“For skiing or getting into a car, people think ‘that’s a relatively low risk because they’re more in control’ but that’s actually quite a high risk.
“Things that aren’t related to them, related to genetic modification, food preservatives, or vaccines, they actually see as a higher risk.
“We have to start talking about these things in terms of relative risk.”
The comments come as UK clinical testers paused the AstraZeneca children’s trials after an official from the EMA said there might be a link to rare blood clots, when speaking in a personal capacity.
Officials in the UK said they were simply waiting for more information about the risk of blood clots which is expected to come next week.
The trials, conducted on children between six and 17 years of age and which started in February, were being conducted to assess whether the jab produces a strong immune response.
Professor Mills hailed the importance of the Government and regulator’s transparency in halting the trials, saying trust could easily be “compromised”.
READ MORE: AstraZeneca vaccine: Blood clotting in younger people ‘not surprising’
“We’ve been often focusing on very negative reporting on this, and that really influences people, it’s like dropping a stone into a pond and you have this ripple effect of doubt, and it will be interesting to see how much this will affect vaccines and trust in general.”
