AVN19941999

Legal bid to change vaccine campaign. A better shot. LETTER - No penalty.
Parents `not Told Vaccination Facts' NSW - Rally supporting freedom to choose child vaccination. FED - GROUP TO SEEK INJUNCTION AGAINST GOVT CAMPAIGN. FED - VACCINATION OPPONENTS DEMAND GOVT EXPLAIN TO TRIBUNAL. Protest Jab In Measles War SOLDIERS SPARED. NSW - Protesters ask government to ease vaccination pressure. Mistake `threat' to State campaign. Mother sues on school needles. LETTER - Parents should be informed on vaccinations. $30m Push To Stop Measles Nursing mothers `facing more complaints'. LETTERS - More information needed on whooping cough vaccine. PARENTS SUE OVER NEEDLES. Unhealthy logic in GP pay rise. FED - Immunisation reduces measles brain damage - study - 2. Children of rich open to disease. Needles, not knives. LETTER - Who's calling the shots behind the scenes? Measles Epidemic Campaign Begins AMA backs school ban. FED - PRINCIPALS TOLD TO TONE DOWN, CHILD WRONGLY IMMUNISED. LETTERS Vaccine benefits beat costs, says judge.
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FED - ACTIVISTS SUING HEALTH MINISTER OVER VACCINATION. Beware Vaccination, Warns Naturopath 'An attempt to swindle nature': Press anti-immunisation reportage 1993-1997 Anti-jab Argument Frustrates Doctors LETTERS FED - ACTIVISTS SUING HEALTH MINISTER OVER VACCINATION. Adults who spread whooping cough. FED - MINISTER PLEADS WITH PARENTS ON MEASLES PLAN. David's Story: From Trust To Tragedy Prick Flows The Tears As Sheepish Take A Jab At Measles What makes parents ignore the threat of potentially fatal diseases? Grandmother's motto - Let's all share a mild bout of tetanus. LETTER - GP CASH REWARDS UNHEALTHY.
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Legal bid to change vaccine campaign. 299 words 24 July 1998 Courier Mail COUMAI English (c) 1998 Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd THE Australian Vaccination Network plans to seek a Federal Court injunction to change the Federal Government's $30 million campaign to vaccinate 1.75 million children against measles, mumps and rubella. Jonathan Nolan, who is preparing the court application, confirmed yesterday it should be lodged in the next few days. AVN president Meryl Dorey said yesterday forms given to parents as part of the campaign seeking consent for children to be vaccinated were "misleading and downright deceptive". She said it was extremely difficult for parents who did not want their children vaccinated to fill out the forms appropriately. "It could easily be put into plain English," she said. The group also was opposed to an information booklet being sent to all parents of school children. She said it did not inform parents why vaccination might not be appropriate for their child. It listed the most common and mild reactions without stating any of the less frequent but more severe side-effects. "Parents are entitled to know this information if they are going to subject their child to a vaccination," she said. The group also did not believe schools were the proper venues for medical procedures. "There is too much of a risk of an error being made," Mrs Dorey said. "By all means have an education campaign, there is no problem with that at all." A spokesman for federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge said the vaccination booklet distributed to students went overboard in giving balanced information and was sourced from the best medical and scientific evidence in the world. "I would be surprised if the Federal Court even gives them standing to proceed with this obscure grandstanding for an unscientific and risky request," he said. Page 3 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
- MICHELLE HELE. (c) 1998 Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd. Document coumai0020010922du7o009e3
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A better shot. 131 words 12 June 1999 The Australian AUSTLN 18 English (c) 1999 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd WELL done Simon Chapman for making the Australian Vaccination Network out to be a bunch of loonies once again in your article Let's all share a mild bout of tetanus (Review, 5-6/6). The AVN encourages debate, information and choice, while it seems Dr Chapman would prefer to close the argument. If Dr Chapman is seriously concerned about those parents who choose not to vaccinate, he would be better off advocating badly needed research into vaccine safety issues rather than slandering those who try to do just that. As a parent of a child that suffered an adverse reaction to a vaccine, I can appreciate those who try to make vaccines safer for our children. S. PIENAAR Glen Forrest, WA. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1999. Document austln0020010901dv6c00nn0
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LETTER - No penalty. 152 words 5 January 1998 The Australian AUSTLN 8 English (c) 1998 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd IN reference to the article Vaccine levy: immunise now or lose $200 (The Australian, 31/12), the Austra lian Vaccin ation Netwo rk would like it clearly understood no parents stand to face any financial penalties for choosing not to vaccinate their children. The AVN lobbied Federal Parliament successfully in October to ensure nobody would be discriminated against as a result of their health decisions. Anyone who chooses not to vaccinate can register as having a conscientious, philosophical, religious or medical exemption. In fact, parents who register as conscientious objectors will be able to collect the entire $950 maternity allowance immediately after the birth of their child. Those parents who choose to vaccinate will have to wait until their child is 18 months old and provide proof of full vaccination before being entitled to the $200 bonus. MERYL W. DOREY President, Australian Vaccination Network Bangalow, NSW. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1998. Document austln0020010922du15016ox
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News Parents `not Told Vaccination Facts' By Jenny Dennis 156 words 11 November 1998 Illawarra Mercury ILM 14 English (c) 1998 of John Fairfax Group Pty. Ltd. Parents are not being told the real risks of chilhood vaccinations, a seminar in Wollongong has been told. Australian Vaccination Network president Meryl Dorey claims a booklet distributed to parents as part of the Federal Government's primary school measles campaign does not state all adverse reactions to the vaccine. She told the Natural Health for Children seminar that side effects listed in the booklet the Government sent to parents missed 21 adverse reactions included in the manufacturer's insert with the vaccine. ``Parents aren't being told the true facts,'' Ms Dorey said. ``Nor are they being told about the ineffectiveness of the vaccines.'' The Australian Vaccination Network's book Vaccination Roulette includes information of which Ms Dorey believes parents should be aware. She said most people in Australia who had diseases like mumps, measles, rubella, diptheria and whooping cough already had been vaccinated against them. Document ilm0000020010917dubb00k8j
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NSW - Rally supporting freedom to choose child vaccination. 254 words 7 November 1998 23:14 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. SYDNEY, Nov 7, AAP - A rally supporting non-compulsory childhood vaccination will be held tomorrow in Sydney. Organisers from the Australian Vaccination Network AVN say they want to show federal and state MPs Australian parents do not want compulsory vaccination. The rally, to be held at Hyde Park's Archibald Fountain at 1pm (AEDT), would demonstrate that some families participating in the childhood vaccination scheme had lost children to death following immunisation or had children left with injuries. The rally follows the release this week of information showing brain damage from measles had been markedly reduced in Australia by universal immunisation. The Public Health Association's immunisation conference in Melbourne this week said figures on measles encephalitis in Victoria before and after vaccination showed it was now rare but was still threatening the unvaccinated. The immunisation conference was told nine children died from whooping cough pertussis nationally in the year to November, 1997. There were 11,000 notifications in this period. Ross Andrews, manager of the Victorian health department's disease surveillance unit, said pertussis rates had increased dramatically since 1993, with the highest rate among infants aged under one year, who are most at risk of death. As well, researchers showed around 45 per cent of Australian pertussis cases now occurred in adults. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Document aap0000020020307dub7018jp
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FED - GROUP TO SEEK INJUNCTION AGAINST GOVT CAMPAIGN. 411 words 22 July 1998 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. CANBERRA, July 22, AAP - Parents opposed to the federal government's immunisation program were risking the lives of Australian children, Health Minister Michael Wooldridge said today. The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) announced it would seek a Federal Court injunction to change the $30 million immunisation program, claiming consent forms were misleading and the government had failed to explain all the risks of vaccinations. Dr Wooldridge described the move as a nuisance legal action. "Our legal system allows any individual, no matter how nonsensical their position, to take nuisance action like this," a spokesman for the Minister said. "The federal government will vigorously defend the matter if the Federal Court even gives them standing to proceed, which is doubtful. "These people are irrational. Their position is based on bad science and they would be very happy to allow Australian children to be totally exposed to an epidemic that can cause death." The $30 million measles control campaign will involve almost 7,300 schools. Information kits are being sent to each primary school child and parents are asked to sign a consent form. The immunisation schedule is being changed, bringing forward children's second dose from high school to before their first school enrolment. The campaign will offer a one-off free dose of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to all primary aged school children so they do not miss their second dose because of the change to the immunisation schedule. AVN president Meryl Dorey said that as well as "misleading and downright deceptive" consent forms, the group strongly objected to the accompanying information booklet which it said did not fully inform parents of the reasons vaccination might be inappropriate. "It only lists the most common and mild reactions without stating any of the less frequent but more severe side effects," Ms Dorey said in a statement. "The government, in its commendable zeal to protect the health of children, has raced into this campaign without apparently conducting the necessary research to show what might truly be the most cost effective, safest and efficacious way to reduce mortality from measles." Page 9 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Earlier today, Dr Wooldridge released survey findings which showed that of 500 parents questioned by Wallis Consulting Group, 95 per cent supported the campaign. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Document aap0000020020307du7m01jj1
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FED - VACCINATION OPPONENTS DEMAND GOVT EXPLAIN TO TRIBUNAL. By Katrina Willis 494 words 4 August 1998 15:00 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. CANBERRA, 4 Aug, AAP - Parents opposing a national immunisation campaign could be eligible for compensation if a federal tribunal finds the Commonwealth has breached human rights laws, a Darwin lawyer said today. Jonathan Nolan, acting for the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), said the group would ask the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to review the government's decision to conduct the campaign and associated matters. He will lodge an application with the AAT today. AVN wants the tribunal to review why the government did not include in material sent to parents some of the warnings of risks associated with the vaccine and which the manufacturer listed. It also wants Health Minister Michael Wooldridge to explain why material to parents, including a consent form, was not provided in languages other than English. Mr Nolan said the government was engaging in economic blackmail by offering rebates to parents who allow their children to be immunised. He will argue to the AAT this breaches the federal human rights law which prohibits discrimination on the basis of medical status or religious grounds. Some parents were refusing to allow their children to be immunised on religious grounds, he said. The AVN had tried to discuss its concerns with the government through solicitors but "we really haven't had a satisfactory response", Mr Nolan said. "We now only have the option of going to a tribunal or court to get them to give their reasons." The government's vaccination campaign, part of an international health initiative, began yesterday in primary schools throughout the country. It is one of the largest mass immunisations in Australian history, involving some 1.75 million children. The government wants to improve the immunisation rates against measles, mumps and rubella, and Dr Wooldridge has dismissed opponents of the campaign, saying they were prepared to risk the lives of children. Page 11 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mr Nolan said Dr Wooldridge had dodged the substantive issues, avoiding accountability. "If you don't want to get your kid vaccinated in a school that is the end of the story," he said. "It is crypto-fascist to do what the government is doing. It's fascism by stealth. It is anti-democratic." A comment was not immediately available from the Minister's office. He has earlier said it was expected one per cent of parents would refuse to consent to the immunisation of their children. "That's their right, but I'd say to them - measles is not trivial and not only are you putting your own child at risk, you're putting other children at risk," he said. New Zealand and other South Pacific nations have suffered measles epidemics in the past year, leading experts to expect a similar epidemic in Australia. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Document aap0000020020307du8401kwd
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Protest Jab In Measles War Carina Tan-Van Baren 180 words 5 August 1998 The West Australian TWAU 5 English (c) 1998 West Australian Newspapers Limited, all rights reserved CANBERRA -- PARENTS opposed to the national measles immunisation campaign took their fight to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal yesterday. A successful action would open the way for compensation claims from parents of children affected adversely by the campaign. Lawyer Jonathan Nolan, representing the Australian Vaccination Network, said the Federal Government's approach to the measles campaign which began on Monday ignored the rights of children and parents opposed to it. No information was disseminated about the possible side-effects of the measles vaccine, such as high fever, which the manufacturer listed on its packaging. And the campaign discriminated against families which spoke languages other than English because the information kits were not available in other languages. Mr Nolan said the Australian Vaccination Network was prepared to take its challenge to the International Court of Justice if necessary. But a spokesman for Federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge dismissed yesterday's move, saying the Government was not aware of specific legal action in the matter and doubted the network would be given legal standing. Document twau000020010919du8500dik
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SOLDIERS SPARED. 111 words 17 February 1998 Herald-Sun HERSUN 3 English (c) 1998 Herald and Weekly Times Limited AUSTRALIAN servicemen sent to the Gulf would not be given the cocktail of inoculations suspected of causing the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome affecting many veterans of the 1991 war with Iraq, the Federal Government guaranteed yesterday. Anti-vaccination groups claimed the soldiers could be at greater risk from the drugs and vaccines than from danger in Iraq. Australian Vaccination Network president Meryl Dorey claimed as many as 12,000 American Gulf War veterans had died and hundreds of thousands fallen ill from the affliction. Gulf War Syndrome symptoms include chronic fatigue, skin disorders, headaches, muscle pain, gastrointestinal problems and nervous system disorders. (C) 1998 Herald and Weekly Times Limited. Document hersun0020010924du2h00spf
