Friday 5th of December, 2025.
From Aly Cook
Dear Honourable Maureen Pugh & New Zealand Government MPs,
An Open Letter to the New Zealand Government delivered to Hon Maureen Pugh, my West Coast Tasman MP
This is an open letter from one parent to another, and to any MPs who read this. My hope and prayers are that you share this with your fellow government members. Please put yourself in my shoes as a parent, truly show empathy, and find it in your hearts to do the right thing. It would go a long way to saving face with your people and helping to begin to heal the division in our country, created by the Labour government's Covid response. What I am asking you to do would be a huge step forward in healing our broken country and a big boost for faith in the current government to be more honest.
My son, Bailey, was 26 when he was forced to choose between the job of his dreams—a contactless wool run from Cromwell to Christchurch as a Class 5 truck driver—and taking a mandated injection that would change his life forever.
He was never warned of the dangers of myocarditis and pericarditis by the vaccinator which equals no informed consent. This was especially egregious given his history: only four years prior, I nearly lost him in a car accident. Bailey is disabled, walks with a brace, and had major surgery on both legs. Yet, he pulled himself out of his wheelchair after 9 weeks in hospital to study and work hard, becoming one of the country's youngest Class 5 truck drivers at 21, driving for four years until the dreaded mandates.
The Immediate Crisis and Institutional Dismissal
Only four hours after receiving the mandated injection on the 20th of Jan 2022, my son's life took a catastrophic turn. Healthline was forced to call an ambulance to him on the side of the road.
What followed was a heartbreaking and infuriating cycle of misdiagnosis and dismissals. He presented at Ashburton Hospital, where his acute symptoms were tragically mislabeled as "anxiety" and he was discharged without medication or care. The very next day, at Christchurch Hospital, the diagnosis was simply "Pleuritis," and again, he was discharged without medication or care. Driving his truck back to Cromwell, he ended up in Queenstown Hospital, where the correct diagnosis was still missed, and he was discharged without medication or care.
Bailey refused the 2nd shot and was told Ashley Bloomfield was not giving exemptions for pericarditis so he lost his job anyway.
Over the next four years, Bailey was in and out of A&E approximately 12 times, including arriving by ambulance, yet the root cause remained unaddressed.
It wasn't until October 2023, arriving once again by ambulance, that a cardiologist at Nelson Hospital finally identified the tell-tale signs in his ECG: PR Depression and ST Elevation—patterns consistent with Pericarditis. The diagnosis was finally made, leading to the prescription of the harsh drug Colchicine to keep the inflammation at bay, though flare-ups persist four years later.
The Battle for Acknowledgement and Lost Records
Our struggle did not end there. We have been fighting an arduous battle with ACC. The ICRA (Independent Complaints Review Authority) finally ruled in our favour after a two-year fight involving a lawyer, two doctors, and three cardiologists. ACC's initial decision to turn down my son was quashed, and they were ordered to give a new decision: ACC was approved.
In a staggering show of dogmatic institutional failure, ACC initially refused to cover the cost for a specialist to properly assess Bailey during the ICRA process. Furthermore, our doctor discovered that the original referral to Nelson Hospital had somehow dropped off the system. The scan Bailey had—meant to be reviewed by a cardiologist—went nowhere.
Our doctor was forced to refer Bailey to a private cardiologist, believing ACC should cover it, and put the request through while we were still in the ICRA review process. Dr. Tammy Pegg of Top of the South Cardiology—who holds a PhD from Oxford in cardiothoracic surgery and was the former head of Nelson Hospital Cardiology—formally diagnosed my son with mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine-Induced Pericarditis. She noted in her report that she could only see the interpretation of his initial test results from the first visits after the vaccine, not the original ECGs which she needed, they were missing from his records.
The paper trail of his suffering had all been systematically lost:
- Ashburton Hospital lost his ECGs and Blood Test results.
- Christchurch Hospital lost his ECGs and Blood Test results.
- Queenstown Hospital lost his ECGs and Blood Test results.
- Nelson Hospital lost his original referral to the cardiologist.
The Undeniable Proof and Final Battle
We launched an inquiry at the Canterbury DHB. They were eventually able to find the ECG from the Christchurch Hospital visit the day after the vaccine, located in an offsite storage facility and not uploaded to his online records. While Ashburton never found his ECG, the ECG from the initial ambulance ride was found in a different location. Both ECGs that were found to show PR Depression and ST Elevation—patterns consistent with Pericarditis—on the day of the vaccine and the day after, proving the earlier diagnoses by three hospitals were tragically wrong.
I firmly believe this is because doctors were fearful of the medical council who had as of Sept 2021 threated that any medical staff raising questions around the Covid 19 vaccine would be penalised and this effected stigmatised them with diagnosing vaccine injury Indeed in the last month, two more NZ doctors have de-licensed in what I call the “medical council witch hunt” continues to today . We cannot continue to lose doctors and nurses with such a shortage, who were simply warning people of what could happen from the covid 19 vaccine and indeed did to my son and thousands of others along with deaths now 5 approved by ACC. But 183 deaths are supposedly under investigation by medsafe.
Then ACC chose not to accept our cardiologist’s findings, but to indeed to pay for a cardiologist based in Waikato, who had never met my son to disagree with our cardiologist and her colleagues. I had also sent Bailey's ECGs to a cardiologist in the USA who agreed with the diagnosis of Dr. Tammy Pegg.
This blatant denial forced us to escalate. Finally, the ICRA issued orders for ACC to approve my son's claim. We were prepared to go to court if we had to, but the truth, backed by international and local specialists, finally prevailed.
