Dear Public Health Agency for Northern Ireland,

With reference to the pdf describing the dangers of Ethylene Oxide in the link below which states, "The acute (short-term) effects of ethylene oxide in humans consist mainly of central nervous system depression and irritation of the eyes and mucous membranes. Chronic (long-term) exposure to ethylene oxide in humans can cause irritation of the eyes, skin, nose, throat, and lungs, and damage to the brain and nervous system. There also is some evidence linking ethylene oxide exposure to reproductive effects. EPA has concluded that ethylene oxide is carcinogenic to humans by the inhalation route of exposure. Evidence in humans indicates that exposure to ethylene oxide increases the risk of lymphoid cancer and, for females, breast cancer" please forward the risk assessment for testing school children twice a week for Covid-19 with swabs sterilised in Ethylene Oxide. If none is available, please direct all schools to halt this procedure immediately until such risk assessment has been carried out.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/fil...

Yours faithfully,

Tricia McGuigan

Dear Foi Pha,

Thank you for your confirmation that no risk assessment has been carried out into the dangers posed to children by the Ethylene Oxide sterilised swabs being used to test children with no respiratory symptoms twice a week in NI.

I hereby call for an urgent halt to the testing of our school children due not only to the dangers of build up of this extremely hazardous chemical, but to the fact that the suppliers of the test, Innova, issued a Class I recall of the product on 23rd April 2021 and the FDA, who never approved the product, have issued the following instructions to all Test Users, Health Care Providers, and Testing Program Organizers

"Stop using the Innova SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Qualitative Test.
Destroy the tests by placing them in the trash or return the tests to Innova using the FedEx return label that was included with the recall letter that Innova sent to customers.......
Testing program organizers: Notify participants in your testing program to discontinue diagnostic use of the Innova test and to use an FDA-authorized test to continue testing."

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safe...
As your agency is bound to have received these instructions, issued on 10th June, I request your confirmation that mass testing of children with this dangerous product has been discontinued and all relevant schools, unions, parents and relevant authorities have been instructed on the immediate discontinuation.

The inserts which accompany the Innova test state the following:-
"The performance of this test has not been evaluated for use in patients without signs and symptoms of respiratory infection", therefore it should never have been utilised for mass testing healthy children, and "Positive test results are more likely to represent False Positive results during periods of little/no SARS-CoV-2 activity". As there is virtually zero Covid in the NI community, dropping from a peak of 3576 positive test results in January 21 to just 70, on 13 June 2021, the strong likelihood is that these are All False Positives.

Your department is causing unnecessary mental and physical stress, with potentially dangerous chemicals to our children. In addition I have yet to see one scientific study showing that children are spreading the virus to teachers. In fact Sweden who kept schools open and did not wear masks show that teachers were among the least likely to have suffered serious affects of the illness. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE...

In England and Wales from 9 March to 28 December 2020 just 29 secondary school male teachers and 23 female teachers were labelled as dying with Covid. A total of 1326 teachers died of all causes during this period. With these statistics It beggars belief that your department and the teaching unions have insisted on treating children like biological weapons, shaming them into believing they have a potential to murder Granny, their parents, and their teachers. My own niece is due to start counselling tonight as she is terrified to go to school, terrified of the swab tests, terrified her parents will die and terrified of killing her teachers. She is severely anxious and depressed and has lost most of her friends as she has retreated into a frightened world of her own. It is on her behalf and on behalf of all other children who have been put in this Orwellian nightmare that I beseech your department to end this insanity today.

A copy of this request will be published on all social media channels and sent to several publications.

Yours sincerely,

Tricia McGuigan

Dear Public Health Agency for Northern Ireland,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Public Health Agency for Northern Ireland's handling of my FOI request 'Risk assessment for mass testing children with Ethylene Oxide sterilised swabs'.

Your department confirmed they did not carry out a risk assessment for the mass testing of children with swabs containing toxic material, however they did not respond to my last request, including the request to withdraw the Innova lateral flow test due to the class 1 recall issued by the FDA in June 2021 and an urgent risk assessment be carried out on the dangers of the build up effect of Ethylene Oxide in children being routinely tested with the known deadly toxin twice a week during school term. I am appalled to hear this practice is still continuing in the new term and that children and their entire class are being isolated due to the finding of a minute, dead RNA fragment in their nostrils when they have absolutely zero symptoms of Covid disease. Your urgent attention to this request is crucial to prevent further physical and mental harm to the children of this country. A copy of this request will be forwarded to the First, Education and Health ministers.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r...

Yours faithfully,

Tricia McGuigan