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NSW - Protesters ask government to ease vaccination pressure. 351 words 8 November 1998 16:14 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. SYDNEY, Nov 8, AAP - More than 60 people rallied outside Prime Minister John Howard's office in Sydney today calling on the government to ease pressure on parents to vaccinate their children. The protesters, bearing placards with photographs of children captioned with illnesses including "brain damage", "epilepsy" and "blind", gathered in light rain. Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) president Meryl Dorey called on the federal government to repeal a law requiring parents who don't want to vaccinate to apply for a conscientious objectors exemption or lose childcare subsidies. Many doctors were bullying parents who asked them to sign the relevant forms, she said. She called for the government to organise a study to compare the amount of Medicare funding expended on 5,000 vaccinated and 5,000 unvaccinated children. She said government booklets encouraging parents to vaccinate their children had omitted more than 20 adverse reactions children could have. The booklets were sent out as part of a recent campaign to encourage vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella, she said. "We're calling on the government to fully inform parents and take the pressure off parents. And there should be more research into the side effects of vaccination," she said. Protester Peta Robinson of Heathcote said her son collapsed into a coma when he was 15 months old after being given a vaccination. The boy, who Ms Robinson did not want named, lapsed in and out of the coma over the next year, and then his fine motor skills began to deteriorate, and he became 95 per cent deaf, she said. Ms Dorey said the AVN had 300 members in the Sydney area and 1500 across Australia. She said the group intended to sue Professor Simon Chapman who told last Friday's A Current Affair program on Channel 9 that the groups claims lacked the backing of any significant scientific evidence. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Page 15 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Mistake `threat' to State campaign. 274 words 24 June 1998 Adelaide Advertiser ADVTSR 7 English (c) 1998 Advertiser Newspapers Limited THE Maitland vaccination bungle comes at a time when a huge Statewide vaccination program the biggest mounted in South Australia is being planned for schools. More than 180,000 children in 750 primary schools will be offered a one-off vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella between July and October. A national anti-mass vaccination group, the Australian Vaccination Network says the Maitland mistake will erode public confidence about "the ethics and morality of mass immunisation". The forthcoming campaign is part of a $30 million federal move to change the age at which children receive their second dose of MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine, It is also a bid to contain the size and impact of a threatened measles epidemic next year following last year's New Zealand epidemic. Parents will be asked to give their permission for the MMR injection and no action will be taken if they refuse. "The idea is to have a one-off campaign to make sure all children have a second injection and pick up those who have not been immunised at all," says Health Commission epidemiologist, Dr Robert Hall. Under legislation now being drafted for State Parliament, parents who did not comply with mass immunisation risked having their child sent home from school if there was an outbreak. The move falls short of barring non-immunised children from school, which Federal Government sources say is a long-term aim. Ms Meryl Dorey, the president of the Australian Vaccination Network, said the Maitland incident was one of many recent mistakes made by State and local health authorities. (C) 1998 Advertiser Newspapers Limited. Document advtsr0020010921du6o00b6h
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Mother sues on school needles. By OCHEE AMANDA. 333 words 10 August 1998 Courier Mail COUMAI English (c) 1998 Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd THE mother of a five-year-old boy who was allegedly vaccinated at school against her wishes is suing the Federal and Northern Territory governments for compensation. The case is the first known incident in the Federal Government's $30 million campaign to vaccinate 1.75 million children for measles, mumps and rubella over the next three months. The boy was wrongly vaccinated at Millner Primary School in Darwin last Wednesday, just two days after the mass vaccinations began. Australian Vaccination Network president Meryl Dorey said the mother had returned the consent form with all consent sections crossed out. The mother also had spoken with her son's teacher to make sure he would not be wrongly vaccinated, but the boy was vaccinated by the school nurse, Ms Dorey said. She said AVN was advising parents to keep their children home from school to protect them against similar mix-ups. Legal counsel for the mother, Jonathan Nolan, said Northern Territory Health Service had admitted the error. The woman is claiming "substantial" civil damages expected to run into the "thousands and thousands of dollars", he said. Mr Nolan said he was involved in several cases in South Australia and Tasmania where children received the wrong vaccine or were vaccinated without parental permission in separate vaccination campaigns over the past three months. The Northern Territory mother was "totally" traumatised by the vaccination, which had thwarted her commitment to raise her son with natural therapies, he said. A spokesman for federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge said AVN was "litigious to the extreme" and was acting upon the "worst anti-science" information. The case was a matter for the school involved and the Northern Territory Health Service. The spokesman said it was unfortunate if a child was accidentally vaccinated, but said there was only a one in one million chance of a child contracting any complications worse than tenderness at the injection point. (c) 1998 Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd. Page 18 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
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LETTER - Parents should be informed on vaccinations. By SUSAN LINDBERG. 288 words 8 September 1997 The Australian AUSTLN 16 English (c) 1997 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd IN relation to the issue of immunisation, knowledge of ingredients, known side effects, effectiveness and the likelihood of infection are all important issues to consider. According to a study published recently by the Nurses Federation, 22 per cent of parents using the Brisbane City Council's immunisation clinic did not know which vaccines their children were receiving, their effectiveness or the chances of their child contracting these diseases. Most vaccinated because they were told to do so and 99 per cent had not read the immunisation handbook published by the federal Health Department. The Australian Vaccination Network represents researching parents, those whose children have been killed or injured by vaccines and those who feel that they have been discriminated against as a result of their vaccination choices. The AVN believes it is immoral, complacent and irresponsible for parents to hand over their children to be vaccinated without adequate knowledge. After all, vaccination is a medical procedure. Doctors are also legally required to inform their patients of all side effects to any medical procedure - something vaccine providers consistently fail to do. Most families rely on doctors and the media for information about vaccines. In general, doctors are uninformed about this area of medicine. According to the Medical Journal (1989), 89 per cent of doctors rely on pharmaceutical company salesmen for their information of drugs and vaccines. The AVN believes journalists and others in a position of influence must honestly and fairly report all aspects of the vaccination issue. Decisions should be made through conviction, not fear. An educated choice is always the best choice. SUSAN LINDBERG The Australian Vaccination Network Manly West, Qld. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1997. Document austln0020010929dt9800b5d
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News $30m Push To Stop Measles Farah Farouque 511 words 10 July 1998 The Age AGEE 7 English (c) 1998 of John Fairfax Group Pty. Ltd. Health officials hope to vaccinate about 1.75million primary school children against measles in a $30million campaign to stamp out the killer disease in Australia. Teams of nurses will visit 7000 public and private primary schools, between August and November, to administer the free MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. Measles ranks among the 10 top killers of children throughout the world and, although under control in Australia, it still claims one or two young lives every year. Launching the Measles Control Campaign in Melbourne yesterday, the federal Minister for Health, Dr Michael Wooldridge, warned the disease could not be trifled with. Dr Wooldridge said Australia was facing a renewed threat from measles and the very real possibility of an epidemic. `Òne in eight children are not properly protected and the experts tell me we can expect an epidemic in the next 12 months,'' Dr Wooldridge said. But a group opposed to the campaign, the Australian Vaccination Network, accused the minister of using ``bully-boy tactics'' to make parents vaccinate their children. The network called for studies into the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. But Mrs Gay Davidson, a mother who lost her 13-year-old daughter Kiri to complications caused by measles, made an emotional plea at yesterday's campaign launch for parents to vaccinate their children. She said that Kiri, who died in November 1984, had been a promising gymnast and ballerina. She had contracted measles as a toddler but appeared to have made a full recovery. Eight years later she began to show the early signs of encephalitis a rare complication of measles involving inflammation of the brain. Page 21 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
``We realised she had lost her brilliant sense of balance ... (and) she couldn't get her hands up to her head to wash her long hair because she couldn't feel her hands,'' Mrs Davidson said. Kiri began to display anti-social behavior and perform poorly at school. When her condition was finally diagnosed there was little that could be done for her. Mrs Davidson said her daughter - whom she described as a ``nuggetty little girl'' - became so badly brain-damaged that she turned into vegetable. `Ì feel very strongly that no family should put their own children into the situation where they could possibly get the measles,'' Mrs Davidson said. The head of the National Centre for Disease Control, Dr Cathy Mead, said the campaign hoped to vaccinate 1.75million primary school children in the next four months. ``This is the best protection you can give your children,'' Dr Mead said. She dismissed the health concerns of opponents of immunisation, saying there was no coercion involved in the program. Parents needed to sign consent forms to enable their children to be vaccinated. Television and print advertising will promote the campaign, which is one of the biggest public health initiatives ever in Australia. It will also mean that vaccination for measles will no longer be provided in secondary school from 1999 because children will be vaccinated at a younger age in future. Document agee000020010914du7a00css
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Nursing mothers `facing more complaints'. 411 words 30 March 1998 Courier Mail COUMAI English (c) 1998 Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd COMPLAINTS from women being told to stop breastfeeding in public are on the rise, according to the Nursing Mothers' Association. State president Suzette Powell said she was aware of three instances this year alone where women had been asked to stop breastfeeding in public. One Queensland woman was even asked to stop feeding her toddler in the waiting room of a child health clinic. "It's very sad that in today's world, where everyone is so much more relaxed and open, it's a shame that breastfeeding is still not accepted," Ms Powell said. Her comments follow the case of a woman being asked not to breastfeed her child in a Gold Coast shopping centre earlier last week. The woman, Meryl Dorey, lodged a complaint with the Queensland Anti-Discrim-ination Commission against the Niecon Plaza shopping centre after being told to breastfeed her 30-month-old daughter in a toilet change room. Ms Dorey, president of the Australian Vaccination Network, said after breastfeeding her 21/2-year-old daughter in the centre, the manager told her that if she wanted to do it again she should feed her daughter in the change room. "I would like to say to her (the centre manager), `Would you eat your lunch in that room?' And if she's being honest I don't think she would," Ms Dorey said. There were postcards and magazines with women's breasts on them in the shopping centre but nobody had complained about them. Instead they complained about her doing one of the "most natural things in the world", she said. Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Karen Walters said Queensland was one of the only states which legislated against women being prevented from breastfeeding in public. Under the Anti-Discrimination Act, it is prohibited to discriminate against someone breastfeeding in any public place. She said the commission had not received many complaints about women being told not to breastfeed in public because they were often not aware of their rights. "The small number of complaints may be because there's a greater acceptance of breastfeeding in Page 23 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
public than previous generations," Ms Walters said. "And because women, and particularly nursing mothers, are not aware it's against the law to not allow women to breastfeed in public." Ms Powell said the Nursing Mothers' Association encouraged mothers to breast feed whenever and wherever they needed to. - SUE MONK. (c) 1998 Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd. Document coumai0020010922du3u00czb
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LETTERS - More information needed on whooping cough vaccine. 322 words 1 August 1997 The Australian AUSTLN 10 English (c) 1997 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd THE face of Nathaniel Eason is being splashed across Australian TV screens and newspapers. His message is that if we don't vaccinate our children they, too, will soon be hospitalised with whooping cough. But the majority of people who get whooping cough have been vaccinated against it. For instance, in the CDI Bulletin (May 29, 1997, Vol 21; No. 11), it says that, " ... [whooping cough] notifications ranged from 2.0 per 100,000 population in 1991 to a peak of 30.5 per 100,000 population in 1994 despite pertussis vaccination coverage approaching 90 per cent". The South Australian Health Commission says that of the more than 1000 cases of whooping cough to have been reported in that State in 1996, only 6 per cent were unvaccinated. This is not a case of failure to vaccinate but rather a failure of the vaccine to provide protection. Let the Government start to provide parents with real information about the dangers and ineffectiveness of vaccines. Until that time, the vaccination rates in Australia will continue to decline as parents become more and more knowledgeable about this issue. MERYL DOREY President, Australian Vaccination Network Bangalow, NSW MORE than 60 years ago I had whooping cough. I can still recall the terror of waking at night, fighting for breath and whooping every few seconds; the blood I coughed up spattering my bed linen and night clothes. Even after I was officially declared free from infection I still had long bouts of whooping; and for three years I had regular chest X-rays to ensure that the scar on my lung had not spread. When I had a child of my own it was a great relief to realise that I could have her immunised against this disease and protect her from the terror I had experienced. FAITH BRENNAN Queens Park, WA. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1997. Document austln0020010929dt8100dxc
