Education board chief calls vaccination "an experiment". Health minister: she should face consequences

Lesser Poland Education Superintendent Barbara Nowak was asked by private broadcaster Radio Zet on Friday about potential introduction of mandatory vaccinations for teachers. She said she was against the idea, and called vaccination "an experiment".

At a press briefing later on Friday, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski was asked to comment about Nowak's words. In his opinion, she should face consequences for what she had said. "Such people shouldn't be responsible for education," he said.

"Lately, we've been hearing about such 'enlightened' persons, who claim they can confront the whole world of science with their dubious authority," the minister said.

In his view, it was a very "unfortunate comment, as in reality it's no experiment". "Right now we don't even base only on declarations of producers who carried out initial research, but on real-time observations. We see that vaccination - and that's according to data from Poland - increases chances to avoid death by sixtyfold, compared to unvaccinated people," Niedzielski said.

"I condemn all signs of lack of reason and call for basic moderation," he added. "If someone wants to showboat and appear in media, because such things always attarct attention, they should realise they take huge responsibility upon theirselves. That's because each person that becomes doubtful due to such comments and decides not to get vaccinated, can hold these so-called 'experts' accountable for their life or health," minister Niedzielski stressed.

Barbara Nowak later commented on the issue on Twitter. "I admit that being educated in history, rather than medicine, I shouldn't talk about vaccination," she wrote.

"I assure that students and teacher in Lesser Poland are safe because the policy of the Polish state is being carried out," Nowak added.