A new episode of THE+TRIBUTE shares the story of Rozanne — an events professional who took the injection on 27 August 2021 under threat of losing her livelihood … but lost it anyway, as well as her health.

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Rozanne went to a Life Pharmacy to get a Covid vaccine when she felt her livelihood was being threatened. She and her husband run large-scale costume balls and other events, as well as organising overseas trips for clients. Rozanne was fifty years old, capable and not opposed to vaccines. But when the mandates arrived, the choice she thought she had disappeared. For her, consent is simple:

Consent means that this is my own body. And I should have had the freedom to decide what went into it. I’m not a child. I don’t need my mother to tell me whether I do or don’t take this vaccine.

On 27 August 2021, she stood in a line like “a sheep”, and was handed a piece of paper.

They said to me: “Just sign here and now go through.” There was some very small words, very small font. It didn’t say that there’s danger – no warning signs. There was nothing saying that there was risk.

Afterward, she immediately felt burning down her left leg, then numbness. That, she says, was the beginning of the end of the life she knew. 

The next day she had strange headaches, hearing so sharp it hurt, blurry vision, nausea. Mid-week she nearly passed out at work – with a drilling pain behind her ear. Official advice said headaches and tiredness were expected after the vaccine, so at first she did not think much of it.

She waited two more days, going in and out of consciousness, until friends told her it sounded like a serious vaccine reaction and to go to hospital. Until then she had not connected the dots. She still trusted the system. But like so many vaccine-injured, this is where the worst of her story begins.

Rozanne believed the government and the health system would look after her if something went wrong with her vaccination. She was high trust, as most New Zealanders were in 2020/21.

But right from the beginning, she was dismissed. In the emergency department, as she waited for hours holding her head in pain and for test results – a young doctor pulled her aside and told her she was simply suffering “anxiety” and “possibly menopause.” 

I just went, “Mate, go back to your superiors and stop lying to me.” He walked off and came back with someone else who said, “Yeah, okay.” They accepted it was most likely a reaction to the vaccine.

Rozanne was told to see her GP, and to apply for an exemption from the second dose. She expected her own doctor would help manage her care. While her GP agreed it sounded like a vaccine reaction — she then incredibly told her she had to get another shot:

My doctor said to me, “Rozanne, you have to get another shot of the vaccine for the sake of my children – because I don’t want them catching Covid.”

Rozanne was in disbelief, her own doctor was telling her to take another shot -despite presenting as vaccine-injured, ill, confused, broken and afraid that she would not live to see the next day.

Not caring about my health at that moment in time. Selfishly worried about herself, about her own children. And rather than telling me to go home and giving me ways to heal, I was being told to poison myself further.

Rozanne references a landmark document – The Nuremberg Code. A 10-point statement of principles from the 1947 Doctors’ Trial where American military tribunals prosecuted 23 leading Nazi German physicians and administrators for war crimes and crimes against humanity. This Code has had significant influence on modern global bioethics as well as the New Zealand Medical Association’s Code of Ethics for doctors.

Principle 1 says the voluntary consent of a human subject is “absolutely essential,” it must be free of “any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, constraint or coercion” and with enough information provided for an “enlightened decision.”

It also specifies that any hazards reasonably to be expected, and the possible effects upon health, are to be told in advance. The Nuremberg Code noted that the duty sits on the person who initiates the procedure, and it cannot be delegated away.

When a person is coerced or threatened with losing their livelihood or freedoms unless they comply, true consent does not exist.

The Nuremberg Code is not enacted within any New Zealand statute. But it became the ethical ancestor of our modern health consent rules, particularly the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights. 

Rights 6 and 7 of this patients Code require health practitioners to supply the information a person needs, in order to make an informed choice so as to be able to give full consent – along with the right to refuse. 

Rozanne claims she was never given warnings of the risks of the vaccine.

Her claim is backed up by evidence from the Immunisation Advisory Centre’s (IMAC) training materials  provided to vaccinators. It recommends they explicitly “avoid certain narratives, words and phrases” especially around those “people who are hesitant about vaccinations” or who say they are worried “about the safety of vaccines.”

It was advised that phrases such as “Describing risks if even to note they are small,” or “Leading with safety data and facts,” or “Outlining the safety and risk profile of the vaccination” were NOT to be used.

