Vaccination
The Australian Vaccination Network stuck its head over the parapet again this week, and almost immediately copped one between the eyes. American Airlines pulled the group’s anti-vaccination ad from its flights before it even aired.
It’s the latest in a series of setbacks for the controversial organisation, which is increasingly struggling for air in the Australian media.
The media has been exemplary on this topic, refusing to indulge a group that is full of rhetoric but light on evidence. Most famously, Tracey Spicer demolished the AVN’s president, Meryl Dorey, on 2UE. The well-researched Spicer gave Dorey short shrift, eventually hanging up on her.
Continue reading "We need a change in climate in the Australian media" »
Every 20 seconds, a baby or toddler will die from a disease that can be prevented by a simple vaccine. Most of these deaths happen in developing countries because children go without the immunisations and lack access to other health services that parents in wealthy nations take for granted.
As usual, it is the poorest children in the poorest countries who are least likely to be immunised, and it is those same children who are at the greatest risk of being exposed to life-threatening, preventable diseases like tetanus, polio and measles.
This week, April 21-28, is World Immunisation Week, and around the world we acknowledge that all children have the right to life and health, no matter where they live.
Continue reading "We must immunise our aid budget from amputation" »
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RyaN says:
@Caedrel: Yet they still use “$2 a day” crap disrespecting the people. Read more »
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Alan says:
10 years living in West Africa is where I got my “statistic” from. It’s real and if any of the NGO’s tell you otherwise they are lying. Read more »
There’s a steaming pile of rubbish out there about health. There’s plenty of money to be made from offering too-good-to-be-true remedies.
Yesterday I was writing a couple of news stories about ways in which people get bamboozled by health-related information and then I started firing up a Punch piece on them. Then I realised I’d written it all before. Bullshit is everywhere, and it’s a billion-dollar industry and people want magic pills.
So rather than repeat myself I thought I’d just list five of the stories that have crossed my desk recently and made me want to tear out my hair and run screaming into the street. And if you know of others, let me know. It’s not that we ever run short of subjects for The Punch’s regular I Call Bullshit column, but there’s a sadistic pleasure in seeing that particular cup runneth over.
Continue reading "Five dumb health mistakes even smart people make" »
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TracyS says:
Are walking and running really the only exercise options??? The best advice I’ve ever heard is for people to do the exercise that they enjoy so that they are more likely to stick with it - whatever type of exercise it is will be better than doing none. For the… Read more »
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Xar says:
The Conversation covered all of these topics to much greater depth in their Medical Myth section and other articles under the topic of health over the last year or so. I mean, good to bring them up and all but having read the others it just leaves me feeling the… Read more »
Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column that looks at pseudoscience and magical thinking. Unsurprisingly, vaccination pops up quite a bit.
The Australian reports today that the Government has renewed CSL’s contract to supply Fluvax – the vaccine found to trigger febrile convulsions in children and subsequently banned.
Fluvax also has a “modestly higher” risk of side effects in adults – it is more likely to cause headaches, fatigue, vomiting and injection site pain.
Continue reading "ICB: Anti-vaxxers injecting credibility into their cause" »
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BaSH PR0MPT says:
Why would you even provide a link to those sociopathic muppets? The Australian Skeptic Society and Dick Smith took out a full page advert in The Australian debunking and slamming these derps, and the entire internet has a field day with them. But their insane old crone leader is a… Read more »
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St. Michael says:
Oh, you’re that Chris. If the point’s to encourage greater education on vaccines and why they work, I could totally get behind that. I tend to keep harping on the measles example because it’s one of the most prominent examples of a disease that gets blown away by vaccines in… Read more »
The Government has hoisted up a large and slightly unwieldy carrot to boost immunisation rates. Families could miss out on around $2100 if the kids don’t get their jabs. The announcement comes in the midst of a whooping cough outbreak, and at a time when clusters of non-vaccinators are allowing preventable diseases to incubate.
The Government’s changes, which will mean those who don’t immunise will not be eligible for three payments of $729 under Family Tax Benefit A, is well intentioned, if clumsy. Under the current system families get an immunisation allowance – even if they are “conscientious objectors” – but this will now be scrapped, while more immunisations will be added to the schedule.
Here’s the likely outcome.