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PARENTS SUE OVER NEEDLES. By CAROLYN ALEXANDER. 351 words 22 September 1998 Herald-Sun HERSUN 22 English (c) 1998 Herald and Weekly Times Limited THOUSANDS of parents are considering suing the Federal Government and state governments for vaccinating children without their consent. About 50 have already started legal action, including some parents whose children had adverse reactions to vaccines. Parents claimed they were not informed of the risks. Compensation could run to tens of thousands of dollars for individual cases, predicted Darwin litigation lawyer Jonathan Nolan. Mr Nolan, who claims to be the only lawyer in Australia acting for parents on this issue, said he had been swamped with calls since the Federal Government's vaccination drive began six months ago. He said families from Victoria, South Australia, the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Tasmania had started legal action, with the first case due in the Federal Court on October 2. Several families, including one from Melbourne, claim their children became autistic and two families claim their children were hospitalised for a week after being vaccinated. Others said their children had been jabbed with re-used needles, risking blood-borne infections, or that their attempts to raise their child naturally had been thwarted. "There are some children it is very inappropriate to vaccinate," said Mr Nolan. "Most (parents) are not so concerned about the money - they just want to warn other parents." The Federal Government's vaccination drive includes a bid to vaccinate 1.75 million children against measles, mumps and rubella by November. President of the Australian Vaccination Network Meryl Dorey said parents were being bullied into agreeing to the injections, without being told all the facts. "One teacher asked a child why his father did not care that he was going to die from measles because he was not vaccinated," she said. "Our phones have been running hot with calls from parents whose children are being harassed and discriminated against in school." The AVN is taking the Federal Government to the Human Rights Commission for alleged human rights breaches against parents and children during the vaccination process. A spokesman for federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge declined to comment. (C) 1998 Herald and Weekly Times Limited. Page 26 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Unhealthy logic in GP pay rise. By MERYL W. DOREY. 253 words 20 March 1999 The Australian AUSTLN 18 English (c) 1999 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd IF any other group of workers was falling down on productivity and overservicing, they would probably get the sack or at least be put on probation. But doctors get a pay rise (GPs offered fee rise to boost care, 19/3). Look at what the Howard Government has done for GPs over the past couple of years. First there was the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register which tracks children's vaccination status. Doctors had to enter the child's details onto a government database in order for this to work and they get paid up to $6 each time they do. Despite this payment, as many as 25 per cent of these entries are incorrect. Next, there is the Practice Incentive Program. On top of the Medicare payment of $26 for a visit (soon to be more than $30 if Dr Wooldridge gets his way), doctors receive $18.50 each time they vaccinate a child. Then, if they get a certain percentage of their patients fully vaccinated, they receive a bulk payment at the end of the year which could be several thousand dollars. But why do doctors who are supposedly right behind the vaccination program have to be paid extra to do what is their job in the first place? The Government believes that doctors are overservicing but instead of penalising them we are paying them extra. MERYL W. DOREY President, The Australian Vaccination Network Bangalow, NSW. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1999. Document austln0020010901dv3k014nx
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FED - Immunisation reduces measles brain damage - study - 2. 303 words 4 November 1998 19:08 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Meanwhile, Commonwealth surveillance of vaccine reactions shows there have been four deaths in three years, although a report is no proof of a causal link. The conference will be told tomorrow that 716 adverse events have been reported since March 1995, with the most frequent being "screaming" and hypotonic episodes related to the pertussis vaccine. Rennie D'Souza, from the National Centre for Disease Control, reports that 151 children were taken to hospital in this period. Most adverse events related to a combination of diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis and Hib vaccines, with others associated with the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine (32) and a vaccine against tuberculosis (15). National Centre for Disease Control director Dr Cathy Mead told AAP that adverse events were probably under-reported. It was often difficult to establish a causal link with vaccination. For example, a SIDS death which occurred within 30 days of vaccination would be reported as an "adverse event" under the notification system. University of Sydney public health associate professor Simon Chapman said combatting the antiimmunisation lobby became challenging if people jumped to conclusions about adverse events following vaccination. "True adverse cases are very, very rare when compared with the possible consequences of children not being immunised in the community," he told AAP. "It's the same as adverse consequences from any medical procedure - not vaccinating is like abandoning all surgery because sometimes people die under anaesthetic." The Australian Vaccination Network, which is holding a "pro-choice in immunisation" rally in Sydney at the weekend, said thousands of Australian children have been killed and injured by vaccines. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Document aap0000020020307dub4017rd
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Children of rich open to disease. By SUE DUNLEVY. 394 words 5 November 1998 Daily Telegraph DAITEL 27 English (c) 1998 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd RICH, well-educated professionals living in Sydney's eastern suburbs are failing to immunise their children against deadly diseases. A breakdown of immunisation levels in NSW has found that parents living in the wealthy eastern suburbs have among the lowest immunisation levels in the State. Nationally, about 80 per cent of children are fully immunised at the age of 12 months. In Sydney's eastern suburbs, fewer than 70 per cent of one-year-olds are fully immunised, according to Dr Peter McIntyre. "People who are educated and well-to-do are obviously wanting more information or have a busy lifestyle and don't get around to it,' Dr McIntyre said. A similar problem has been identified in the Richmond-Tweed area of NSW where alternative lifestyles and medicine is thought to be behind that region's low immunisation level. Dr McIntyre will tell a Public Health Association conference in Melbourne today that information from the new immunisation register will allow better targeting of immunisation education campaigns. The conference has also been told there may be no need to vaccinate children against measles in the next five years if the current eradication campaign is a success. The Federal Government is sponsoring a mass-vaccination campaign of school children with the aim of immunising 95 per cent of the school-age population. But the strong immunisation push has angered community groups which claim vaccination can harm some children. The Australian Vaccination Network, which includes a group of general practitioners and parents in Sydney, say it refuses to have its children vaccinated, linking the practice to autism and other health problems. The conference will be told today that 716 adverse reactions to vaccination have been reported since March 1995, with screaming and hypotonic episodes related to whooping cough vaccine being the most common. But United States chief of vaccine safety, Dr Robert Chen, will tell the conference that while there are small risks from vaccination, the risks from catching the diseases are greater. Page 30 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Dr Chen told The Daily Telegraph the chances of suffering a serious side-effect from a vaccination ranged from one-in-100,000 to one-in-1,000,000. But the conference was told yesterday the chances of a child developing a serious complication from measles was greater. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1998. Document daitel0020010922dub5013d7
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Needles, not knives. By MERYL W. DOREY. 292 words 5 February 1999 The Australian AUSTLN 16 English (c) 1999 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd I THINK you would have to be a number one chump to believe that HIV came from eating chimps. How would that explain the fact that AIDS emerged in explosive numbers from Western Africa, Brazil, Haiti, New York and San Francisco at the same time? I come from New York originally and have eaten in both the best and the worst restaurants that city has to offer and I can absolutely guarantee that chimpanzee is not on the menu at any restaurant there. Nor is it sold in butcher shops either in New York or in San Francisco, nor yet in Haiti nor, most likely, in Brazil. The AIDS epidemic followed closely on the heels of widespread vaccination campaigns using both the smallpox vaccine (in Africa and South America) and polio vaccine (in the gay communities in New York and San Francisco). Both of these vaccines are and were cultured on the kidneys of monkeys which carry many viruses. One of these viruses, SIV or simian immunodeficiency virus - is thought by many scientists to have been the precursor to the AIDS virus in humans. Julian Cribb, former science writer for The Australian, wrote about the history of this disease and its link to vaccination in his excellent book, The White Death. The thought that this epidemic could have come from eating chimpanzees is laughable. Only a desperate medical community intent upon covering up the real reasons for the tragedy of AIDS deaths and illnesses could have come up with such a ridiculous claim. Let's blow away the smoke screen and start dealing with this issue truthfully for a change. MERYL W. DOREY The Australian Vaccination Network Bangalow, NSW. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1999. Document austln0020010901dv2500vns
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LETTER - Who's calling the shots behind the scenes? By SUSAN LINDBERG. 309 words 20 July 1998 Daily Telegraph DAITEL 12 English (c) 1998 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd IF WE are to believe the latest Federal Government advertising campaign leading up to the mass vaccination of 1.75 million Australian children, then children want and ask for these shots. Do they really? Australia, like the majority of developed countries, has signed the Children's Vaccine Initiative (CVI) with the United Nations to ensure that vaccination compliance reaches 95 per cent. The pressure to comply with this treaty is so great that the Government has implemented a huge campaign, along with the Pertussis campaign last year. Federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge has publicly stated there were 164 deaths from measles complications between 1978 and 1992 but the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirms there were 75 deaths from measles complications over that period. His office can give no explanation for this discrepancy. There are no statistics on the vaccination status of those who died from measles complications in Australia - this information is not collected. Without keeping such records, we cannot assume that only unvaccinated persons contracted the disease. The Australian Medical Association lobbied the Government to introduce a new policy, which requires parents to receive counselling from doctors if they choose not to vaccinate and are claiming government assistance. This provides financial benefits for doctors who not only get to see their regular clientele but also parents who, as a rule, do not visit doctors. Both non-vaccinating and vaccinating parents are entitled to child-care assistance and fee relief. Vaccination exemptions (medical, religious, conscientious and natural immunity) are included in the Child Care Payment Act 1998. Education is compulsory, vaccination is not. Therefore you do not need to be vaccinated to attend school. A certificate of vaccination status may be required. SUSAN LINDBERG Secretary Australian Vaccination Network Wynnum Plaza, Queensland. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1998. Document daitel0020010922du7k004dl
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News Measles Epidemic Campaign Begins Darren Gray 461 words 4 August 1998 The Age AGEE 6 English (c) 1998 of John Fairfax Group Pty. Ltd. The biggest mass immunisation campaign in Australia's history began yesterday to protect schoolchildren from a predicted measles epidemic. Health authorities have been concerned in recent years that Australia's measles immunisation rate is low by world standards, with many children failing to receive their second, or booster, dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine MMR. Launching the campaign yesterday at Chirnside Park Primary School in Melbourne's outer east, the federal Health Minister, Dr Michael Wooldridge, warned that international disease researchers predicted a measles epidemic within the next year. The measles control campaign will offer about 1.75 million primary school pupils a free MMR vaccine. The one-off strategy will run until November. The campaign is the first plank of the Federal Government's plan to eliminate measles. International disease control organisations hope to eradicate measles by 2010. Dr Wooldridge said the new campaign was bigger than the polio eradication campaigns of the 1950s. `Àustralia's rate of immunisation for measles has dropped very low. There were more cases of measles last year in Australia than in the whole of the People's Republic of China,'' Dr Wooldridge said. ``Measles is not a trivial illness. One million children every year around the world die from measles. The complications can be nasty: upper respiratory tract infections, ear infections, pneumonia, or even infections of the surroundings of the brain.'' Traditionally, Australian schoolchildren have received their second dose of MMR vaccine between the ages of 10 and 16. But under changes to the Commonwealth's immunisation schedule, the booster will now be given before school entry, when children are aged four or five. Researchers believe that by bringing forward the MMR booster, fewer children will fall through the system and miss out on the important second vaccine. It will also achieve a higher level of protection sooner, and, as more children become immunised, the chances of an epidemic will diminish. Page 34 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
The current campaign is a catch-up strategy for children already at primary school. The high school vaccination program for MMR will stop. According to Department of Health and Family Services statistics, one in 25 children who catch measles develops pneumonia. One in 2000 children who catch measles develops inflammation of the brain. Up to 40per cent of these cases suffer permanent brain damage and 10per cent will die. But not everybody is impressed with the measles campaign. The Australian Vaccination Network has launched legal action in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review all Government decisions on the campaign. A lawyer for the network said yesterday it would also complain to the Human Rights Commission about alleged ill- treatment of children not being vaccinated and alleged discrimination towards parents opposed to the measles program. Document agee000020010914du8400edw