The specific publication, How to talk about COVID-19 vaccinations: Building trust in vaccinations, was written and published in August 2021 by Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw, a public narrative researcher, and supported and funded by IMAC. It recommended the Covid vaccination be framed instead with “messages that build trust and motivate vaccination.”  

While New Zealand’s vaccinators did not pin people down and inject them. The government, experts and bureaucrats built a system in which work, travel and belonging required two Covid-19 vaccines. An mRNA genetically modified vaccine that the public were repetitively told was “safe and effective” and, where they purposefully avoided information about the risks.

The government’s COVID-19 Vaccine and Immunisation Programme, was directed by Jo Gibbs, who reported to Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Gibbs was responsible for producing the operating guidelines and “key messages” that were sent to DHBs, as well as providing the training pipeline of the people with the needles.

Gibbs contracted the Immunisation Advisory Centre, directed by Dr Nikki Turner, to educate, train and provide clinical support to the health sector of the immunisation programme. As well as providing clinical support to vaccinators, IMAC delivered vaccination courses, created materials, and ran the “0800 IMMUNE” line.

The IMAC business unit is part of the commercial arm of the University of Auckland. They received $17 million for this work.

A notification about risk, provided to vaccinators to simplify their messaging in 2021, when Rozanne was being vaccinated, was a “COVID-19 Immunisation Clinical Toolkit” pamphlet. It suggested vaccinators provide advice on possible adverse events AFTER a persons vaccination: “Post COVID-19 vaccination advice.”

By this time, August 2021, Medsafe’s monitoring information and pharmacovigilance of the Pfizer vaccine had alerted health professionals to a number of safety concerns, including myocarditis and pericarditis. IMAC’s training materials seemingly did not ensure vaccinators were required to give full information to consumers about the safety and risk profile of the vaccine – to enable full informed consent for Rozanne or anyone else.

IMAC commissioned an evaluation of their programme – you may think this would alert them to their unethical practices promoted in their materials? Unfortunately, the evaluation of the IMAC training was designed and delivered by the husband of IMAC director Dr Nikki Turner – Professor Antony Dowell. He and his employer, the University of Otago, were subcontracted without a competitive tender. The Auditor-General, in 2023, called that procurement completely inappropriate as the undeclared spousal relationship was “a potential conflict.”

Despite this, Dowell’s conflicted evaluation continued. The final report was published earlier this year: Including a disclosure – where no admission was made to the relationship.

Professor Dowell reviewed 12 of his wife’s online courses and 28 webinars/toolkits, including versions of the ‘COVID toolkit’ that focused on training healthcare professionals in the public and private sectors to deliver COVID-19 vaccinations locally. As designer of the evaluation, Dowell, for some unknown reason put out of scope: “the development of vaccination education and advice for the members of the public.”

He did not evaluate whether IMAC training materials provided informed consent and presented vaccine risks sufficiently, and he did not evaluate whether those materials included or tracked Medsafe alert communications. The word “Medsafe” does not appear in the paper. Neither do CARM, pharmacovigilance, data sheet, safety communication, myocarditis or risk–benefit. The term “adverse events” appears once – in a note about Saudi Arabia’s education programme.

Informed consent is mentioned once: As being obtained when vaccinators were “engaging positively with the recipient” and when the recipient was “as relaxed and comfortable as possible.”

One of the three primary questions Dowell did ask was: “Did training support a clinically competent and culturally safe workforce?” Nearly 2 pages of the 13-page report is given over to a dedicated narrative on equity and cultural safety, which was used as a success criteria, and massively prioritised over informed consent.

Culture does not displace the primary ethical duty of clinicians to tell a person the risks of a medical intervention.

Dowell’s evaluation was also co-current, it aimed to be a “critical friend” and even informed some of IMAC’s evolving processes. When he observed “vaccinations being delivered in the wrong anatomical site” and the “omission of specific questioning pre- and post-vaccination” — he suggested that the above mentioned “COVID-19 Toolkit” summary be provided “about the essentials for safe and effective” jabs – which included the “Post-Vaccination” advice on adverse events. This was considered success of his “embedded formative evaluation process”, he claimed it as a useful early course correction.

This simply signifies that Dowell had a unique opportunity to course-correct the unethical non-disclosure of vaccine harms, but chose not to.