Continue reading "Time to inject some rational thought into anti-vaxxers" »
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Sarah says:
The Gardasil vaccine is also used to protect from the 2 most common types of HPV that cause the STD genital warts. It impacts more than just your own health if you are not vaccinated Read more »
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RyaN says:
@Fiona: Oh and YOU are wrong Fiona, here you go. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/doctors-warn-parents-to-keep-newborns-at-home-as-whooping-cough-epidemic-escalates/story-e6freuy9-1226055946293 Sound medical advice from doctors, follow it! Read more »
It’s an anxious moment for many parents; rolling up the sleeve of your precious baby and presenting that perfect skin to the doctor’s needle.
And the sting is the least of your worries; we may be rational and sensible enough to know vaccinating our kids against potentially fatal diseases is right, for them and the community, but that cocktail of antigens going into their arm is a discomforting sight.
What if we’re the one in a million whose baby has an adverse reaction or gets the rarest side-effects?
Continue reading "Irresponsible parents spare the jab, endanger the child" »
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Lynx says:
CDC estimates that 1 in 88 children in the US has been identified as having Autism Spectrum Disorder. Mmmmm Hmmmmmm. Read more »
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BaSH PR0MPT says:
You should have noted that Dick Smith bought a full page ad in the Australian to out anti-vaxxers, especially the Australian association run by a conspiracy theorist crazy American woman who pushes her agenda everywhere she can. All anti-vaxxers are either unintelligent and don’t understand logic and reasoning, or have… Read more »
One day the Government may need to stage an intervention in Sydney’s plushest suburbs, Byron Bay’s glorious expanse, and the genteel landscape of the Adelaide Hills.
These are the places where some children’s lives are at risk because parents have entirely lost trust in governments, and are turning to some dodgy alternative sources of health information.
Studies by the Federal health department, CSIRO and the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance have shown that while overall Australia’s uptake of vaccination is good – mostly around 90 per cent for children - in certain regions the levels of conscientious objectors have soared, resulting in clusters of deadly diseases.
Continue reading "Deadly parenting choices in the vaccination debate" »
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LC says:
Yes you’re free to do what you want that involves putting risks putting the health of other on the line. That is, you’re free to do it if and only if you and your family are living on your own in a shack in the middle of the outback, at… Read more »
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David says:
Acotrel, my mum and grandfather had cancer, followed our medical system through to the end, they are dead now too. Read more »
The final in a three-part series exposing the fraudulent link between autism and vaccination is out today.
Read about the first part here, and the second part here.
The three authors of a British Medical Journal editorial accompanying the final part argue that science is “our best way of knowing”, despite the numerous people and systems at fault for perpetuating the myth that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination is linked to autism in children.
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LC says:
Damnit, not again. “The “no mandatory vaccinations under the age of 5” is to buy time to determine if there is any actaul reason that they should be vaccinated.” That should read “if there is any actual reason that they should NOT be vaccinated”. Read more »
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LC says:
@Syl “Whats the point of giving the choice before the age of 5 but forcing them to vaccinate after? We should be protecting them from preventable dieases from the get go, afterall, under this scheme, they are going to be vaccinated eventually (extenuating circumstances aside)” The “no mandatory vaccinations under… Read more »
The link between autism and vaccines is dead, and should be buried.
However, that destructive little idea received a couple of good, hard kicks last week - the violence of which may have given the illusion that some life was left in the debate.
Many have been blamed for keeping the myth going, and now an author and expert is also blaming the media, who he says perpetuated the myths through a mistaken sense that they were being balanced.
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Adelaide Dad says:
So where is this double blind power study (10,000 kids - independent of any pharmaceutical co.) that suggests vaccines don’t cause autism or is it still anecedotal evidence by doctors protecting their agency? or would it not be proper to vaccinate 5000 kids to save 1:100 from getting this debilitating… Read more »
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rb says:
@ St M. I have no idea what the % are. When I was discussing the vacc schedule with a doctor I said I felt better with oral vaccs as I felt that the immune response in the mouth was part of the normal defence vs putting it straight into… Read more »
The British Medical Journal has devoted an editorial to stating that an article published in popular medical journal The Lancet in 1998 linking childhood vaccination with autism “was in fact an elaborate fraud.”
