Freedom of Information request on safety signals pertaining to COVID-19 vaccines (FOI 21/648)
Published 29 December 2021
© Crown copyright 2021
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-responses-from-the-mhra-week-commencing-5-july-2021/freedom-of-information-request-on-safety-signals-pertaining-to-covid-19-vaccines-foi-21648
7th July 2021
FOI 21/648
Dear
Thank you for your FOI request, dated 8th June 2021.
We have determined that the requested information is exempt from release under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act and we cannot process your request any further.
Section 12 of the Act allows public authorities to refuse requests where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 24 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
In order to process your request, we would need to identify all members of MHRA who may have correspondence relating to your request and search their entire email and messaging history, extract these emails and messages and review them. We consider that this would take longer than 24 working hours to complete.
If you disagree with how we have interpreted the Freedom of Information Act 2000 with regards to your request, you can ask for the decision to be reviewed. The review would be carried out by a senior member of the Agency who was not involved with the original decision.
If you have a query about the information provided, please reply to this email.
Kind regards,
FOI Team
Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines Division