Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency

The complainant requested information from the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”) about suspected adverse reactions to Covid-19 vaccines. The MHRA initially advised the requester that they publish weekly Yellow Card data including adverse reactions and provided a link to their website. They stated that an interactive format of all suspected reactions to the Covid-19 vaccinations was intended for future publication, but due to current system constraints, they were unable to provide it in the requested format at this time. The Commissioner’s decision is that the MHRA were entitled to refuse to comply with the request under section 12(1) of FOIA (cost of compliance), and section 22(1) of FOIA (future publication), and that it has complied with its obligations under section 16(1) of FOIA to provide adequate advice and assistance to the complainant. However, MHRA breached section 17(1) as it did not initially identify the exemptions being relied upon to withhold the requested information. The Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any further steps.