Witness Testimony

Alison Petten, a registered nurse with 40 years of experience in clinical practice, education, administration, and research-related roles, testified regarding what she characterized as serious failures in informed consent during the COVID-19 response. She stated that vaccine mandates introduced coercion into healthcare decision-making and conflicted with foundational nursing standards requiring voluntary and informed patient choice.
She also testified about changes in intramuscular injection practices, specifically the removal of aspiration during vaccine administration. She expressed concern that failing to aspirate could result in inadvertent intravenous injection and questioned whether this might contribute to certain adverse effects, though she acknowledged this as a hypothesis rather than established evidence.
Petten further testified that adverse event reporting systems were underutilized and inadequately promoted to healthcare professionals during the vaccine rollout. She stated that serious adverse events should be reported without prior causal analysis and expressed concern that insufficient data collection may have prevented pattern recognition.
Finally, she emphasized that nursing standards of practice and the Canadian Nurses Association Code of Ethics require advocacy, critical thinking, and use of the least restrictive measures during public health emergencies. She testified that regulatory bodies deferred to public health directives rather than facilitating professional ethical debate, which she viewed as inconsistent with nursing obligations.