Cage fighter turned politician Paddy Holohan hits out at TDs over Covid vaccine 

The former UFC fighter who is an Independent Councillor on South Dublin County Council after leaving Sinn Féin last year, has been a vocal critic of the Covid vaccine for some time.

Now he has hit out at TDs and questioned whether anyone will go to jail after he watched a video featuring prominent American author and anti-vaxxer Naomi Wolf who highlighted that the Pfizer Covid vaccine was tested on rats before it was given to pregnant women.

After posting the video, Holohan wrote: "So anyone going to jail for this?

"Any elected TDs or famous influencers who pushed this on people wanna make a comment now? The silence is shocking, vaccine cleared on 44 rats so must be ok for humans?"

The vaccine was tested on non-pregnant people and pregnant animals before being given to pregnant women as this is standard clinical practice. Virtually all initial clinical trials exclude pregnant women but the vaccine was subsequently trialled on pregnant women.

Trials on pregnant women then began in February last year.

In January this year the European Medicines Agency Covid Taskforce reported growing evidence indicating that mRNA Covid-19 vaccines do not cause pregnancy complications for expectant mothers and their babies.

They said: "The task force undertook a detailed review of several studies involving around 65,000 pregnancies at different stages. The review did not find any sign of an increased risk of pregnancy complications, miscarriages, pre-term births or adverse effects in the unborn babies following mRNA Covid-19 vaccination. Despite some limitations in the data, the results appear consistent across studies looking at these outcomes."

They said studies also showed the vaccines were as effective at reducing the risk of hospitalisation and deaths in pregnant people as they are in non-pregnant people and the most common side effects were the same in pregnant people as non-pregnant people.

"Initial clinical trials do not generally include pregnant people. As a result, data on the use of vaccines as any other medicines during pregnancy, are not usually available at the time of the authorisation but are obtained afterwards. Animal studies with the Covid- 19 vaccines did not show any harmful effects in pregnancy or post-natal development.

"The review of real-world evidence suggests the benefits of receiving mRNA Covid-19 vaccines during pregnancy outweighs any possible risks for expectant mothers and unborn babies."

Cllr Holohan did not respond to requests for a comment.

Wolf was last year banned from Twitter for spreading disinformation about Covid vaccines. Among the false claims she made was one that vaccines were a "software platform that can receive uploads."

Other bizarre claims by Wolf include that the US military were importing Ebola from Africa and that during a therapy session she met Jesus while she was in the spirit of a 13-year-old boy.