devastating’ injury from her own Pfizer vaccination, resulting in intermittent fevers and cardiovascular implications including breathlessness, inappropriate sinus tachycardia, and blood pressure fluctuations.
While the overlap between Covid vaccine injury and long Covid has been highlighted in several key studies, doctors and patient advocacy groups say there is still a dearth of research to identify the underlying mechanisms of these conditions.
‘We really need to develop biomarkers to be able to make a more definitive diagnosis, both for vaccine injury and for long Covid,’ said Professor Phelps. ‘In parallel, we need to develop a range of evidence-based treatment protocols that are available to GPs and other specialists.’
The loss of the QoVAX biobank and data similarly concerns Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick of the People First Party (formerly of the Liberal Party), who has long advocated for the covid vaccine-injured, and last year asked in Parliament why the QoVAX project had been abandoned, particularly at a time when so many Australian excess deaths remain unexplained.
‘Destroying these records has eliminated the possibility of interpreting the collected data and therefore prevented vital research into the cause of the vaccine injured,’ Senator Rennick told me in response to the announcement by Metro North Health.
Professor Phelps said that even if the Queensland Government can’t foresee a value in retaining the biosamples and data,‘it’s very possible that those samples will be helpful for future research.’
I asked Metro North Health when the archived data will be destroyed, and whether any of the research done to date will ever be published.
A spokesperson responded: ‘Data for the QoVAX project will be stored in accordance with the Queensland Government General Retention and Disposal Schedule, Health Sector (Clinical Records) Retention and Disposal Schedule and Health Sector (Corporate Records) Retention and Disposal Schedule.
‘Publication of results is the responsibility of the researchers, however Metro North Health encourages the publication of data that has been analysed to date.’
Queensland Health was asked to provide an estimate of the total monies invested in the QoVAX project to date, but did not provide an answer.
It has previously been reported that the QoVAX project cost $20million, a drop in the bucket compared with Queensland Health’s operating budget of $26.7billion (£13billion) for 2024-2025.
This is also spare change for the Australian Federal Government, considering its spending on other covid vaccine-related projects, including $18billion on covid vaccines and treatments, and $532million on the Covid-19 Vaccine Access and Health Security Initiative for the Pacific and South East Asia.
I asked the Department of Health whether the Federal Government has considered, or is considering, taking over the QoVAX biosamples and dataset so that they can be preserved, but did not receive a response before publication deadline.
‘It is another slap in the face to these people as they desperately need recognition of their injuries and more importantly, remedies that can restore their health,’ said Senator Rennick.
If the QoVAX study shows how well the vaccines worked in a Covid-naive population, and how well they continue to work with multiple shots and infections, it’s a true mystery as to why the Queensland Government wouldn’t want to keep the study going and publish these amazing results for the world to see.
This article appeared in Dystopian Down Under on April 14, 2025, and is republished by kind permission.
