A leaked recording of a Channel Seven special on Australia’s response to Covid shows an angry audience turning on a panelist.
Spotlight, which aired on Sunday night, looked at various aspects of the pandemic response, including border closures, lockdowns, vaccine damage and long Covid.
The topic of vaccines led to a heated confrontation between pediatric infectious diseases specialist Professor Robert Booy, one of the four panelists in the studio, and the audience, while the broadcast was missing.
The outburst followed a question from Ayse Goknur Shanal, a member of the audience, who proudly declared that she had not taken any Covid vaccine.
Ms Goknur Shanal described herself as ‘one of the few people in the legal sector who took on the TGA and the rest of the government agency for corruption within government and corruption in the medical sector’.
“Why, after three years, is there still no research into the immune systems of people who have received the first, second and third doses, and the aftermath and latency periods, and how the unvaccinated are doing now?” she asked.
‘We have a society in which there are chronically ill people in the winter, and these are not the unvaccinated.’
Professor Booy replied that ‘Australia has some of the best immunologists in the world’ and ‘we are looking at the response to vaccination’.
A woman attending the taping of a Spotlight special angered the audience with her question about how Covid vaccines affect the immune system — but the question was cut from the broadcast
“We do look at people who have not been exposed to Covid or who have not been vaccinated, and their immune systems are compared,” he said. “So you’re wrong.”
“And as for being healthy, that’s great. I’m really happy for you.”
The programme, which aired on Sunday evening, immediately switched to another answer from a fellow panellist, ANU associate professor of infectious diseases Dr Sanjaya Senanayake.
However, leaked audio shows that the conversation with Professor Booy was much more intense.
The questioner tried to interrupt with: ‘I’m sorry…’
“For the people who have had Covid, excuse me, for the people who have had Covid, excuse me, let me finish,” said Prof Booy.
‘People who have had Covid, but also people who have not been vaccinated, develop more serious symptoms and are at greater risk of developing long-term Covid.’
The crowd erupted in anger and one man shouted: ‘Bulls***’.
“Those are fucking lies, mate,” shouted another.
“You need to give back your driver’s license,” added another.
There were also chants from the audience of “That’s the biggest lie” and “snake oil salesman.”
Spotlight presenter Michael Usher had to intervene to restore order.
“I love that you have a view,” he told the crowd.
Professor Robert Booy’s defense of Covid vaccines led to a heated confrontation
‘Would you please intervene. I want to answer as many questions as possible. Don’t swear, I’m going to blow it in the audience, so please don’t. Carry on.’
Leaked audio also showed that a question about vaccines, asked by independent journalist Alison Bevege, also made it onto the editing floor.
Bevege held up a laminated A4 printout of a large black triangle pointing downwards, labelled Black Triangle Scheme.
“How come most Australians don’t know what this symbol means?” she asked.
‘This was on your vaccine box – your gene vaccine, the mRNA products for Covid. This was on the box and the package inserts. It means they are provisionally registered.
‘In 2016 they were still illegal. In 2018 they changed the law to allow products on the market that have not yet gone through all the testing required for full registration.
‘This symbol meant that you or your doctor should report any side effects to the TGA, as they are still working on the safety profile of the medicine.
‘Because people didn’t know this, they didn’t report the side effects.
‘The TGA therefore does not know exactly how many people have died and been injured by these products.
“That’s why you have an audience full of angry people. Thank you.”
There was applause from the audience.
Although the entire question was deleted from the broadcast version of the programme, Professor Senanayake’s answer remained.
Independent journalist Alison Bevege asked a question about the provisional approval of the vaccines, but it was cut from the broadcast, while her later intervention was left on air.
“If we’re going to see really, really, really rare side effects, we’ve had seven to 10 billion doses to see those and so far we haven’t heard of anything unusual, but we’ll keep looking,” he said.
“That’s not true!” Bevege shouted from the audience, which happened seemingly at random during the broadcast.
“You’re not collecting the data in a controlled way. That’s not a test, that’s just giving it to everyone.”
“I disagree,” Professor Senanayake replied.
Daily Mail Australia contacted Channel Seven, the TGA and Professor Booy for comment.