Dr. Robert W. Malone, inventor of mRNA vaccines as well as RNA as a drug, says the government is not being transparent about the risk associated with vaccinations.

In an interview with Fox News "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Wednesday, he expressed his reservations regarding the vaccine's effectiveness for non-high risk COVID-19 individuals, including children and young people.

The question of whether students should be required to get vaccinated or not attend classes was raised during the conversation. In Malone's assessment as a scientist, he thinks incoming students must be allowed to forgo vaccinations.

"[O]ne of my concerns are that the government is not being transparent with us about what those risks are," he told Carlson. "And so, I am of the opinion that people have the right to decide whether to accept vaccines or not, especially since these are experimental vaccines."

"This is a fundamental right having to do with clinical research ethics. And so, my concern is that I know that there are risks, "he added. "But we don't have access to the data and the data haven't been captured rigorously enough so that we can accurately assess those risks - And therefore ... we don't really have the information that we need to make a reasonable decision."

Carlson then questioned Malone whether he agreed with the often cited assumption that vaccine benefits certainly outweigh the risks, which had been used to coerce a significant segment of the American population, particularly college students aged 18 to 22, into taking.

"I have a bias that the benefits, probably don't outweigh the risks in that cohort, but unfortunately, the risk-benefit analysis is not being done," Malone replied.

"Do I think the risk-benefit ratio is appropriate for this age cohort? The truth is, I can't really say, but certainly I can say that the risk-benefit ratio for those 18 and below doesn't justify vaccines, and there's a pretty good chance that it doesn't justify vaccination in these very young adults," he said.

Malone also noted one of his other objections which is the needless tossing of terms like "risk-benefit analysis" as if it were a "very deep science," which, he said, is not.

He added that under normal circumstances, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would have completed such risk-benefit analyses, which would have been "database and science-based." However, for Malone, he said that "they are not, right now."

Carlson jumped on that and remarked that "it's hard to believe that anybody would push universal vaccination on a country of 340 million people without getting the data you (Malone) say don't exist."

Malone said that he believes they are dealing with a structural problem in the way the databases were built and how they are being examined at this point.

"My understanding from colleagues inside the FDA is that the CDC is overwhelmed. They aren't even processing the data they have," he confessed.

"The V safe database, which is the one that they hold internal, is so poor that they can't draw any definitive conclusions about whether or not these vaccines are safe in pregnancy," he continued.

"They believe they're generally safe, but the databases aren't sufficient to really demonstrate that. We're left in a position where we're waiting for data from places like Norway, Finland, Scandinavia, and hopefully from Israel to back up our decisions in public health."