I will add that during the inquiry searching for my son's lost records, that Canterbury DHB sent me by mistake the patient records of 126 patients including dates of birth, full names, and ACC claim details—more incompetence. Only yesterday I was dealing with ACC on behalf of my son, still, a year after approval, as we are going through the compensation process. My son has still not received any money. I was told yesterday that I did not have an ATA (Authority to Act), yet I have been dealing with my son’s case with them for three years load of emails and phone calls. So, I called my son and we reinstated my ATA with ACC on the phone, only to be cut off three times and waiting three times for over half an hour. They then said my son’s claim was closed, despite having spoken to me a month ago, me waiting for a call back from their assisted recovery team, and them telling me in the same breath they had a bill from the MRI which had been approved. They have also coded his injury in an unusual way, an OIA revealed that less than >4 persons were coded this way Gyu54 in an OIA answer that means he could be the only person coded that way last year and it does not mention the Covid 19 Vaccine injury. I am seeking to have this changed . There are several codes for Vaccine injury .
The way ACC are treating the vaccine injured is abominable, most countries including Australia developed a vaccine compensation program for Covid 19. Given the Covid 19 vaccine had more reactions than all other drug reactions combined in the 10 years prior perhaps we needed a specific compensation program.
Both an Ombudsman and HDC (Health and Disability Commissioner) complaints are in the works.
A Call for Empathy and Action
My son’s fight for acknowledgment is one among thousands. There have been 20,435 people reported with serious injury (The OIA Attached), I will add that Medsafe never make contact or follow up any of these people ever. I deal with thousands of vaccine injured in support groups around NZ and none of them have ever heard from Medsafe. These injuries include hospitalisation, incapacitation, life-threatening injuries, and birth defects related to the COVID-19 vaccine in New Zealand. As with all vaccine injury reporting systems, this figure is only a small percentage of the true number that ever gets reported and is estimated to run at 5%.
Total payments made by ACC by 22 July 2025 on 1,769 accepted claims was $14,948,677 https://www.acc.co.nz/assets/oia-responses/A199covid-19-vaccination-claims-refresh-july-2025.pdf
So, ONLY 8.66% of any serious life-threatening or incapacitation injury from the Covid-19 vaccine has received ACC Compensation. Many I know are still very sick and still in the fight some are too sick to even do the fight but they are there in our hospital figures. People are being turned down at an approximate rate of approximately 60% by ACC.
An OIA I did on the number of people under 40 presenting at EDS with Chest pain was picked up by Australia and 2GB in Sydney who asked the same questions of NSW health and the huge inflation of number in 2021 after the roll out and before covid took hold was similar. In Australia' s case the NSW health minister came on air and admitted that the vaccine had caused increased levels of chest pain pericarditis and myocarditis https://www.2gb.com/exclusive-health-minister-confirms-link-between-covid-jab-and-chest-pain/ but HERE no admitting, in fact Health NZ tried to say they had mistakenly given me the wrong number, as soon as I got TVNZ to ask questions. Their reason to me in correspondence was “Internal confusion".
Health NZ did a survey on this and the government has done nothing to implement any recommendation from it (also have that no action has been taken in OIAs from ACC and Health NZ)
In the executive summary it reads ..
“As a result of the findings of this study, it is suggested the pathways related to supporting those with
potential vaccination adverse reactions could be improved. This includes improving co-operation
between government agencies that are involved in healthcare, such as Health New Zealand, ACC,
and the Ministry of Health to provide better co-ordinated care for people affected by vaccine adverse
Events.”
So, what I am requesting from the NZ Government is that you:
a/ Do better at helping these people with Vaccine injuries.
b/ ACC is given a total shake down to be more supportive to the Covid-19 vaccine injured with their ongoing health issues.
c/ Most importantly, that you as a government publicly acknowledge the Covid-19 vaccine injured and the families whose children and adults who have died, apologise publicly and acknowledge their existence and their suffering to New Zealand and to mainstream media who have purposefully hidden our families' suffering from the public eye.
The Conspiracy of Silence
Finally, I believe the government and the media have deliberately hidden the Covid-19 vaccine from sight. (As a publicist with 30 years in the business I have correspondence with TV Producers and reporters that prove this). I believe this tactic was employed through fear that revealing the truth would lower public trust in immunisation. That strategy has not worked. Immunisation rates are now dropping because for each vaccine injured person, or as my son refers to himself, “Walking Evidence”, there is a circle of people who know them, who see their suffering, and who have lost trust in the official narrative. No Vaccine injuries feature on TV but NZ is a small country and word spreads fast. The numbers maybe low but these people .are people who were forced, however Chris Hipkins chooses to dress it up!
There were many others who totally trusted the government and thought the government would be there if they were in the rare amount of people where it went wrong. They now know NOONE is there when it goes wrong you're brushed under the carpet like you don’t exist.
You will not improve trust by calling the vaccine injured misinformation spreaders and if telling my fully diagnosed son’s story makes me a misinformation spreader then I know I am right side of history and you are wrong side. Because I have the evidence and lived experience to back up my statements.
You will improve trust in your government greatly by being honest, people will make up their minds about what they put in their body themselves.
The levels of deaths and reactions from the Covid 19 vaccine is what has eroded trust in the media and the government NOT by people like me who are speaking the truth.
I will finally add that adding medical mandates inside the Gene Tech Bill shows trojan horse dishonesty.
Read the Bill
(Relevant section)
Subpart 5—Mandatory medical authorisations
Clause 50 requires the Regulator to grant a mandatory medical authorisation in respect of certain medical activities that the Regulator is aware have been approved by 2 or more recognised overseas authorities in equivalent circumstances.
Please find it in yourselves, to do the right thing by those members of the team of 5 million who complied and paid the ultimate price with their lives and their health.
Yours sincerely,
Aly Cook
Mother of a Covid-19 Vaccine injured son
