(LifeSiteNews) — Australia’s public health system, Queensland Health, has permanently halted its COVID-19 Vaccination Safety and Efficacy Trial (QoVAX), arguably one of the largest ever studies comparing vaccinated patients to unvaccinated ones.
In a letter addressed to QoVAX participants in March 2025, Metro North Health verified that authorities were permanently ceasing the study, destroying all samples and data as a result.
“Metro North Health has determined that, for a range of reasons including the many mutations of the COVID-19 virus and similar studies from Australia and worldwide, there is no longer a scientific and public health need to retain these biological samples for future study,” read the letter, dated March 19, 2025.
“Therefore, these samples will be appropriately sterilised and disposed of. All study data collected as part of the QoVAX-SET study will be archived for the specified time-period as required by law, however, it will not be accessed or used for any future purpose.”
The permanent end to the study comes after it was announced in June 2023 that the study was being defunded with no official reason, affecting various unpublished research papers that were almost complete.
According to a report by Canberra Daily, the QoVAX Safety and Efficacy Statewide Study was initially created “to better understand the short, medium and long-term impacts of COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines in Queensland,” and comprised “10,000 adult participants across 86% of postcodes, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, generating over 100,000 biospecimens and 11 million data points.”
“With its digitally-integrated biobank and linked data repository, the study promised to enable ongoing research addressing epidemiology, genomics, virology, and immunology, as well as unforeseen complications of COVID vaccines, and long COVID outcomes,” the outlet added.
Notably, QoVAX was one of the only real-world studies to have access to a “comparison set” of participants who had been inoculated, but had not contracted the COVID-19 virus.
Some of Queensland’s most prominent research groups, such as QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, the University of Queensland (UQ), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), James Cook University and Griffith University, participated in the study.
Since its 2023 defunding, specialists, politicians, participants, and the media have questioned the Queensland government’s decision to halt the QoVAX study.
In a statement to Parliament dated March 2023, Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick, an outspoken advocate for vaccinated individuals injured by the experimental COVID-19 shots, said:
Why has the Queensland health department withdrawn funding for its award-winning QoVAX research program studying the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines?
This program is the creation of 27 highly skilled researchers, health professionals and administrative staff. They were supported by multiple partners, including 12 health service agencies, five universities and two private pathology services. QoVAX was strongly supported by Queenslanders, rapidly enrolling more than 10,000 participants, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, from 85 percent of postcodes across the state.
Countries like Australia are uniquely placed to investigate vaccine efficacy because their diverse populations were, until late in the pandemic, relatively free of the COVID-19 virus. The QoVAX team didn’t just collect the standard data. Participants provided information on environmental and social determinants of health, and provided biospecimens of blood and saliva that have been used to derive genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic datasets that will shed light on how the novel vaccines impact the immune system.Studying immune response is a vital part of assessing vaccines, and QoVAX’s work is consistent with similar studies completed on other vaccines.
The research is particularly important because two new vaccine delivery platforms were used: modified messenger RNA and vector DNA. It is particularly important because the original trials of these vaccines were meant to last for two years, but the placebo group was vaccinated only after two months. The study and the biobank have enormous international significance, yet, instead of answering vital questions about why Australia, one of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world, had such high excess mortality and so many cases of long COVID in vaccinated people, the study is being forced to close down.
All Australians deserve answers to the questions these vaccines have raised.
QoVAX Director Professor Janet Davies likewise lambasted the move as “incredibly disappointing.”
In like manner, Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts slammed the decision to destroy all data and samples from the QoVAX study, declaring in a Facebook post:
Losing the last evidence that could inform a truly objective assessment of the effects of the injections wouldn’t just be a tragedy, it could be a crime.I’m putting Queensland Health bureaucrats on notice. Do not destroy these samples and evidence, allow the study to complete so that the data can be shared for all Australians.