The Lancet had already retracted the article by Andrew Wakefield early last year, but BMJ now sought to totally discredit the “study”, which led to a decline in the triple vaccination of measles, mumps and rubella in Britain as well as in the United States and Australia.
Sadly, despite the strength of the BMJ articles - brought on by the work of Sunday Times investigative journalist Brian Deer - there will still be people who will not only ignore it but view it as further evidence of the conspiracy.
Continue reading "There is, unfortunately, no vaccine against stupidity" »
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LC says:
So take a guess at what would happen should you have caught the full-strength version of that virus… Read more »
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LC says:
@Davido, Yeah sorry. I’ll tell you another good reason to vaccinate. Aside from this whole thing called herd immunity, there is also this thing called MUTATION. If your child contracts measles, and the virus mutates, this new virus can infect everyone regardless of whether or not they were vaccinated against… Read more »
Not long ago Lateline did an excellent job of taking apart the Australian Vaccination Network, a group (group being a strong word) of anti-vaccination zealots posing as an information service. In the US the debate has a much more Hollywood vibe, with the most public faces of the don’t jab your kids movement being mega-star Jim Carey and his ex Jenny McCarthy.
McCarthy has made a career out of warning people vaccination is linked to Autism - a claim that’s been widely and profoundly discredited. But elsewhere in Hollywood someone is fighting back. Check out this video, which was posted on YouTube last month.
West Wing tragics will know the comedians Penn and Teller, who have a show in the US called “Bullshit!”. They’ve called Bullshit! on the anti-vaccination brigade in a short and powerful sketch. It’s worth a watch (*strong language warning).
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LC says:
Maybe, for the sake of balance, you’ll share their -correct- views on conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, the Moon Landing and the JFK assassination, alien abductions, ESP, young-earth creationism, the death penalty, video game violence and the goings-on at Area 51? Furthermore, climate skepticism is backed up by thousands of scientists… Read more »
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Seano says:
I don’t count conspiracy theoriests and their theories as sensible argument. Read more »
THE onset of the dreaded winter flu season is bringing with it a needling dilemma for many parents.
No one wants to see their child fighting off a soaring temperature accompanied by bouts of coughing and sneezing.
After last year’s pandemic, the offer of a combined vaccination against swine flu as well as influenza A and B seemed like an attractive option for many parents wanting to safeguard their little ones. That was until reports started trickling in of some children suffering adverse effects such as high fever and convulsions from the jab.
Continue reading "To jab or not to jab is a very vexed question" »
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Viviana says:
foreign lvinig beingsMMR isn’t a “live” vaccine and the live things in the few that are live vaccine aren’t “lvinig beings” but weakened viruses.without doing serious personal rese[a]rchVaccine development involves a *lot* research well before they get used. Read more »
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MelD says:
I for one am very grateful for Big Pharma, I am asthmatic, and before they introduced Ventolin (or similar), Seretide (or similar) and Prednisone people with asthma in history had no chance at all. Epilepsy sufferes, no more Polio in developed countries, small pox, all these things and more held… Read more »
One year ago this weekend, the World Health Organisation issued its first Disease Outbreak Notice on swine flu, confirming the infection of a number of people in Mexico and the US. A few weeks later the previously unknown virus had Australia holding its breath when the first cases hit our shores.
The World Health Organisation went on to declare their first pandemic in more than 40 years and the media went into overdrive. A year on you could argue the hype was all a bit excessive and that experts keen to get their names up in lights were crying wolf and playing into the hands of news editors who think the biggest numbers make the best headlines.
But ultimately if a new virus was to emerge again this flu season, should we react differently? Probably not. The reality is most viruses don’t mutate into deadly killers; but it has happened before and it will happen again.
Continue reading "Swine flu’s birthday: Should we have reacted differently?" »
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Glad to be a Grandma says:
There has to be some public registry of un vaccinated children, so we know which kids are at risk for diseases. The information would be useful for expectant mothers who have to keep their newborns safe. Personally I wouldnt want to be a pregnant teacher looking after a roomful of… Read more »
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CS says:
Well - I’m not an MD, but I am a qualified immunologist in the field of newborn immunity. From my point of view, this is an excellent article that sums up the sensible approach of the authorities to last year’s outbreak. It isn’t controversial, hence the lack of comments. The… Read more »
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