133 Molesworth Street
PO Box 5013
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
T+64 4 496 2000
15 November 2021
Maxwell.
By email: [FYI request #17202 email]
Ref:
H202114511
Tēnā koe Maxwell
Response to your request for official information Thank you for your request under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) to the Ministry of
Health (the Ministry) on 15 October 2021 for:
“...all available correspondence between the COVID-19 Vaccine Independent Safety
Monitoring Board (CV ISMB) and the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group (CV
TAG) since their inception?
This should include any joint meeting minutes, current and historic safety reports, current
and historic safety evaluations, current and historic adverse reaction reports, emails
and/or memos related to vaccine safety, etc.”
On 9 November 2021, you were informed that your request was for a substantial volume of
information and may be refused under section 18(f) of the Act. The Ministry stated:
“
We are contacting you in accordance with section 18B of the Official Information Act
1982 (the Act) as your request, as it is currently worded, is for a very large volume of
information. Your request may be refused under section 18(f) of the Act as the information
requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or research.
If it is possible for you to narrow the scope of your request by selecting a shorter time
frame and a more specifying a topic, we may be able to provide you with information.
Please respond by 11 November 2021 so that we can consider your refinement in our
response to your request.”
On 15 November 2021 you responded with the following suggested refinement of your request:
“Can I narrow the scope of the request to the following correspondence since inception of
both committees:
- joint meeting minutes
- emails and/or memos related to vaccine safety”
The Ministry has estimated that the quantity of communications and documents in scope of your
request would require substantial collation and research to prepare. Therefore, your request is
refused under section 18(f) of the Act as the information requested cannot be made available
without substantial collation or research, I have considered whether charging or extending the
time to compile the information would enable us to respond, however, as this request is so
broad and each piece of correspondence must be individually reviewed, I do not believe it is in
the public interest to do so.
For your information, please note that similar requests have been responded to by the Ministry
of Health regarding other expert groups. Copies of the requests and information released in
response have been made publicly available on FYI.org.nz, which may be useful to you:
• COVID-19 Testing Technical Advisory Group and COVID-19 Therapeutics Technical
Advisory Group:
fyi.org.nz/request/17035-testing-and-therapeutics-technical-advisory-
groups-documents.
• COVID-19 Technical Advisory Group:
fyi.org.nz/request/15228-covid-19-technical-
advisory-group-reports-and-other-knowledge-informing-the-covid-19-response and
fyi.org.nz/request/15880-covid-19-technical-advisory-group-meeting-minutes.
The Ministry remains open to responding to a manageable request in the future.
Under section 28(3) of the Act, you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review any
decisions made under this request. The Ombudsman may be contacted by email at:
[email address] or by calling 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
Jan Torres
Acting Manager OIA Services
Office of the Director-General
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