Australia's medicines regulator has accused the United Australia Party's Craig Kelly of breaching copyright and demanded he cease spamming people about adverse vaccine reactions.
Mr Kelly, who quit the Liberals over his refusal to stop spouting unfounded COVID-19 treatment claims, has engaged in a text message campaign about vaccines.
This includes a message with a link taking people to a database of adverse event notifications for coronavirus vaccines.
Lawyers for the Therapeutic Goods Administration have written to the MP for the Sydney seat of Hughes alleging he's in breach of copyright, according to a statement released on Wednesday.
The regulator demanded Mr Kelly "stop distributing incomplete extracts of adverse event reports relating to COVID-19 vaccines which the TGA believes could be seriously misleading".
It alleged the extracts were taken selectively from the TGA's database, removing important information about the reports and the regulator's copyright statement.
"Information on the Database of Adverse Event Notifications cannot be used to identify whether a medicine or a vaccine is safe or has caused the reported adverse event or not," the TGA said.
Further investigation is required before an incident can be deemed related to a vaccine, something the TGA emphasises in its database.
"The extracts disseminated by the United Australia Party excluded this important information at the beginning of the reports as well as the statement indicating that the information is subject to copyright under Australian law," the TGA said.
Kelly hits back
Mr Kelly responded in a media release of his own, saying the TGA’s statement was “misleading and deceptive” and that he was also seeking legal advice.
“The letter I have received … only has raised an issue of an alleged copyright infringement and nothing more,” he said.
“The TGA’s media release is defamatory and I’m seeking urgent legal advice, as it creates a defamatory imputation that is false.
"The TGA's media release creates a false impression that the correspondence I have received … includes a reference to the text being "seriously misleading" when in fact, the correspondence … makes no reference to this point.”
He said the TGA’s allegations of copyright breaches “will be vigorously defended”.
"Ultimately the frivolous copyright issue is a disgraceful diversionary tactic by the TGA."
With additional reporting by SBS News.