The IMAC training materials and programmes were sent to the DHBs, where the chief executives of each DHB were responsible for delivery. Their site clinical and quality leads were the last official link before the vaccinator.

At every level of this chain the instruction was the same: do not give people the full known risk BEFORE vaccination. Talking points, toolkits and “trust” scripts treated risk and potential injury disclosure as a problem to be managed, not a duty. That does not remove the duty. Under the ethic Nuremberg handed on — and under Rights 6 and 7 of the Patients Code — responsibility cannot be subcontracted. Those who wrote the messages, those who trained the vaccinators, and those who delivered the injection without the warnings share in the gross negligence to notify the public of the known risks of the mRNA product.

* The names of people involved in the roll-out are noted below.

After her injury, Rozanne has struggled to find care, support and treatment.

Now I am damaged, I am dismissed, and I have been discarded by the government that mandated this. I took this vaccine to keep my job and freedom, and instead, it cost me my health. It cost me my career and my independence.

She has fought for years to tell her story and has been ignored, ridiculed, insulted, berated, and isolated. She fought for an honest medical assessment and was belittled. She fought for compensation and financial assistance and was declined. She was also refused an exemption from the second dose.

Every safety net that they say is out there is a facade. Every safe and effective was a lie. We have been abandoned by those in power and isolated from a health care system that was supposed to help us.

Rozanne worked hard her whole life, paid her taxes and was a law-abiding citizen.

When I needed my government the most, and the health system the most. They left me discarded. And I, we, deserve better than this.

In 2026, Rozanne still experiences extreme chronic fatigue, muscular pain, crippling weariness, headaches and heavy brain fog leaving her discouraged. She is mostly now housebound.  

Everyday feels like a marathon just existing.

She still does not have a medical professional who believes her and who she can trust. Each time she has tried to reach for help from the healthcare system, it only leaves her frustrated.

There is nowhere to turn to find pain relief, nowhere for support. Just trying to work it out on my own, is so very tiring.

Watch Rozanne’s full episode now on YouTube

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* Some of the people responsible for New Zealand’s Covid vaccine roll-out:

Cabinet set the policy: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins, and Health Minister Andrew Little. Day-to-day control of the health system sat with Director-General Dr Ashley Bloomfield. The person who actually ran the needle programme was Jo Gibbs, National Director of the COVID-19 Vaccine and Immunisation Programme (CVIP). Beside her: Medsafe Group Manager Chris James (approval and safety alerts), Ministry Chief Medical Officer Dr Andrew Connolly (clinical instruction, including the 15 December 2021 letter to DHB CEs), Chief Science Advisor Dr Ian Town, and IMAC Medical Director Professor Nikki Turner, whose UniServices unit held the Ministry contract to train vaccinators. Gibbs reported to Bloomfield. Bloomfield reported to ministers.

The DHBs delivered:The 20 DHB chief executives in 2021 were — Northland: Dr Nick Chamberlain. Waitematā: Dr Dale Bramley. Auckland: Ailsa Claire. Counties Manukau: Fepuleaʻi Margie Apa (also lead CE for the northern/Auckland metro COVID vaccination response). Waikato: Kevin Snee. Lakes: Nick Saville-Wood. Bay of Plenty: Pete Chandler. Tairāwhiti: Jim Green. Taranaki: Rosemary Clements (also the national DHB CE spokesperson on staff mandates). Hawke’s Bay: Keriana Brooking. Whanganui: Russell Simpson. MidCentral: Kathryn Cook. Capital & Coast and Hutt Valley: Fionnagh Dougan (both boards). Wairarapa: Dale Oliff. Nelson Marlborough: Dr Peter Bramley until mid-February 2021, when he moved to Canterbury/West Coast; NMH then sat in transition. Canterbury and West Coast: Dr Peter Bramley from 15 February 2021. South Canterbury: Nigel Trainor. Southern: Chris Fleming.

Named local vaccine-programme leads sat under those CEOs and ran the operational plan, workforce and sites. Publicly identifiable names include Hawke’s Bay programme lead Ngaira Harker; Auckland metro leadership through Margie Apa; and other regional programme figures cited in DHB plans and later reporting such as Hamish Brown, Bronwen Warren and Astrid Koorneef. Programme and site Clinical and Quality leads are the last official link before the vaccinator at the chair.