Anti-Vaccination Australia Putting Infant Lives at Risk. (As usual.)

**Edited to add: this is NOT an April Fools Day joke. Even though I wish it was.**

Another day, another dangerous, wildly misinformed bunch of nonsense in the notorious Facebook group, Anti-Vaccination Australia. The confidence and ease with which these people risk the lives of their own, and other peoples’ children is truly appalling. 

Whooping cough is a deadly disease that has brought about the deaths of several Australian babies in the past few years. In the wake of Riley Hughes passing (which could have been prevented had his mum been given a whooping cough vaccination in her third trimester of pregnancy), state and territory governments across Australia funded third trimester whooping cough boosters for pregnant women. While it is too late for those babies lost to pertussis, this measure has, without a doubt, saved lives in this country. 

Cormit Avital was fortunate enough to be offered the whooping cough booster for her baby’s protection while she was pregnant. Unfortunately for her baby daughter Ava, Cormit refused the vaccine. Ava contracted whooping cough and spent a month in intensive care fighting for her life. 

Riley, Ava and all the other babies who have suffered and died from this terrible disease are testament to the importance of  the  maternal pertussis booster. 

Back to Anti-Vaccination Australia; Jessie is pregnant with twins, and at her ante-natal visit her doctor had the audacity to offer her this life saving measure for her babies:

“she proceeded to tell me my babies can get very very sick without it and that its better i get it done i still said no”

“Doctor tried to push for me to get whopping cough vax today tried telling me that the vax is completely safe for pregnant women mind u im only 3 weeks off having my babies and previously said no at 28 weeks and she recommends i have it i said no thanks then she tried telling me that the vax does not havethe virus in it and that worst thatll happen is my arm may hurt and i may feel abit flat i still said no then she asked about when my twins are born am i going to get it for them when i said no she proceeded to tell me my babies can get very very sick without it and that its better i get it done i still said no”

Nikkli came along to comiserate. Her midwives are doing the same, so she is compromising her ante-natal care by not attending for check-ups:

“there are opinionated idiots every where 😅”

“At my antenatal app at 28 weeks I had the most pushy midwife ever. Said I needed to have it and I said I’d have to think about it, so she wrote in my pregnancy book that my next appointment I want to have it rah rah.
So I actually missed my antenatal app at 32 weeks and didn’t go back till 35 weeks. The midwife I had this visit asked me why I didn’t make my last appointment, I said because I didn’t want to have the vaccination and she said “that’s fine!” Without any hesitation. I felt so much better. Not everyone will push it on you, but there are opinionated idiots every where 😅”

Farah too. HAT-TRICK!

“got him off my back”

“This happened to me too at my visit today. The doctor told me i need to get my whooping cough vax and i said ‘no i told the other doctor i dont want it’ he said ‘ok’ then a few minutes later asked me ‘why I didnt want it’ i said ‘last time i had a bad reaction and i already had it 5 6 years ago with my first and i dont want to go through that again’ got him off my back but he did write on my card for it to be done next time!! 😠 why do i have to face this shit everytime i go to my antenatal visits”

Why, indeed. 

Of course the other helpful and knowledgeable members joined in to further support the declining of a life saving measure for the unborn babies: 

Natasha: “Well done!”

Allison: “Good for you mumma!! They are pushy, aren’t they! She was counting on that little bit extra in her pay. Ah well! Sucks to be her!!”

Lorna: “What a nightmare, being asked repeatedly every visit.”

Pene: “Omg lol….this makes me laugh….good on u for saying no continuously. …i have done the same in the past….”

Liane: Stay strong! “Well done 😊 pushy annoying doctors just wanting to line their pockets, bastards!”

Then there was more encouragement to leave the babies unprotected from Tamlyn: “Well done! Stand your ground ”

and Tristan: “dont just say NO. say ‘”I listen to doctors at the CDC like Dr William Thompson” who proved that vaccines are linked to autism. in other words, saying NO just makes the doctor think you are a “crazy person from the internet”. telling him facts makes him realize you are awake and intelligent and ..may even force him to check out Dr William Thompson and the movie VAXXED”. 

“dont just say NO. say ‘”I listen to doctors at the CDC like Dr William Thompson” “

There is more in the conversation, including advice for Jessie on birthing twins naturally and how to circumvent the hospital policy of performing a C-section for the safe delivery of twins, because, you know, these people know so much more than trained medical professional like obstetricians. 

Will these people enthusiastically giving advice and encouraging these three mothers in their decisions to put their babies lives at risk shoulder any responsibility if there is a tragic outcome here? I think we all know the answer to that. 

No they will not.

