
6 May 2026
Alison Goodwin
[FYI request #34397 email]
Tēnā koe Alison
Your request for official information, reference: HNZ00202926
Thank you for your request, which was transferred from the Ministry of Health to Health New
Zealand | Te Whatu Ora on 21 April 2026, asking for the following under the Official Information
Act 1982 (the OIA):
A recent post on X by Dr David Gollogly states: “My College [Royal New Zealand Col ege of
Urgent Care (RNZCUC)] raised this myocarditis risk with the MoH around September 2021,
some months before the TAG advice. Their response was: no change, so as not to fuel
vaccine hesitancy. We negotiated that it would be okay for our doctors to advise young
males to rest after vaccination.”
Please provide all communications between the Ministry of Health and/or other health
system officials or organisations and the RNZCUC and/or its members, pertaining to
myocarditis risk, and communications about the risk, for covid vaccinees in 2021. Please
provide communications by all channels including, but not limited to, emails, text messages,
messages via other messaging apps, memos, phone calls if noted, recorded or transcribed
etc
Response
The information requested is attached as Appendix 1. Some information has been withheld under
section 9(2)(a) of the OIA to protect privacy. In making this decision, we have considered the public
interest in release and determined that it does not outweigh the need to withhold. In other
instances, information deemed outside the scope of your request has been removed.
Further, as part of its review of COVID-19 vaccine safety, Phase 2 of the Royal Commission of
Inquiry reported closely on the processes undertaken by Medsafe and the wider Ministry of Health
to investigate and communicate the risk of myocarditis since it first became aware of its potential in
early 2021. Section 2.1.7 of the report covers this issue and is available online at
www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report-phase-2/part-2-key-
decisions-our-assessments-and-findings/2-1-vaccine-safety-and-approvals.
How to get in touch
If you have any questions, you can contact us at
[email address].
If you are not happy with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Ombudsman. Information about how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
by phoning 0800 802 602.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, Health NZ may proactively
release a copy of this response on our website. Al requester data, including your name and
contact details, wil be removed prior to release.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Sara Freitag
Manager, Government Services
TeWhatuOra.govt.nz
Health NZ, PO Box 793,
Wel ington 6140, New Zealand