Dan
2013-06-01 14:02:38 UTC
http://skep.li/15oAqqA
CLAIRE HARVEY THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH JUNE 02, 2013 12:00AM
My body's a deadly weapon. So is yours.
While spending time with my father in hospital earlier this year, I had
one of those moments of realisation that forever shifts your
perspective.
Dad's hospital floor was full of people with seriously compromised
immune systems: cancer patients, old men recovering from major surgery,
ladies with chronic pain. They were among the most vulnerable people in
our society: fragile, frail bodies as defenceless as tiny babies.
If I'd walked in to visit Dad with a simple case of influenza, let alone
a more serious communicable disease, I could have killed the entire ward
in one cough.
For the first time, I realised the true value of vaccines, not to
prevent me from having a pesky flu but to save the lives of vulnerable
people who can't fight off diseases - the elderly, the young, the
immuno-compromised.
I went and got the flu vaccine. I stayed away from coughers and sneezers
as much as I could.
And then I had another moment of realisation. I became pregnant with my
first baby, and my husband and I started checking out childcare centres.
Sometime in the coming year, my husband and I will be bundling up our
little person-to-be and carrying him through the door of a lovely local
centre.
Our baby will be too young to have finished his full course of
vaccinations for deadly diseases like whooping cough, polio and measles.
That means if another child brings those diseases into the childcare
centre, our baby is at risk of serious illness or death.
The possibility makes me feel ill. I've seen the footage, as you
probably have, of babies coughing with whooping cough - and children
from earlier generations trapped in iron lungs, or smiling bravely from
their wheelchairs. I've seen the beggars of India and southeast Asia,
disabled by diseases that are now, thank God, vaccine-preventable.
And yet in beautiful, clean, wealthy Australia, we have a class of
selfish, often wealthy, women who refuse to vaccinate their children.
Yes, I am blaming women here. It's the mothers of Mosman and Clovelly,
of Randwick and Kirribilli, who are refusing to vaccinate their kids
because they read something once on the internet about how the MMR
vaccine causes autism.
That's not true - and nor are any of the other "theories" about
vaccines. They don't cause brain damage. They don't cause respiratory
illnesses.
There is no good reason to refuse vaccination for your child. None at
all. I don't care what you've read on Mumsnet or Facebook. If you have a
PhD in immunology, you have a right to challenge the expert medical
consensus of the World Health Organisation, governments at all levels
and the Australian Medical Association.
If you're just a citizen with a broadband connection - sorry, you don't
have the right to deny the life-saving benefits of vaccination to my
child or anyone else's.
Some children - a tiny minority - are allergic to some vaccines. Those
children desperately need the rest of us to be immunised so they don't
have to be put at risk as they go through a modified vaccine schedule or
avoid certain vaccines altogether.
But that is the same as any other kind of allergy. Plenty of people are
allergic to grass or dairy products. That doesn't mean front lawns and
ice-cream should be banned for everyone. It just means if you are
allergic, you need to be careful and the rest of us in society need to
make sure we do everything we can to help you protect yourself.
The same logic must apply to vaccines.
My fears about our unborn baby prompted me to start a campaign in The
Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph, with the keen support of
editors Mick Carroll and Paul Whittaker and all our editorial teams. The
reporting was led by Jane Hansen, a journalist who's long been
passionate about the importance of vaccination, and others including
Sarrah Le Marquand, Sue Dunlevy and Daniela Ongaro.
We're all delighted with the results so far - tough new laws in NSW to
force parents to either vaccinate their kids or formally claim a
religious exemption - but the federal government has completely failed
to act, and today we continue our pressure on both state and federal
administrations to close the remaining loopholes.
One of the great shames of modern Australia is that we have allowed a
vocal lobby group that shamelessly calls itself the "Australian
Vaccination Network" (they are vociferously anti-vaccine) to turn the
simple medical truth about immunisation into a "debate".
They propagate myths and untruths about immunisation. They fan fear
among otherwise reasonable parents - the mums of affluent Sydney who
are, naturally, concerned for their children's wellbeing.
As you can imagine, our campaign has sent the AVN into a panic. They
have attacked me, Paul, Mick, Jane, Sarrah and everyone else in the most
personal and disgusting terms. They've accused us of corruption and of
being part of a Big Pharma conspiracy (I wish, it sounds lucrative, at
least).
The latest splutter of AVN outrage (from founder Meryl Dorey, a serial
conspiracy theorist) is to compare vaccination with the persecution of
the Jews during the Holocaust.
Yep, you read that right.
And if you are one of those Mosman or Kirribilli parents, remember that:
when you ignore the advice of your GP, you're buying the spin of people
who think it's OK to invoke the Nazi annihilation of millions of
innocent people for their cheap cause.