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AMA backs school ban. By DIANA THORP and JUSTINE FERRARI. 296 words 31 January 1997 The Australian AUSTLN 4 English (c) 1997 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd THE Australian Medical Association said yesterday it would support the Federal Government in lobbying the States to enforce complete immunisation as a condition for school entry. The vice-president of the AMA, Dr David Brand, said research conducted for the AMA showed 98 per cent of Australians were in favour of child immunisation, with 74 per cent believing full immunisation should be compulsory for all children before starting school. The federal Minister for Health, Dr Wooldridge, also welcomed the plan by the federal Minister for Schools, Dr Kemp, earlier this week to discuss Australia's immunisation policy at the February meeting of State and Territory education ministers. A spokeswoman for Dr Wooldridge said that if the meeting supported the proposal, "it's something we will be pursuing very strongly". While Dr Wooldridge was confident of raising the nation's immunisation rate without compulsion through the Government's plan to be released next month, the spokeswoman said the two proposals would complement each other. The Commonwealth handed responsibility for immunisation to the States in 1987. Dr Wooldridge's spokeswoman said the States already had the capacity to require children starting school to be immunised, but chose not to enforce it. Dr Brand said the AMA believed the problem was not a lack of support for immunisation, "it is just complacency". "With the level of childhood immunisation now at a disturbingly low 53 per cent, we have to face the fact that an epidemic could be imminent," he said. But the Australian Vaccination Network deposited reports yesterday detailing more than 200 cases of serious reactions and deaths following child immunisation at Dr Wooldridge's office to highlight its opposition to the proposal. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1997. Document austln0020010929dt1v013qg
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FED - PRINCIPALS TOLD TO TONE DOWN, CHILD WRONGLY IMMUNISED. By Rada Rouse, National Medical Correspondent 520 words 19 August 1998 19:44 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. BRISBANE, Aug 19, AAP - The federal government has been forced to warn school principals against coercion, while at least one child was vaccinated against parental wishes in the current measles campaign. National Centre for Disease Control head Dr Cathy Mead told AAP that in the wake of reports that parents were being pressured about the campaign, she had written to principals pointing out their role was confined to providing information. Dr Mead conceded there had been several instances of "confusion" about consent forms for the measles mumps rubella (MMR) vaccination and a confirmed case in the Northern Territory in which a child was wrongly immunised. NT Health Services said a nurse vaccinated a five-year-old Darwin boy with MMR despite the consent form being crossed out by his mother. She is opposed to vaccination and now plans to sue. "Territory Health Services does acknowledge that a mistake was made," NT acting director of disease control Dr Angela Merianos said. However the NT has denied any slip-up in another case in which a Tennant Creek mother claims her nine-year-old son was given a hepatitis B injection against express written instructions. Fiona Naughton said she consented to the MMR but did not want her son Shaun to get the hepatitis needle at the same time because of a previously severe reaction. He had to be admitted to hospital for overnight observation because of the error, she said. "I'm not anti-vaccination by any means, but I want someone from the health services to admit they made a mistake," Mrs Naughton said. Dr Ross Brandon, regional health director, said the complaint had been investigated but there was no evidence the child received the hepatitis B needle. Dr Mead said the government had a firm policy that consent was important and was concerned about the reported incidents and anecdotes that schools were pressuring parents to sign up. Her letter to principals said: "I am writing to seek your assistance in reminding school staff that parents will always have the right to choose whether to have their children immunised or not, and it is not the role of school staff to try to influence this decision". Page 37 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Dr Mead said the return of consent forms was running at 95 per cent and 85 per cent of parents were consenting to vaccination at school under the $30 million campaign launched in July. "A proportion of people who don't consent to the vaccination program at school are intending to take their children to their GP and we'll do follow up surveys to find out how many," she said. The Australian Vaccination Network says it has reports of school staff "tearing up" unsigned consent forms, telling children vaccination is compulsory, and frightening them by saying they might die of measles if they are not vaccinated. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Document aap0000020020307du8j01eoh
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NEWS; LETTERS LETTERS 891 words 7 September 1997 Sun Herald SHD 60 English Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd PLAYING FIELD PENALTIES THE regression of the Australian textile, clothing and footwear (TCF) industry is not new. It has been in decline since the 1970s as a result of policies of the Whitlam government, aided and abetted by the ACTU. But, rather than right the wrongs of those policies on tariffs for the TCF industry, successive governments have been mesmerised by the so-called level playing field and hoodwinked by economic rationalists far removed from the real world. Australia simply is not large and powerful enough to lead the march towards a level playing field but as we try to do so others are making easy pickings as our business and industry go to the wall. The destruction of infrastructure has made it virtually impossible for us to save the TCF industry but that does not mean we should continue to peel away tariffs to the detriment of Australian jobs. Perhaps it would be different if the remuneration of politicians and bureaucrats was geared to the decline of jobs in the manufacturing sector. B A CLARKE Cootamundra THEIR RIGHTS PAULINE Hanson (August 24) would seem to be in conflict with the Australian Constitution, Section 116. As a patriotic Australian Ms Hanson would be pledged to uphold the Constitution and therefore her concerns about alleged non-Christians gaining entry to Australia could conflict with constitutional rights. It would be wise if she and her advisers carefully read Section 116 before making additional statements about Australian religious Page 39 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
requirements. The Speaker in the House of Representatives should be able to arrange briefings for Ms Hanson on that section of the Australian Constitution. DOUG HUNTLEY Latham, ACT ROUGH JUSTICE THE Sun-Herald (August 24) ran a front-page story on the unfortunate suicide over a man investigated by a TV crew over alleged repairs to consumer products. On page 13 there was a brief report of a court appearance concerning Bill Bayeh, who was dealt with on a cocaine charge. Mr Bayeh had a closed trial, and he was acquitted. In Royal Commissioner Justice James Wood's final report it is acknowledged that there are people in high places who are involved in pedophilia. None are named. They are able to continue in their privileged positions and corrupt other children. There are many recommendations made, one being to lower the age of consent to homosexual intercourse. If so-called justice is to continue in this fashion, it is no wonder that juries are prone to make dramatic decisions in respect to people appearing in court. CHRIS A HAIN Anna Bay WHOSE POPE? THE Oxford Dictionary's interpretation of "our" means belonging to all of us. The Pope certainly does not belong to me, nor does he deserve my respect. The Pope, along with every other religious leader in this world, could do a lot to elevate the poverty, sorrow and war that is happening at the moment. Ms de la Motte (August 24) has a right to her opinion but so does the rest of the community. I, for one, am sick and tired of people telling me what I can and cannot read, think, see and hear. TONY MORRIS Mansfield Victoria ONE GOD Page 40 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
I HOPE not too many Catholics are worshipping Blessed Mary MacKillop as reported by Brett Thomas (August 31). Catholics by their religion are not allowed to worship anyone but God. They honour and revere the saints, but are not permitted to worship any of them - not even the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose birthday is tomorrow. DICK HUGHES Vaucluse SAD REMINDER ALEX Mitchell's comments on appointments to the Reserve Bank (August 10) serve as a reminder that prejudice and bigotry are sadly still with us today and are not restricted to extremist political groups. Mr Mitchell apparently takes no issue with the appointment of directors who may be Catholic, Anglican, Uniting Church or absolutely anything other than Jewish. He does not even attempt to justify his comment by arguing that the tiny minority historically of Jewish appointees have been any better or worse than other directors. Columnists who invoke and provoke racism should be considered unworthy of being granted the privilege of publication in a mainstream newspaper. JEREMY JONES Darlinghurst YOUR DECISION KAREN Davey's article "Whoops, drug off free list" (August 24) has several discrepancies. Dr Wooldridge will not penalise parents who do not vaccinate. Dr Wooldridge, in his seven-point plan to vaccinate Australian children, allows for conscientious objectors who choose not to vaccinate their children, to receive both the child care rebate and maternity allowances. It is irresponsible to mislead parents about their entitlements especially when using these same entitlements to coerce parents into vaccinating their children. I urge parents to avail themselves of all information before subjecting their children to new and wonderful drugs. The apathy clearly lies with parents who hand over their children to be vaccinated without knowing what the vaccine is, what it can do and what reactions can they expect. Page 41 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
The indifference lies with the medical fraternity who have gone to great lengths to sell vaccines as safe and effective when numerous medical journals clearly report that this may not be the case. Be informed, make your decision through conviction and not fear or emotional blackmail - your child deserves at least this. SUSAN LINDBERG Secretary Australian Vaccination Network Manly West Document shd0000020011008dt97004al
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Vaccine benefits beat costs, says judge. By STEFANIE BALOGH. 533 words 24 September 1997 The Australian AUSTLN 5 English (c) 1997 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd A NSW Supreme Court judge entered the national immunisation debate yesterday, saying the benefits of childhood vaccines outweighed any possible risks of immunisation. Justice Michael Grove was delivering his ruling on a medical negligence case in Sydney, believed to be the first in Australia involving the effects of immunisation. He found that general practitioner Leonard Lotzof, of Sydney, was not in breach of his duty of care when he vaccinated David Bonello 18 years ago. And he had not acted negligently when he neglected to tell the Bonello family about the possible risks associated with immunisation. David, 19, who is severely brain damaged, had attempted to sue Dr Lotzof for negligence, claiming the vaccination he received at the age of four months caused his disability. David's family argued that before he was given the triple antigen injection for diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus, he was a healthy and normal baby. Dr Lotzof, they claimed, was told David had a chest infection but asked the family to "trust him" and went ahead with the vaccination. It was a claim strongly denied by Dr Lotzof during the trial and one which Justice Grove found was unsubstantiated. Justice Grove said it was "easy to recognise" the Bonello family had "blurred with the passage of years" some of the events and details of November, 1978, when David was immunised. He also said they may have had a subconscious "desire to blame someone for the occurrence of tragedy". But Justice Grove said there was no evidence before him to suggest that childhood immunisation was not "compelling, prudent and desirable". And he added the risk of spreading and contracting whooping cough was "so damaging that a doctor should not be found negligent for failing to inform the patient of remote serious risks of vaccination which remain, on the evidence, yet to be established as real". While David's father, Joseph Bonello, said he was "too disappointed to comment", Dr Lotzof's wife, June, greeted the decision with tears of relief. Mrs Lotzof said her husband, who is dying of cancer, had asked for the case to be expedited. "He was just so keen to see that the immunisation of children continues because he was devastated when he first started practising more than 50 years ago as to the terrible illnesses and deaths that occurred," she said. "The thing that upsets him is the low immunisation rate here." Dr Lotzof's lawyer, Lucy Bylhouwer, said although Justice Grove had commented on immunisation, the hearing did not require him "to decide whether or not the whooping cough vaccine was related to David's problems". A spokeswoman for the United Medical Protection, which funded the doctor's defence, said the judgment highlighted that "the decision by Dr Lotzof to vaccinate David was the correct one and consistent with good practice in 1978 and today". But Meryl Dorey, of the Australian Vaccination Network, a lobby group supporting voluntary immunisation, disagreed and accused Justice Grove of not delivering justice. Page 43 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
"All parents are entitled to know all the relevant risks before submitting to any medical procedure," Ms Dorey said. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1997. Document austln0020010929dt9o0054d
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FED - ACTIVISTS SUING HEALTH MINISTER OVER VACCINATION. By Katrina Willis 456 words 14 October 1998 16:05 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. CANBERRA, Oct 14, AAP - Anti-immunisation activists are suing federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge over the government's measles eradication campaign, under which just over 840,000 children have been vaccinated so far. The activists have lodged a test case in the Federal Court suing the commonwealth health minister over an alleged vaccination of a boy in Hobart without his mother's consent. Dr Wooldridge initiated the $30 million campaign to increase immunisation against measles, mumps and rubella last July, noting that 12 per cent of Australian children were not properly protected. The campaign aims to reach 1.75 million children at about 7,000 schools. As of today, 1.1 million students had been approached, 93 per cent of whom had returned forms from their parents. Of these, 86 per cent had consented to vaccination, and 94 per cent of these, just over 840,000 children, had been immunised. A spokesman for the commonwealth Health and Family Services Department said there was no breakdown of the number of parents who had withheld consent, but it was likely to be very small. As many as 10 per cent of students would have seen their local doctor to be immunised, while a number of older children would already have had their second shot, he said. The campaign, which will end in the second week of December, aims to bring forward second shots, previously given at a later age. "These figures are quite encouraging," the spokesman said. The number of adverse reactions to immunisation was not unusually low or high, and most were minor, the spokesman said. The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) has asked the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to review why the government did not include, in material sent to parents, warnings of risks associated with the vaccine listed by the manufacturer. It also wants Dr Wooldridge to explain why material to parents, including a consent form, was not provided in languages other than English. Page 45 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