They showed this recently by turning on one of their own when a deliberately unvaccinated child from the Northern N.S.W Coast  was airlifted to a Brisbane ICU with tetanus. They dismissed the story as “manufactured,” accused the parents of being “actors,” of not tending to the child’s wound properly, along with accusing the hospital of causing the tetanus in the hospital setting. That is exactly what they did to Cormit Avital as well. They are all “love and light” until their beliefs are challenged, or until they are confronted with the consequences of those beliefs. 

Four babies are soon to be born without the benefit of protection from whooping cough. I do hope that luck is on their side. 

The Abhorrent Cruelty of Anti-Vaxxers

I don’t think it is news to anyone that most anti-vaxxers are hateful, loathsome people. I’ve been swimming in their various cesspits for more than a few years now, but I saw something today that took my breath away. It …

False Balance or, as Original as My Cat.

Today has been a frustrating day. A day of same old, same old. A day of people repeating the same things they have gotten wrong in the past. A day that showed some people are incapable of stepping outside the safety of  their own comfortably held ideas and learning from past mistakes. A day where much of the media showed themselves as incapable of having original ideas or a social conscience.

What has caused my displeasure?

The tired old method of including an anti-vaxer in any immunisation news story.

The National Health Performance Authority’s report on childhood immunisation coverage was released today, which caused a flurry of media reports as one would expect.

It should have been simple. For some it was. The Age got it right with a story that simply stated the facts. The Byron Bay based Echo got it right too, with commendations for communities with high immunisation rates, and a dire warning from Dr Steve Hambleton president of the AMA, for those below the safe levels for community immunity.

The Maitland Mercury did a great piece too, reporting that the area has one of Australia’s top immunisation rates with 95.5 per cent of children ­vaccinated across the city and only 46 children not fully immunised.

Studio 10 outdid everyone with four minutes of strong, no nonsense commentary on the issue. Take a bow, Studio 10.

The Sydney Morning Herald, gave a non-vaccinating mother free rein to rattle off a bunch of anti-vaccine misconceptions in what could only be described as an exercise in normalising stupidity.  They must have copped some heat for it because later in the day these two sentences were added to the story:

According to the the federal Health Department’s “Myths and concerns about vaccination” vaccines do not weaken the immune system, but strengthen it by giving it the power to fight more diseases.

The World Health Organization has studied the concept of “immune overload” from multiple vaccines and found there is no evidence it is a real phenomenon.

Now that isn’t an exhaustive list, just the ones that came to my notice throughout the day. Then there was the T.V coverage, with journalists looking for participants from the early morning as indicated by this tweet at around 10am by Dr Dave Hawkes:

“Just contacted to be on TV tonight about vax rates in Melb. Said no bc I will not appear alongside antivaxers to give them credibility.”

Well done Dr Hawkes. It’s great to see some people understand the issues that qualified experts appearing in stories with anti-vax activists raise.

And it went on. Radio and T.V, falling over themselves to create false balance stories about immunisation including experts, and unqualified folks who find their ‘reckons’ in the google machine. The only one I actually got to watch was the channel 7 news at 6pm which included anti-vaccine mother and son activist team Wendy and Kenny Lydall, and a representative from the National Center for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. It went something like this;

(Obviously I am paraphrasing.)

Kenny: “I had chickenpox and measles, and that was fine. I’ve traveled in Africa and I didn’t catch anything.”

Cut to Wendy in her garden… Something about she didn’t vaccinate Kenny ‘cos she had severe reactions to vaccines herself.

Cut to representative from the National Center for Immunisation Research and Surveillance saying: “Children who aren’t immunised are at risk of catching some very nasty diseases.”

OH, YOU MEAN THE ONES KENNY JUST SAID HE HAD AND “IT WAS FINE”?

That went well, didn’t it?

Then over on channel 9 an anti-vaccine chiropractor appeared in a story. I know this type and they have no business speaking their special brand of nonsense in an immunisation news story.

To the elements of the media, and the experts who insist on participating in this kind of false balance: YOU ARE NOT HELPING!

Media, just stick to the facts. Don’t try to manufacture a story, if you must ‘add something’ to your report, why not speak to a parent who thinks vaccinating is an important personal and community issue? A parent who lost their child to a vaccine preventable disease? Or a parent living in fear because their community has such a low immunisation rate diseases are always present? A person living with the long term effects of  having contracted a vaccine preventable disease?  Or one of many community groups working to raise awareness of the importance of immunisation and the dangers of vaccine preventable diseases? You can add some interest to your story without giving a platform to dangerous, misinformed fools.

Professionals and experts, I’m going to give you a step by step way to deal with this issue.