That's wrong. So is refusing to vaccinate your child.
CLAIRE HARVEY THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH JUNE 02, 2013 12:00AM
My body's a deadly weapon. So is yours.
While spending time with my father in hospital earlier this year, I had
one of those moments of realisation that forever shifts your
perspective.
Dad's hospital floor was full of people with seriously compromised
immune systems: cancer patients, old men recovering from major surgery,
ladies with chronic pain. They were among the most vulnerable people in
our society: fragile, frail bodies as defenceless as tiny babies.
If I'd walked in to visit Dad with a simple case of influenza, let alone
a more serious communicable disease, I could have killed the entire ward
in one cough.
For the first time, I realised the true value of vaccines, not to
prevent me from having a pesky flu but to save the lives of vulnerable
people who can't fight off diseases - the elderly, the young, the
immuno-compromised.
I went and got the flu vaccine. I stayed away from coughers and sneezers
as much as I could.
And then I had another moment of realisation. I became pregnant with my
first baby, and my husband and I started checking out childcare centres.
Sometime in the coming year, my husband and I will be bundling up our
little person-to-be and carrying him through the door of a lovely local
centre.
Our baby will be too young to have finished his full course of
vaccinations for deadly diseases like whooping cough, polio and measles.
That means if another child brings those diseases into the childcare
centre, our baby is at risk of serious illness or death.
The possibility makes me feel ill. I've seen the footage, as you
probably have, of babies coughing with whooping cough - and children
from earlier generations trapped in iron lungs, or smiling bravely from
their wheelchairs. I've seen the beggars of India and southeast Asia,
disabled by diseases that are now, thank God, vaccine-preventable.
And yet in beautiful, clean, wealthy Australia, we have a class of
selfish, often wealthy, women who refuse to vaccinate their children.
Yes, I am blaming women here. It's the mothers of Mosman and Clovelly,
of Randwick and Kirribilli, who are refusing to vaccinate their kids
because they read something once on the internet about how the MMR
vaccine causes autism.
That's not true - and nor are any of the other "theories" about
vaccines. They don't cause brain damage. They don't cause respiratory
illnesses.
There is no good reason to refuse vaccination for your child. None at
all. I don't care what you've read on Mumsnet or Facebook. If you have a
PhD in immunology, you have a right to challenge the expert medical
consensus of the World Health Organisation, governments at all levels
and the Australian Medical Association.
If you're just a citizen with a broadband connection - sorry, you don't
have the right to deny the life-saving benefits of vaccination to my
child or anyone else's.
Some children - a tiny minority - are allergic to some vaccines. Those
children desperately need the rest of us to be immunised so they don't
have to be put at risk as they go through a modified vaccine schedule or
avoid certain vaccines altogether.
But that is the same as any other kind of allergy. Plenty of people are
allergic to grass or dairy products. That doesn't mean front lawns and
ice-cream should be banned for everyone. It just means if you are
allergic, you need to be careful and the rest of us in society need to
make sure we do everything we can to help you protect yourself.
The same logic must apply to vaccines.
My fears about our unborn baby prompted me to start a campaign in The
Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph, with the keen support of
editors Mick Carroll and Paul Whittaker and all our editorial teams. The
reporting was led by Jane Hansen, a journalist who's long been
passionate about the importance of vaccination, and others including
Sarrah Le Marquand, Sue Dunlevy and Daniela Ongaro.
We're all delighted with the results so far - tough new laws in NSW to
force parents to either vaccinate their kids or formally claim a
religious exemption - but the federal government has completely failed
to act, and today we continue our pressure on both state and federal
administrations to close the remaining loopholes.
One of the great shames of modern Australia is that we have allowed a
vocal lobby group that shamelessly calls itself the "Australian
Vaccination Network" (they are vociferously anti-vaccine) to turn the
simple medical truth about immunisation into a "debate".
They propagate myths and untruths about immunisation. They fan fear
among otherwise reasonable parents - the mums of affluent Sydney who
are, naturally, concerned for their children's wellbeing.
As you can imagine, our campaign has sent the AVN into a panic. They
have attacked me, Paul, Mick, Jane, Sarrah and everyone else in the most
personal and disgusting terms. They've accused us of corruption and of
being part of a Big Pharma conspiracy (I wish, it sounds lucrative, at
least).
The latest splutter of AVN outrage (from founder Meryl Dorey, a serial
conspiracy theorist) is to compare vaccination with the persecution of
the Jews during the Holocaust.
Yep, you read that right.
And if you are one of those Mosman or Kirribilli parents, remember that:
when you ignore the advice of your GP, you're buying the spin of people
who think it's OK to invoke the Nazi annihilation of millions of
innocent people for their cheap cause.
That's wrong. So is refusing to vaccinate your child.