But AVN lawyer Jonathan Nolan said the government had been unresponsive to the AAT action and 54 parents had decided to shift their focus to the Federal Court, beginning with a test case earlier this month. "We are suing the federal health minister and the Hobart local council who carried out vaccinations without consent," Mr Nolan told AAP. The action claims a local council medical officer vaccinated the boy, at school, against diphtheria, typhoid and polio, even though his mother withheld consent. A further hearing is set down for December. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Document aap0000020020307duae01dr7
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Beware Vaccination, Warns Naturopath Olga De Moeller 579 words 1 March 1999 The West Australian TWAU 7 English (c) 1999 West Australian Newspapers Limited, all rights reserved NATUROPATH Gary Courtenay believes there is strong medical evidence linking chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) to the polio vaccine and diabetes to hepatitis B shots. "All the evidence coming out suggests we have suppressed acute polio only to produce a chronic form of the disease, namely CFS," he said. Melbourne-based Mr Courtenay opened the first full-time college of natural medicine in New Zealand in 1972 and is founder of the New Zealand Charter of Health Practitioners, which comprises 72 complementary health associations. A registered member of the Australian Traditional Medicine Society and Australian Naturopathic Practitioners Association, Mr Courtenay questions the practice of administering "chemical cocktails" to babies with immature immune systems. Mr Courtenay believes there has been a dramatic increase in CFS since the introduction of the polio vaccine in the 1950s. To support his case, he refers to a report from the annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, research by Richard Bruno, from the New Jersey Medical School, and findings by British microbiologist Elizabeth Dowsett. "CFS is known to neurologists as myalgic encephalomyelitis," Mr Courtenay said. "This describes the disease as myalgic, meaning muscle, encephalo, meaning brain, and myelitis, meaning inflammation of the covering nerves. "This also happens to perfectly describe polio. "Currently, the polio vaccine appears to be the major cause of chronic fatigue, albeit instead of muscle wasting, we see muscle weakness. "This type of polio was first described in an epidemic that appeared in Los Angeles in 1934. It was known as atypical polio. "Another epidemic occurred in Switzerland in 1939 and was called abortive polio." Mr Courtenay argues that the coxsackie virus, implicated in CFS and a Page 47 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
relative of polio viruses, has been activated by the Salk and Sabin vaccines. He quotes American research to highlight the possible connection between hepatitis B shots and juvenile diabetes. He says that Massimo Trucco, from the University of Pittsburgh, found a foreign protein called a superantigen attacked the immune system of two young boys who died of juvenile diabetes. "Vaccines are superantigens as they are designed to cause the body to produce antibodies against specific disease," he said. "The hepatitis B-diabetes connection has been talked about in medical circles for some time and a link has been made between viral infections and liver damage. Now vaccines are viruses." Mr Courtenay said every child he had treated with juvenile diabetes had been given a hepatitis vaccine. An advocate of homeopathic medications, Mr Courtenay said parents needed to be given comprehensive information about vaccines so they could make an informed choice about their use. "The public needs to be made more aware of the research that proves vaccination can be harmful," he said. "No jury in the land could say without reasonable doubt that this was not the case." The WA Health Department declined to comment on Mr Courtenay's claims. A spokeswoman said the vaccination debate had been done to death and that the medical data spoke for itself. She said the National Health and Medical Research Council, the World Health Organisation and the American Academy of Medicine had looked at the vaccination issues raised by the AVN and found no scientific or medical evidence to support its allegations. Mr Courtenay discusses his research at an Australian Vaccination Network seminar on Sunday at the All Seasons Freeway Hotel, South Perth. Entry is $15 ($8 concession). For more information, telephone Rhonda Cronshaw, (08) 9337 4113. Lifelines, page 12 Document twau000020010830dv31003q7
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'An attempt to swindle nature': Press anti-immunisation reportage 1993-1997 Julie-Anne Leask; Simon Chapman 7,772 words 1 February 1998 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health AUP 17 Vol. 22, No. 1 English Copyright (c) 1998 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. Abstract: There is some evidence that low childhood immunisation rates in Australia may be attributed partly to parental antipathy toward immunisation. The anti-immunisation movement is becoming more organised in its efforts to lobby against childhood immunisation, while the lessening of the public's exposure to the effects of vaccine-preventable disease has provided a climate ripe for such a lobby to have a disproportionate influence on parents. Forty months of Australian print media coverage of immunisation were reviewed for anti-immunisation arguments and their underlying ideological subtexts. Of 2440 articles about childhood immunisation, 115 (4.7 per cent) contained statements opposing immunisation. Eight subtexts that referenced wider discourses about medicine, the state and the body dominated anti-immunisation discourse (cover-up; excavation of the facts; unholy alliance for profit; towards totalitarianism; us and them; vaccines as poisonous chemical cocktails; vaccines as cause of idiopathic ills; and back to nature). Attempts to redress claims made against immunisation must not only address specific claims about vaccine efficacy and safety but be grounded in a reframing of the ideological appeals that currently frame the contents of antiimmunisation discourse. (Aust N Z J Public Health 1998; 22: 17-26) TWO hundred years after Jenner's observations on the protective effect of cowpox on smallpox, Australian childhood immunisation rates remain disturbingly low, with only 52 per cent of Australian children aged three months to six years being fully immunised for their age in 1995.1 Between October 1996 and September 1997 seven infants died from pertussis in Australia.2 In the first 10 months of 1997, 6468 pertussis and 535 measles cases were notified throughout Australia.3 Low immunisation rates have been explained primarily in terms of practical access problems, parental apathy and provider misconceptions about contraindications.4-10 Parental antipathy to immunisation has not been identified as a major factor in studies examining reasons for low immunisation rates. More recently, however, the 1995 Australian national survey on childhood immunisation found that 18.4 per cent of parents whose children were not immunised against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis were opposed to immunisation, with a further 6.6 per cent citing concern about side- effects as their reason for not vaccinating their children.1 Another Sydney study found 'concern about side effects' to be one of four leading reasons parents gave for not having their children fully immunised.11 Against a background of low immunisation rates, many Australian public health workers are expressing concern that the antiimmunisation movement has become more organised and strategic in its efforts and might be influencing immunisation rates. The Public Health Association has held a workshop12 and the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services has published a booklet13 on responding to arguments against immunisation. Following the broadcast of two national television documentaries on a respected Page 49 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
science program purporting to examine `both sides' of the immunisation debate,14 this journal published a supplement highly critical of the programs.15 While the important role played by media campaigns in promoting immunisation has been studied,16-18 the effect of negative publicity has received little comment in the literature.19-22 The potential for the media to damage public confidence in immunisation was demonstrated in the United Kingdom in 1974, when a television documentary showing two children with severe neurological damage allegedly from the pertussis vaccine was followed by a dramatic reduction in immunisation rates.23 Similarly, there has been little research examining the extent to which anti-immunisation arguments are publicised in communities.20,24,25 In Australia, writings by opponents of immunisation are readily located in the literature of the natural health movement. These are widely available through newsagents, health food shops and at regular public meetings called by community groups like the Immunisation Investigation Group and the Vaccination Awareness Network. Such groups, while claiming not to be anti-immunisation but pro-choice, promote themselves as champions of transparency in public information. They circulate selected research and self-published literature that supports their main argument that vaccination is unsafe and ineffective. While the aggregated circulations of the many publications in these 'alternative' fields is substantial, they do not compare with the reach attained by mainstream broadcast and print media. Together these reach nearly 100 per cent of the population on most days of the year, and accordingly, are likely to be the vehicles that expose the greatest number of the community to anti-immunisation views. In this paper we examine the coverage of anti-- immunisation issues in the Australian print news media. We first quantify this coverage, comparing it to that given to pro-immunisation news items, and note the most common specific claims made by opponents of immunisation as revealed through their letters to newspapers and in news reports highlighting their claims. In the main part of the paper, we examine the ideological substrate in which these claims are embedded, providing them with their rhetorical force and their newsworthiness. Part of any comprehensive strategy to redress the appeal of anti-immunisation rhetoric must involve a careful analysis not only of what its proponents argue but of how they frame their claims in terms of wider social discourses, which render these claims newsworthy instead of being dismissed as merely eccentric and incredible. Methods All press reports on any aspect of childhood immunisation were obtained from a media monitoring agency for the 40-month period from November 1993 to February 1997. This collection included reports published in all Australian metropolitan and regional newspapers from November 1993 until December 1995, then in metropolitan newspapers only until February 1997. To assess the monitoring agency's claim to have supplied all articles on immunisation, we compared those supplied by the agency taken from the Sydney Morning Herald with the actual coverage of the subject area, as determined by a search of CDROM versions of that newspaper for the entire sample period. Eighty per cent of articles were provided in 1994, 94 per cent in 1995 and only 36 per cent in 1996. In view of the poor collection rate for 1996, all articles after January 1996 were excluded from the content analysis but retained for the analysis of subtextual themes. The news clips (n = 2440) were divided into two categories: those wholly or partly devoted to argument critical of immunisation, including articles in which proponents of immunisation addressed claims being made by anti-immunisationists, and those not containing any reference to arguments opposing immunisation. A content analysis was then undertaken on articles in the first category. These were coded for: Page 50 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
newspaper in which published date headline, subheading and any highlighted lead sentences type of article (for example, news item, letter, editorial) perspective of protagonist anti-immunisation claims used spokespersons or experts mentioned. 'Perspective of protagonist' refers to the apparent stance of the person introducing the arguments opposing immunisation. They were coded thus: pro-immunisation: the protagonist came from an apparently proimmunisation perspective anti-immunisation: the protagonist came from an apparently anti-immunisation perspective. 'Anti-immunisation claims' refer to the explicit claims about immunisation that appeared in each article. Next, all articles containing quotations from an anti-immunisation protagonist were reviewed for the principal subtexts found in any part of the article. 'Subtexts' refer to wider systems of ideological reference in which these claims were embedded. These go beyond claims specifically anchored to the subject of immunisation and locate anti- immunisation arguments within discourses that give wider meaning to the specific claims being made. Lists of both anti-immunisation claims and subtexts expanded as the coding proceeded. Instances of these were debated between the two authors during coding and the lists refined and adjusted until a coherent scheme was determined that appeared to admit all instances (Table 1). Reliability The coding of articles for the perspective of the protagonist was tested for reliability by supplying three independent reviewers with a random subsample of 50 articles. The raters, who were blinded to the initial categorisation, were issued with the above definitions of pro-immunisation and anti-immunisation perspectives and were asked to code articles into either category. All raters had perfect agreement with the authors' classification for all 50 articles. The coding of the eight principal subtextual categories was tested similarly. Three raters coded a random subsample of 40 passages. Each rater was issued with a set of definitions (Table 1) and was asked to assign a category to each passage. Table 1: The level of inter-rater reliability was measured using a kappa statistic for agreement over and above that expected by chance. The Page 51 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
equation for kappa specified by Fleiss for multiple-rater agreement was calculated using the ST:TA program.26 The kappa statistic for agreement between authors and each of the three raters was 0.83, 0.83 and 0.86, respectively. The combined score for general agreement on subtextual categories for the three raters was 0.76. These scores reflect an acceptable level of agreement? Results From the sample period November 1993 to December 1995, 2440 articles and letters were counted. Ninety per cent (n = 2196) contained no references to any anti-immunisation claim. Of the 10 per cent (244) that referred to anti-immunisation, about half (115) were written by or about people who were opposed to immunisation, with the remainder (129) being written by or about supporters of immunisation who identified anti-immunisation arguments. In the 115 articles containing statements from those opposed to immunisation, 48 different individuals were quoted. Just under half of those articles (55) contained quotes from the same six people, five of whom were representatives of various immunisation lobby groups. Seventy-five of the anti-immunisation articles (65 per cent) were published in Queensland and 33 (29 per cent) appeared in two newspapers; the Sunshine Coast Daily and the Northern Star. Sixty-five different claims about immunisation were counted in the 244 articles with reference to anti-immunisation. Table 2 shows the eight most common claims classified by the perspective of the protagonist advancing them. Anti-immunisation claims did not occur in isolation. During the period, public calls for parents to immunise their children in the face of disease outbreaks and proposed policy changes aimed at improving immunisation rates provided a context in which the claims of anti-immunisationists were asserted. The school entry requirement of a certificate indicating immunisation status and the introduction of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register prompted many letters, which, although responding to the perceived invasion of civil liberties, would also proselytise on the dangers of vaccines. Some articles and letters were prompted by a Queensland couple's decision to take their local council to court in the Equal Opportunity Commission for disallowing their unvaccinated children to attend the council day care centre. Throughout much of 1994 two prominent anti-immunisationist conducted lecture tours through eastern Australia exhorting against immunisation and promoting their self-published books. Rural newspapers would print their claims in articles announcing their visit with headlines: 'Health expert visits' or 'Lectures on using natural health to replace vaccines soon'. In addition, the anti-immunisation lobby group, the Australian Vaccination Network, through their regular newsletter, urge members to write to local newspapers. Subtextual analysis During the sample period, November 1993 to February 1997, 108 letters and 40 news articles that contained statements from persons opposed to childhood immunisation were published. Each letter or article written by or about anti-immunisationists was reviewed for its use of subtexts (Tables 1 and 3). Up to eight subtexts were coded for each article. We provide illustrative examples of passages from articles and letters for each of the eight principal subtexts we found being used. We have prefaced each of these with examples from literature from the turn of the century opposing smallpox vaccination, to illustrate the resilience and continuity of these themes. COVER-UP: Page 52 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