1. Media make contact about a story, you ask “What is the angle of the story and will you be including an anti-vaccine advocate, or non-vaccinating parent?

2. If the media outlet tells you there will be none of the above, congratulate them and go ahead.

3. If the media outlet says there will be an anti-vaccine advocate, or non-vaccinating parent, simply say no. Explain to them what false balance is, how you appearing with such people adds legitimacy that they and their arguments are not entitled to, and that giving the ‘other side’ airtime is actually harmful to the community.

What is the worst thing that could happen? The media outlet gets someone else. Well, at least it isn’t you lowering yourself to appear in such nonsense. Or, they might go ahead with the anti-vaxxer alone. Knowing most of Australia’s anti-vaxxers, that probably isn’t a bad thing. They are pretty good at making themselves seem a bit unbalanced. At least you can hold your head high because you are not enabling false balance on such an important issue.

If you all do it, you can create change. People already are, why don’t you step up and be part of educating the media and stamping out this nonsense practice?

The false balance story is as original as the story my cat tells me every day when I come home from work: She is starving, and hasn’t been fed for a week. She has been telling me that for 15 years. Same old, same old. Surely the media and those who play a part in this circus are more original than my cat! Or are they?

 

Two other bloggers had something to say about this as well. You can find those blogs here and here.

Edited to add: To the anti-vaxxers who have been commenting, thanks for stopping by. This post is about false balance,  if you feel you have something worthy to add to the issue of immunisation, I suggest you do it where the real discussion on that takes place: in the scientific peer review process. Get yourselves an education, do original research to actually test your claims and submit them to the peer review process. Don’t come here trying to have an argument armed with personal beliefs and tid-bits you found on google. I will not waste my time, or that of my readers by passing your nonsense through moderation. The same goes for the howls of “censorship” that will result from this statement.

Now, I have to go to work. My cat needs more food.

 

The ‘Wellness Warrior’ on Immunisation.

I really don’t want this blog to be all about the ‘Wellness Warrior’, and I never intended it to be but as far as health nonsense and health misinformation go (and that is to be the focus of the blog), she is the gift that keeps giving.

This morning, someone sent me this. The ‘Wellness Warrior’s’ thoughts on immunisation. The whole post is dangerous ignorance in the extreme.

For more than 200 years, the use of vaccines has been instrumental in reducing the burden of many infectious diseases. Immunisation has been demonstrated to be a safe and effective public health intervention, and worldwide it has been estimated that immunisation programs prevent approximately 2.5 million deaths each year. The global eradication of smallpox in 1979, near elimination of poliomyelitis and global reduction in other vaccine-preventable diseases, are model examples of disease control through immunisation. Here in Australia we have one of the most comprehensive publicly funded immunisation programs in the world, and as a result of successful vaccination programs, many diseases no longer occur, or are extremely rare in Australia.

Immunisation not only protects individuals, but also protects others in the community by increasing the overall level of immunity in the population and thus minimising the spread of infection. This concept is known as ‘community immunity’ or ‘herd immunity’. The ironic thing about this ‘Wellness Warrior’ post is that immunisation by way of community immunity, protects people like Jess and her fellow cancer patients. People undergoing chemotherapy for example need the protection of the community to keep them safe from vaccine preventable diseases, yet here is Jess discouraging people from participating in the most important and effective public health initiative of our time.

By her own admission, Jess is “not really that educated on the issue” however that doesn’t stop her from sharing the report, the things that ‘shocked’ her, and urging her readers to “come to their own conclusions” about immunisation after reading it. That is first class “research” right there; read from one dubious information source and make a decision. The purpose of her information source, the International Medical Council on Vaccination  is to oppose vaccination, deny the safety and efficacy of vaccines and to spread fear and misinformation about vaccines. The board of directors includes known anti-vaccination liars Suzanne Humphries and Sherri Tenpenny. Jess’ use of this dubious group and Natural News as a source illustrates her inability to discern what is or isn’t a credible source of information, and her tendency to search the Internet for ‘information’ that agrees with her preconceived ideas and accept it as true.

Thank goodness the vast majority of folks are sensible and immunise themselves and their children. Vaccine refusal is a dangerous first world privilege, and those who promote it would do well to keep in mind that as they convince people to opt out of immunisation programs, they lower community immunity levels, and their own protection as a result.

It is her prerogative to ‘treat’ her own illness with unproven methods that don’t work. But to try to influence people not to use a proven method to prevent disease with a “report” that even a person with a basic knowledge of vaccines could see for the nonsense that it is, is unforgivable.

People who understand what life is like without vaccines, happily make every effort to get them.