{I}t is a case of downright deliberate falsehood, propagated at the public expense and to the public misleading {1893, p. 77} 28 One of the anti-immunisationists' most persistent claims was that a widespread conspiracy of information suppression prevents the public from knowing the true facts about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Table 2: Table In the 200 years of vaccination the public has been deceived, misled and lied to. It represents the greatest medical cover-up in history. She said the side effects of immunisation were potentially fatal and often swept under the carpet by the medical establishment. EXCAVATION OF THE 'FACTS': {T}here exists a vast mass of medical evidence that such diseases as syphilis, erysipelas, eczema, and scrofula can be communicated or stirred up by vaccination {1895, pp. 82-3}.29 As confirmation of this conspiracy, allegations of cover-up were frequently accompanied by a deluge of statistics and supportive information, often couched in language claiming that intrepid truth-seekers had needed to search for or excavate the real information that had been hidden from the public. The information so uncovered would often be communicated in dramatic language, frequently involving allusions to vastness to convey both the dedication of those searching for the truth and the sheer enormity of the cover-up. While some alluded to hidden facts that needed to be unearthed, others implied that one had only to scratch the surface to reveal the alarming statistics on immunisation and that any interested member of the public could readily obtain such information. As if to counter the medical community's frequent references to those opposing immunisation as being antiscientific, research data were often invoked to support the case. I spent the next six years researching vaccination and uncovered massive amounts of scientific and medical evidence clearly proving that vaccines played no part whatsoever in the decline of infectious diseases. {S} he had studied more than 40 000 pages of medical research to form the opinion that immunisation was dangerous and unnecessary. All this information-and more-can be found in simple to read English in medical journals. References to international research were common, implying that Australian health authorities' knowledge of immunisation was parochial and outdated compared with the more informed views of its opponents. Somebody in the Australian health system is not telling Australians just what is happening in the rest of the world in the Page 53 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
vaccination debate. A frequently 'excavated' claim was that a number of experts had rejected immunisation and that the medical establishment was secretly divided. Many anti-immunisationists insinuated that there were rumblings in the medical establishment as an impending shift in expert opinion approached and that we were at the brink of the abandonment of an outdated practice. Quotations or headlines conveying 'dissent in the medical ranks' were found in 27 per cent of articles. For example: There is growing concern among people around the world and in the scientific and medical community about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. I found the biggest critics of vaccinations are the medical scientists, ... many of them won't vaccinate their own children. The Lancet and other journals constantly print findings from doctors and researchers disputing and acknowledging that vaccines are not working and can cause damage. One opposing 'expert' cited in 16 articles and letters was Viera Scheibner, a retired micropalaeontologist. Although her qualifications are in a nonmedical field, this was never acknowledged or footnoted, presumably allowing her 'Dr' title to connote medical training for many readers. 'I was a professional scientist and you can't study cot death without stumbling over vaccinations,' Dr Scheibner said. Notions that anti-immunisationists were in the forefront of contemporary science, while 'orthodox' doctors were woefully and dangerously ill-informed positioned people like Scheibner as heroic whistleblowers: It is really embarrassing to have the orthodox profession of doctors not telling people about the terrible things that can happen to their children if they are vaccinated. UNHOLY ALLIANCE FOR PROFIT: Vaccination is paid for out of the public pocket and whatever the evidence adverse to its usefulness, it will be upheld as beneficial by those who profit by it {1885, p.584.}30 The narrative of cover-up was frequently paired with the motive of corruption. Vested interests were said to be manipulating parents to ensure that the evidence against vaccines was suppressed so that sales could proceed unabated. Although doctors and government officials were implicated as complicit in an unholy alliance, the ultimate dark force behind the conspiracy was the pharmaceutical companies who were committed to maintaining demand for their products. Who will profit from the pressure to vaccinate? Not the children but the vaccine manufacturers-the medical mafia. I was horrified ... to learn of the blatant cover-ups and pure profit motivation of pharmaceutical companies and medical Page 54 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
associations in regard to vaccination. The medical establishment and drug companies lie because they want to sell vaccines. Governments were explicitly aligned with drug companies, with the implication that they had something to gain from the relationship: This thinly disguised propaganda, presumably initiated by the Queensland Government Health Department whose policy is aligned more with the remunerative motive of the drug companies making the vaccines. Such claims were never accompanied with explanations of what governments would gain from such collusion, particularly when immunisation costs millions of dollars to provide free to Australian children. TOWARDS TOTALITARIANISM: {T}he laws ... have been passed to support an exploded nostrum, forced upon the community in contravention of parental rights, experience and commonsense {1909, p. vi}.31 In 1996 the National Childhood Immunisation Register, incorporating a mailed parental reminder system, was established. Many letters linked the existence of the register with the spectre of government invasion of privacy, exertion of excessive control on parents and of children being forcibly held down and injected with whatever drug the government of the day dictated: Once the computer state-linked `vaccination-tracking system' has been implemented, it would be able to tag, track down and force children against their will to be injected with every existing and new vaccine that policymakers deem `necessary,'. The implementation of the register would greatly widen the power of health bureaucrats and the medical establishment in achieving their agenda of universal vaccination coverage of our children. Although government proposals to make childhood immunisation compulsory were not evident during the period, many drew attention to this issue, voicing strong opposition through depicting various 'slippery slope' scenarios redolent of totalitarian states with impersonal and brutalising government 'machinery' overruling parental authority: Once the machinery of compulsion is in place it will be extremely difficult to dismantle. To suggest that a government take over decisions of what parents may or may not give their children is to remove the rights of parents and make the state mother and father. No public health risk exists to justify what would amount to be an enforced program of mass brain damage. Compulsory vaccination would set a dangerous precedent -Page 55 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
compulsory use of antibiotic to treat disease? Compulsory abortions for high risk pregnancies? US AND THEM: Hence it is that vaccination is dreaded and detested by the poor on whom it is inflicted without parley or mitigation; in itself a bearer of illness, it is likewise a cruel aggregation of weakness and illness {1885, p. x1}.30 The warning that vaccination programs would erode civil liberties was frequently set in the context of a depersonalisation of those in authority coupled with the positioning of anti-immunisationists as concerned citizens providing worried parents with revelations that the corrupted authorities would not provide: The only vested interests parents have in their children is a love for them, unlike the drug companies to whom vaccinations are a multimillion dollar concern. People have the right to choose what path they want to ... I let them know all the information so they can make an informed choice. This theme was expressed well in a Michael Leunig cartoon. It showed a mother holding her baby facing a male doctor holding an oversized needle: Mother: 'Wait a moment; I have some doubts' Doctor: `You doubt medical science?' Mother: Ì'm sorry, my HEART has some doubts-I must listen to my heart on this matter, PLE.nsE' Doctor: YOUR HEART! What does your heart know? It is outnumbered. It has no AUTHORITY This dialogue framed an adversarial situation where the cold hard face of scientific reason was pitted against the caring intuition of a mother's love for her child. In addition, parents who did not immunise their children were framed as wisely cautious: The rate of childhood immunisations is dropping because parents are becoming more caring and are looking closer at what is being done to their children. Get your head out of the clouds Dr X, parents are not simply complacent about immunisation. There are a lot of maimed, unreported statistics out there. Stop treating people like idiots. People are not going to take risks with their cherished loved ones. This framing strategy referenced other news reports in which prominent medical professionals stated that parents who did not vaccinate were complacent: Ìt really is just complacency' (AMA official, The Australian 21 January 1997) and one letter in which a Monash University academic wrote:
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Obligatory vaccination is the only way the rest of us will be protected from the non-immunised ignorant, apathetic, complacent and pig-headed, who are a drain on the rest of society when they themselves are unnecessarily sick or a source of infection for the innocent. Framing non-immunising parents as caring and discerning invoked the image of doctors as relics from an age where medical authority went unquestioned and where parental concerns were trivialised: For those doctors with an ivory tower mentality, left over from the days when they were inviolable authority figures, the debate has led some to a more face-to-face appreciation of their clients' needs. It really angers me how doctors trivialise this serious medical procedure. Vaccination is a serious medical procedure that has damaged and killed many children. Many press reports quoted vaccine advocates responding to antiimmunisation rhetoric by arguing that the benefits of vaccination outweighed the risks. Against this the testimony of parents alleging serious effects of a vaccination lent an authenticity to antiimmunisation arguments that contrasted with what may have been seen as bland and irresponsible assurances from ill-informed doctors: {O}ur son is one of the AMA's sacrifices. And for those who claim it is for the good of society, like we were told by one helpful doctor, perhaps they could come round to our place and explain to my little girl why she can never be like the other children. One article referred to one mother's decision not to vaccinate. It showed a photograph of a smiling woman holding her healthy child with the caption `healthy enough to fight off disease'. Two other similar articles carried photos of parents who had chosen not to immunise with a smiling and healthy looking child. One father was referred to in a similar vein: He offers no more convincing proof of the benefits of such a lifestyle than his own rude health and that of his son. VACCINES AS POISONOUS CHEMICAL COCKTAILS: This infusion of poison injected into the blood stream of the masses only served to intensify the disease {about 1956}s2 The three major alternatives to vaccination being presented were: acquiring natural immunity through contracting the diseases themselves, natural health practices and homoeopathic vaccination. In two letters, writers advocated the alternative of `prayer and Christian living'. To legitimise such `natural alternatives' it was necessary to discredit or demonise the vaccines themselves. This was done by reference to the allegedly toxic ingredients of vaccines, their contamination by exotic and frightening sounding concoctions and images of the purity of children's pristine bodies being violated by injections: Vaccines are highly noxious. They contain formaldehyde, aluminium phosphate, thiomersal, foreign proteins and contaminating animal proteins
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Vaccines, by introducing viruses directly into the blood stream, actually pushed diseases deeper into the body and eroded the immune system. {T}oxins, animal tissue, unknown viruses and other harmful material are given direct access to babies' vital organs. I refuse to endanger my children's health and well being by pumping their young bodies full of highly toxic, immune destroying material. Oliver Brennan's perfect baby skin has never been bared to a needle VACCINES AS CAUSE OF IDIOPATHIC ILLS: Many of these strange `mystery diseases' that baffle the entire medical world are the sordid product of vaccine poisons {about 1956, p.5}.32 Being so 'toxic', vaccines were, perhaps, ideal candidates to be blamed as causal agents in a range of conditions with unknown or uncertain origin. This ascription is not new. Late last century the smallpox vaccine was being linked to the contemporary scourges of syphilis and leprosy. In the 1990s vaccines are invoked as explanations of mysterious diseases and conditions such as cot death, childhood cancer, autism and even crime. VACCINATION LEFT SON AUTISTIC, SAYS MOTHER Dr Viera Scheibner attributes asthma, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, childhood cancer and leukemia to vaccinations. In his book, Mr Miller discusses the possibility that mandatory vaccines can trigger developmental disorders and autoimmune diseases and that they cause childhood behaviour problems which later lead to criminal activity and violent crime. BACK TO NATURE: Finally, vaccination is an attempt to swindle nature {1885, p. 595}.30 Dangerous concoctions of deadly chemicals were contrasted with the option of the 'natural' methods that maintained the pristine environment of the healthy child's body. Occasionally, this was contextualised in a romanticisation of the past, a `return to the garden' and the idea that vaccinations were violations of some natural order: In the past, children began life protected by their natural immune systems. I think most people agree that God made nature perfect, he also gave man a perfect built-in defence system that works well if not interfered with by poisons such as drugs, antibiotics etc.
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Society's increasing preference for alternative therapies was captured in journalistic comment from some articles: The couple use natural methods to boost what they say is a baby's naturally strong immune system. Oliver is still being breast fed and eats only organic vegetables. The family also uses some homoeopathic remedies. RELIGIOUS CRUSADE: The world resounded with praises of the immortal Jenner, saviour of mankind from smallpox. Enveloped in the smoke of such incense, it is scarcely surprising that the idol came to believe that his worshippers knew him better than he did {1885, p. xvi}.30 Finally, many articles repeated imagery that evoked a religious battle with soldiers from two sides locked in a duel. The antiimmunisationists were said to be crusaders, struggling, often in vain, to have their voices heard: VACCINES NOT SAFE: CRUSADER I wish Mr and Mrs Beattie all the best success with the struggle. Interestingly, despite their own self-conscious faith in natural immunity anti-immunisationists sometimes descri bed 'believers' of immunisation in religious terms: If they've been traditionally vaccinated, that's where their belief and their faith is. Until this happens immunisation is little more that a religion with no scientific fact to back it up-pushed by high priests who have the audacity to call themselves doctors of medicine. In summary, the eight themes we identified that coursed through the news reports formed a coherent narrative that can be summarised as follows: Vaccines are the modern equivalents of witches' brews, brutally injected into babies' pristine bodies. These concoctions are commodities promoted by the faceless, venal pharmaceutical industry, which enjoys the support of governments and the medical profession. Doctors' professional arrogance and concern to close ranks in the face of damning evidence has not allowed them to acknowledge what is plain to see for anyone who takes the trouble to search: that vaccines maim and kill infants, as the testimony of grieving parents shows us undeniably. Further, a whole host of allegedly mysterious illnesses and social problems is also caused by vaccines. The public has not been told this because it would cause the conspiracy between the drug industry and governments to unravel, with the general totalitarian agenda of government being the main casualty. There are many doctors who privately agree with this assessment, but are either being ignored or gagged. Those attempting to blow the whistle on this conspiracy are not quacks but scientifically literate and intrepid truth-tellers, motivated by their rapport with parents and their outrage at having discovered the extent of the conspiracy. Vaccines are poisons, which are in every sense unnatural-in contrast to pathways toward natural immunity such as homoeopathy and healthy living. Those advocating vaccines are urging us to expose our children to these witches' brews rather than choose healthy, natural lifestyles. Page 59 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Discussion Although the anti-immunisation case receives scant news coverage compared with normative or overtly promotional items on the value of immunisation, it is possible that even the small coverage it receives may be influential with nonimmunising parents. In attempting to understand the appeal of anti-immunisation coverage, it is instructive to first consider its appeal to those who publish it. News is selected in a manner quite unlike the peer reviewing process that determines whether original research is published in research journals. Journalists and editors selecting news are rarely qualified in any area of science or medicine and are therefore poorly positioned to judge whether the often elaborate quasi-scientific claims made by anti-immunisationists have any substance. More fundamentally, it is also naive to assume that a primary criterion used to select news is that it should be capable of being interrogated by the highest standards of scientific evidence. Indeed, as we have shown, a core characteristic of much antiimmunisation news is that it is self-consciously paradigm-challenging, thereby positioning itself as deservedly newsworthy precisely because of the forthright challenges it claims to lay, Galileo-like, at the door of the scientific church. The Vaccination Awareness Network heads its home page with a quote from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: 'All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident'.33 Similarly, an anti-immunisation tract published in the 1950s directly invoked the Galileo parallel: Back in the middle ages, Galileo was tormented, tortured, and threatened with death because he taught that the world was round. We like to relegate to the past such acts of ignorance and barbarism, and believe that such outrages against progress could not happen in our day and age. But we are having parallels of this same kind of intolerance in the healing field.32 At the heart of anti-immunisation discourse is an appeal to an individualistic ideology that valourises vigilance against the erosion of civil liberties, suspicion of authority figures and the prevention of disease through 'natural' host resistance. By framing their arguments in this way, anti-immunisationists locate their cause under a canopy of similar newsworthy discourses that centre on the moral authority of the individual. For many, this evokes a virtuous outlook that would contrast favourably with what they may see as an unquestioning compliance with the dictums of the medico-industrial axis. Armed with tragic case studies of children post hoc ergo propter hoc harmed by immunisation, conspiracy theories of profitmotivated cover-ups, and in a context where medical authority is increasingly under challenge for its iatrogenic failures, the individualistic rejection of immunisation orthodoxy can appear a rational and principled choice. Furthermore, immunisation requires that parents take a small but active risk with their children for the benefit of disease prevention in the community and for future generations who face a world free of such diseases, as has been the case with smallpox.34 Some may see the risk they are being asked to take as a risk that will bring little benefit to their child, with the arguments for vaccination embracing communitarian rather than individualistic values. The response dilemma So what might our analysis imply for public health officials concerned to maximise public confidence in immunisation? Within the limitations of a study confined to print media, our analysis reveals a reactive response, by which anti-immunisation claims are more frequently introduced by health professionals attempting to refute Page 60 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
them than by anti-immunisationists themselves. Such reiteration risks amplifying public awareness of anti-immunisation arguments. It has been postulated that increasing the frequency of contact with a concept increases familiarity, which is more likely to generate a positive response.35 This would suggest that to lessen the public's exposure to anti-immunisation claims, health professionals should not respond defensively by repeating the anti-arguments. However, McGuire's psychological inoculation theory supports the type of public health response demonstrated in our sample.36 McGuire posited that certain beliefs-termed cultural truisms-are widely held by a society to be almost self-evidently true. Cultural truisms go largely unchallenged, as people are seldom required to support their adherence to them. Psychological inoculation theory would see childhood immunisation as a cultural truism that has previously enjoyed widespread and unquestioned acceptance. In the terms of the metaphor, most adherents to immunisation have not developed 'antibodies' to challenge their beliefs. With the decline of vaccine- preventable diseases, new generations of parents miss the reinforcing effect of familiarity with the consequences of such diseases. This creates a climate in which anti-immunisation arguments can easily gain credence. With many parents being unrehearsed in refuting arguments, their support for immunisation is susceptible to erosion and abandonment. The theory asserts that in order for there to be sufficient resistance to such attack, the community should be given homoeopathic-like `weak doses of the opposing view' while also being exposed to arguments that support the truism.37 The inoculation metaphor applied to such a scenario would support public health professionals initiating awareness of anti-immunisation arguments while at the same time reinforcing the importance of immunisation. The usual responses of the public health community to antiimmunisationists have vacillated between dismissiveness, ('I feel that even to give it the credibility of being an issue worth debating suggests it has some credence'38) and efforts to provide detailed rebuttals of their various claims.14 An assumption underlying this cognitively oriented response would appear to be that if the public were assisted in understanding that anti-immunisationists are simply ill-informed or wrong in their arguments, many would set aside their reservations about immunisation and vaccination rates would improve. Here, the criteria seen to define the debate are those concerning the quality of evidence being advanced by the parties to the debate. However, only a minority of those opposed to immunisation would be able to give detailed accounts of the relevant immunological, toxicological and epidemiological issues that might justify their positions. Immunisation defaulters have been shown to have limited knowledge about vaccination and vaccine-preventable diseases.39 In fact, Meszaros et al. showed that when parents who had decided to forego pertussis vaccination were presented with evidence about risks and benefits they became more committed to their antipathetic position. This response was moderated by underlying values about death and chronic disability. Indeed, much of the research on those adhering to the 'rational noncompliance' position on immunisation41 reveals that the decision not to immunise a child is based on a complex web of factors, including personal experience with attributed adverse reactions, advice from family and friends, general scepticism about health professionals and a preference for alternative methods of preventing disease.42,43 Such factors indicate that parents choosing not to immunise their children would feel comfortable with their position by virtue of its consistency with wider reference systems: with values, predilections and what has been described as `philosophical or intuitive resistance to the idea of immunization'.44 It has been argued that dedicated 'rational noncompliers' are unlikely to alter their stance on immunisation. The group most likely to be swayed by the negative publicity about immunisation are Page 61 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
those parents who are generally supportive of immunisation but who are concerned about adverse reactions:41 'swinging voters'. In this context, any attempt to dissuade this group from accepting antiimmunisation argument entirely based on evidence is likely to fail to address the core dispositions that potentially attract them to the values underscoring anti-immunisation advocacy in the first place. Once these are identified and deconstructed, as we have done, the more basic elements at the core of antiimmunisation belief systems may suggest quite different communication strategies. For example: The cover-up discourse championed by antiimmunisationists along with the associated tactics of forming 'independent' groups investigating adverse reactions appropriates powerful values that act to position medicine as the defensive, guilty-until-proven-innocent party. These accusations could be neutralised by establishing and publicising processes whereby investigations into alleged adverse reactions were made more publicly transparent. The obvious question as to why governments would wish to stage a decades-long cover-up when immunisation annually costs them millions of dollars should be proposed. In Australia until recently, the largest supplier of vaccines was a government laboratory. Medicine must avoid all remnants of communication policy that simply denies or denigrates the possibility of adverse reactions. The perhaps inescapable tendency to engage in post hoc ergo propter hoc attribution over adverse reactions requires that far greater attention should be given to the development of risk-communication strategies. As with much in public health, scant attention has been given to ways of communicating the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases compared with the infinitesimal risks of serious adverse reactions to vaccines.45 Recent discussion about anchoring such communication to analogue, visual and verbal scales could be fruitful here.46 Efforts should be made to broaden the coalition of voices speaking out in support of immunisation beyond voices largely confined to those from medicine and government who are vulnerable to dismissal by those harbouring anti-authority sentiments. A coalition of parents supportive of immunisation could be established in order to highlight the overall support for immunisation that exists among parents and to counter antiimmunisation claims in the media and other public forums. When doctors do take lead roles, they should address parental concerns about side-- effects and serious reactions with clear information in lay terms. Older health care workers, such as infant nurses who experienced the polio epidemic of the 1950s or those who have worked in developing nations where vaccine-preventable diseases are endemic, should also be encouraged to play active roles. The 'excavation' strategy might equally be used to good effect against anti-immunisationists. Public health should trawl cinematic and pictorial archives for footage of victims of infectious disease epidemics and the often-moving testimonies of those involved in their care and treatment. Public historical travelling exhibitions and television documentaries may also be good vehicles for reminding the community of the impact of these epidemics. Equally, as illustrated by our historical citation of anti-immunisationists from early this century, there may be advantage in illustrating the historical continuity of vaccine-phobics, particularly in light of the ravages and subsequent radical abatement of most of these diseases in nations with robust immunisation programs. When health professionals refute the favourite assertions of antiimmunisationists, they should be prepared with responses that answer the arguments directly rather than dismissive disqualifications. Once an argument is dealt with, advocates of immunisation should immediately reframe the debate in proactive terms, emphasising the benefits of immunising. Page 62 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
More effort should be given to exposing the questionable research history and postgraduate training of maverick doctors and others claiming Chomsky-like status as truth excavators. Similarly, while the value many parents see in the alternative therapies needs to be acknowledged, the potential dangers of going too far with natural health practices requires attention. Accounts of parents holding `measles parties' where unimmunised children are exposed to the disease in the hope of conferring on them natural immunity,47 instances of placing children in warm manure to draw out 'toxins', fasting sick children for days at a time and other such procedures are examples that are likely to convey to many a picture of fanaticism run amok. Such accounts can be found in natural health literature adjacent to quasi-scientific antiimmunisation tracts. Acknowledgments The NSW Health Department and CSL Ltd provided grants to undertake and publish this research. CSL Ltd supplied all press clippings. The authors are grateful to Lyndall Thurley for assistance in coding and to Petra Macaskill for statistical advice. References 1. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Children's immunisation, Australia, April 1995. (,at. no. 4352.0. (Canberra: ABS, 1996. 2. (Communicable Diseases Network Australia and New Zealand, (Canberra, 1998. Guidelines for the control of pertussis in Australia. In press. 3. Communicable Disease Surveillance. Commun Dis Intell 1997; 21: 324. 4. Bell JC, Whitehead P, Chev T, Smith W, Capon AG, Jalaludin B. The epidemiology of incomplete childhood immunization: an analysis of reported immunization status in outer western Sydney J Paediatr Child Health 1993; 29: 384-8. 5. Essex C, Counsell AM, Geddis DC. Immunization status and demographic characteristics of New Zealand infants in the first 6 months of life. J Paediatr Child Health 1993; 29: 379-83. 6. Jones K, Fasher B, Hanson R, Burgess M, et al. Immunization status of casualty attenders: risk factors for non-compliance and attitudes to òn the spot.' immunization. J Paediatr Child Health 1992; 28: 451-4. 7. Cutts FT, Orenstein WA, Bernier RH. Causes of low preschool immunization coverage in the United States. Annu Rev Public Health 1992; 13: 385-98. 8. Peckham C. The Peckham report. National Immunisation Study. Factors influencing immunisation uptake in childhood. Horsham, West Sussex: Action Research for the Crippled Child, 1989. 9. Li J, Taylor B. Factors affecting uptake of measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. BMJ 1993; 307: 168-71. Page 63 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
10. Pearson M, Makowiecka K, Gregg J, Wollard J, et al. Primary immunisations in Liverpool: I: Nl,ho withholds consent? Arch Dis Child 1993; 69:110-14. 11. Skinner J, March 1., Simpson JM. A retrospective cohort study of childhood immunisation status in northern Sydney. Aust l Public Health 1995; 19: 58-63. 12. Hall R. Immunisation myths-workshop on responding to arguments against immunisation. Canberra: Public Health Association of Australia, March 1995. 13. Hall R. Immunisation myths and realities: responding to arguments against immunisation. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1996. 14. http://wis.abc.net.all/quantum/info/q9622-l.hun. 15. Thompson S. Vaccination: protection at what price? Aust NZ /Public Health 1997; 21(Suppl): 1-8. 16. Macdonald H, Roder D. The planning, implementation and evaluation for an immunization promotion campaign in South Australia. Hygie 1985; 4: 13-16. 17. Zimicki S, Hornick RC, Vel/osa CC, Hernandez JR, et al. Improving vaccination coverage in urban areas through a health communication campaign: the 1990 Philippine experience. Bull I0 1994; 72: 409-22. 18. Paunio M, Virtanen M, Peltola H, Cantell k, et al. Increase of vaccination coverage by mass media and individual approach: Intensified measles, mumps, and rubella prevention program in Finland. Amn,J Epidemiol 1991; 133: 1152-9. 19. Harding C. Immunisation as depicted bY the British national press. Community Ll(ed 1985; 7: 87-98. 20. Freed G, Katz SL, Clark Sl. Safety of vaccinations: Miss America, the media and public health. JA:YLA 1996; 276: 1869-72. 21. Gonzalez E. TV report on DTP galvanizes US pediatricians. JA.7{LA 1982; 248: 12-14, 20-2. 22. Sutton S, Gill E. Immunisation uptake: the role of parental attitudes. London: Health Education Authority, 1993. 23. Griffith AH. Medicine and the media: vaccination against whooping cough. J Biol Standard 1981: 9: 475-82. 24. Harding CM. Whooping cough vaccination: the case presented by the British national press. Child Care Health Der 1985; ll: 21-30.
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25. Hinman AR. The pertussis vaccine controversy. Public Health Rep 1984: 99: 255-9. 26. Fleiss JL. Statistical methods for rates and proportions. 2nd edn. New York: Wiley, 1981. 27. Streiner DL, Norman GR. Health measurement scales: a practical guide to their development and use. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995 28. Milnes A. What about vaccination? The vaccination question plainly put and plainly answered. London: Allen, 1893. 29. Hutton AW. 7he vaccination question. London: Methuen, 1895. 30. hite W. The story of a great delusion in a series of matterof-fact chapters. London: Allen, 1885. 31. Booth A. A beautiful arm: a history of the vaccination delusion. London: Sampson Low, Marston & (Company, 1909. 32. McBean E, The poisoned needle: supr-essed facts about vaccination. Mokelumne Hill, California: Health Research, undated, circa 1956. 33. http://www.oz-email.rom.al/-shotinfo. 34. Medley GF. Conflicts between the individual and communities in treatment and control. In: Isham VS, Medley GF, editors. Models for infectious human diseases: their structure and relation to data. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996: 336. 35. Zajonic RB. Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. J Pers Soc Psychol 1968; 9 (suppl): 1-27. 36. McGuire WJ. The effectiveness of supportive and refutational defenses in immunizing and restoring beliefs against persuasion. Sociometry 1961; 24: 184-97. 37. O'Keefe DJ. Persuasion: theory and research. London: Sage, 1990: 180. 38. Bird J. Author claims jab is a danger. Gladstone Observer {Queensland}, 19 September, 1995. 39. Dalphinis J. Do immunisation defaulters know enough about immunisation? Health Visitor 1986; 59: 342-4. 40. Meszaros JR, Asch DA, Braon J, Hershey JC, et al. Cognitive processes and the decisions of some parents to forego pertussis vaccination for their children. J Clin Epidemiol 1996; 49: 697-703. 41. Rogers A, Pilgrim D. The risk of resistance: perspectives on the mass childhood immunisation program. In: Gabe J, editor. Medicine, health and risk: sociological approaches. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995: 73-90. 42. Rogers A, Pilgrim D. The pros and cons of immunisation. Health Care Anal 1995; 3: 99-107. Page 65 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
43. New S, Senior M. 'I don't believe in needles': qualitative aspects of a study into the uptake of infant immunisation in two English health authorities. Soc Sci Med 1991; 33: 509-18. 44. Stone DH. The difference between ideological and intellectual dissent. Health Care Anal 1995; 3: 111-13. 45. Freudenburg WR. Perceived risk, real risk: social science and the art of probabilistic risk assessment. Science 1988; 242: 44-9. 46. Calman KC, Royston GHD. Risk language and dialects. BMJ 1997; 315: 939-42. 47. Rogers R, Pilgrim A. Rational non-compliance with childhood immunisation: personal accounts of parents and primary health care professionals. London: Health Education Authority London 1993. Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Sydney Correspondence to Associate Professor Simon Chapman, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Sydney, NSW 2006. Email: simonc@pub.health.usyd.ed Document aup0000020010915du210000y
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Anti-jab Argument Frustrates Doctors AMANDA BOWER 796 words 3 February 1997 The West Australian TWAU 10 English Copyright West Australian Newspapers Limited, all rights reserved. IMAGINE standing at the top of a cliff preparing to jump. You have a choice - strap on a parachute or free-fall. There is a remote chance the parachute is faulty and will fail to open, but it would be madness to plummet to the bottom without it. Institute for Child Health Research director Fiona Stanley uses this analogy to illustrate why parents, when weighing up the pros and cons of vaccination, should choose to immunise their children. "Not immunising your child is like sending them off to day care or school without a parachute," Professor Stanley said. "There is an extraordinarily rare risk, perhaps no risk at all, of children developing permanent brain damage because of vaccination." According to Professor Stanley, the risk of an unimmunised child dying from a vaccine-preventable disease is far greater, but misinformation about dangers of vaccination has scared some parents off. The recent deaths of three children in Sydney from whooping cough, a vaccine-preventable disease, have rekindled the argument for and against immunisation. The deaths sparked a call from Federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge and the WA Health Department for parents to be more vigilant about immunising their children. Ideas of making immunisation compulsory for school entry and paying parents incentives to take their children for jabs have been floated as ways of improving the country's immunisation record. Only 43 per cent of WA children are fully immunised, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This figure frustrates WA Health Department director of disease control Jag Gill, given that Federal Government research shows 90 per cent of parents believe in immunisation. "As a nation we are doing pathetically poorly," Dr Gill said yesterday. He said 90 per cent of children had their first three jabs, but figures dropped dramatically after that. Page 67 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Dr Gill attributed this to complacency and over-confidence, but conceded some parents may be convinced by the anti-immunisation lobby. "It's a very difficult battle for scientists and doctors because we have to try to counter very emotive stories about brain damaged children with boring statistics," Professor Stanley said. But those statistics were based on decades of careful scientific research. In the case of whooping cough, for example, up to 10.5 immunised children per million developed permanent brain damage, but scientists had been unable to find a causal link. On the other hand, four in 10 children who got whooping cough needed hospitalisation. Two in 100 had seizures, one in 1000 was left with permanent brain damage and two in 1000 died. Over the past four years, Princess Margaret Hospital microbiologists have diagnosed 1095 cases of whooping cough alone. But the anti-immunisation lobby says the numbers are skewed. Adelaide general practitioner Peter Baratosy said the number of recorded adverse reactions was artificially low because doctors were reluctant to report them. "I see immunised children with asthma, diabetes, recurrent ear and throat infections," Dr Baratosy said. "My personal opinion is that immunisation does more harm than good." Dr Baratosy claimed a healthy diet, regular injections of vitamin C, homeopathic medicine and breast-feeding were protection enough against disease. Australian Medical Association WA president David Roberts said 20,000 doctors believed immunisation was a public health necessity. Dr Baratosy stood alone. Vic Williams, chairman of the WA Vaccination Awareness Group, claimed there were disastrous side- effects that doctors did not tell parents about. "We're not telling people not to immunise, but we want them to have all the information before they make a choice," Mr Williams said. Susan Lindberg, the Queensland-based secretary of the Australian Vaccination Network, said doctors belittled parents who were concerned about the side-effects of vaccination. "We are both working on the same issue, ensuring our children are healthy," Mrs Lindberg said. "I would be the first one lining up if there were side-effect-free vaccines." Dr Baratosy said his many of his Australian colleagues did not know any better than to immunise. Page 68 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
"It's the drug companies that make the big profits," he said. "Where do the researchers (who teach the medical students) get their grants? The drug companies are the big contributors." Dr Roberts said until very recently, vaccines were made by not-for-profit government laboratories. Immunisation started in the 1940s. "He's accusing doctors of being participants in a conspiracy with the drug companies and with numerous scientific journals and numerous universities and numerous research institutes," Dr Roberts said. "He's saying there's a worldwide conspiracy, which is of course absurd." WA Health Minister Kevin Prince said science had proved that vaccination was a safe, effective way of protecting children. If WA's immunisation rates fell any lower, the risk of epidemics was very real. Document twau000020011009dt230017o
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News; Letters LETTERS 1,779 words 12 October 1997 Sun Herald SHD 52 English Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd Turn in your old Talbot BACK in the 1920s and early 30s, when pilots were taking to the skies in open-cockpit aircraft held together by little more than rag and wire, there were inevitable prangs. Rescue missions along the pioneering routes, which stretched out from Longreach into outback Queensland and the Northern Territory, were carried out with the aid of a 1.5 tonne Talbot truck. We wouldn't expect to find one in exactly mint condition, but it could be that a rusting Talbot hulk is out there somewhere. If so, the directors of the Qantas Founders' Outback Museum would be delighted to find a new parking spot and effect restoration. Our museum, officially opened at Longreach in June 1996 by the Governor-General Sir William Deane, is a voluntary initiative undertaken by the western Queensland community to preserve a remarkable history of one of the world's great airlines. The museum stands in the hangar from which Qantas first operated. Various items of equipment, photographs and other memorabilia are displayed. Plans are well in hand to expand the museum, and my committee would be pleased to hear from anyone who may have possession of any historical items such as propeller blades, goggles, tools or diaries from the period when Qantas and the Flying Doctor Service first took to the air. Telephone 076 583 747 or write to the Foundation at PO Box 747, Longreach, Queensland 4730. FRITH FYSH chairman The Qantas Foundation Memorial Ltd Huntered AS a proud Novocastrian, I find it very annoying when references are made portraying Newcastle as part of the central coast. The Hunter is a unique area which should be recognised by everyone. I am led to believe that the central coast terminates at Doyalson. DAPHNE HUGHES
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Kahibah Keep Santa sacred CONFLICT between the races in Australia looks like raising its ugly head yet again, this time over, of all things, Santa. I support Myer's action to keep Santa white and male. Santa is a tradition. Tradition, and all it encompasses apparently, is only for Aborigines. We mere white guys can't encroach. The Aboriginal dancer who started another conflict by wanting Santa to be coloured and female shows her contempt for what is dear to us. When I was a boy growing up, Santa was white and married to Mrs Claus, sometimes known as Merry Christmas. God knows, there is nothing left for kids to cherish these days except the yearly visit from Santa and what he represents. Are we going to take away this fantasy, too, because of politics? It appears certain legislation in this country has done the opposite to what it intended. Instead of being united as one, we are more divided than ever. What a crying shame. T HIGGINS Kensington Merely male PERHAPS the reason for the success of groups such as The Promise Keepers is the derogatory, pro-feminist bias of articles like Candace Sutton's (October 5). Why do women belittle men-only gatherings, while entitled to their own elitist, women-only places and events? Perhaps Ms Sutton would do well to ask the wife of any man who really kept those promises what their life was like. Jesus' model of leadership is one of humble, loving service, putting another's needs before one's own. Maybe Ms Sutton would prefer the "womanising, boozing . . . " porn-addicted, couch potatoes she mentions. And what woman in her right mind would want to be married to someone who practised "spiritual, moral, ethical and sexual purity"? As for believing in strong marriages and families, that's a recipe for social disaster! KEN DAVIS Koonawarra Page 71 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Alien outrage RE David Gool's letter (October 5): In 1955 my wife and I were naturalised as Australian citizens and British subjects. We swore our allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen of Australia, Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors according to the law. The documents we received, called Certificates of Naturalisation, clearly state that we are entitled to all political and other rights, powers and privileges as any other Australian citizen and British subjects. Some time ago we travelled to the UK. At Heathrow airport we had to go through the "alien" section to get into the country. Now I am wondering, is Her Majesty the Queen of Australia my Queen or not? If she is, how can we be classified as aliens? We can only describe it as a shame, an absurd situation, an exaggerated comedy. Is our own Queen treating us as "aliens"? Are the people of former British colonies, whatever their colour, better than Australians? Is the British Government or our "own" Queen discriminating against us? T FRANK CSERNIK Laurieton Womanly JOHN Carmody, you wrote (October 5): "The simple fact is there are no artistic reasons for such neglect [of women] and penury, yet the reality is that our female composers are just as ruthlessly excluded as their sisters are from significant participation in the Catholic Church." As a very musical Catholic woman, I must disabuse you of this notion that women are excluded from significant participation in the church. Nothing could be further from the truth. What sex is Australia's first official saint? Clue: her name is Mary MacKillop. Catholicism, like all other religions, calls believers to personal holiness. That's the aim. The organisation of the church - the hierarchy - is only an imperfect (because it's human) tool to effect the achievement of personal holiness. The fact that the Catholic Church reserves priesthood for males in no way denigrates women, for all the protestations of feral feminist nuns and their duped henchpersons. Rather, the male-reserved priesthood is a most providential, even sacramental, sign for society of the real and true differences between the sexes. So, as a woman, a mother of five, a Catholic, a music lover and especially as a devotee of Bach's 48, I take strong exception to your remark. I trust you will accept this criticism in the same spirit of generosity in which I wrote it. ANTONIA FEITZ Page 72 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Rocky River via Uralla No needles I READ with interest the letter from the secretary of the Australian Vaccination Network, Susan Lindberg (September 7). Vaccination is a very complex issue and one that I have looked into, just as I looked into child care, schooling and childbirth. I wanted to take responsibility for my family's health and this involves lots of research. Consequently I have decided not to vaccinate, ever again. Not all vaccinations work, they are potentially life-threatening and they do not afford lifetime immunity. I am going for the natural approach - support the immune system and when we catch an infectious disease we will then be protected for life. I feel all parents need to read both sides [of the argument] then decide for themselves. PRUE PENDLEBURY Adamstown Heights Hands off Australia Post WE are all customers, so it was refreshing to see something positive about Australia Post (October 5) which at the moment is the cheapest and, by and large, most efficient postal service in the world. Australia Post is a community service and returns good dividends to taxpayers. This won't happen if private transport companies get hold of it. The Competition Council and Industries Commission reckon they can reduce the cost of postage if it was opened up to the competition. Isn't that what we were told about green slips which have now more than doubled in price? As a community service giving its all to the people, it should not be interfered with. People on rural properties in New Zealand, where it has been privatised, have to pay more to have their mail delivered. If we go the same route, prices here would be much higher than 45cents because of the greater distances. So, good on you Brian Toohey for a positive piece about a great service. DAN O'REILLY Postal Transport Officer Alexandria Mail Centre
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CDs a ripoff RE the "luxury" tag turning people off buying CDs (October 5): The reason there has been a shock drop in music sales this year just may be due to the fact that all the major music retailers have stopped selling cassettes. I'm sure they will state that it was because there is no demand for them. Funny that, nothing to do, of course, with the fact that cassettes are cheaper. A bit odd, too, since every new car still comes with a top line cassette player. I guess car manufacturers haven't figured it out yet. I'm a bit peeved as well since I never did switch to CDs. Why start buying music that costs twice as much? There must be some shops that still sell cassettes though, or do I have to wait for a friend to holiday in Bali? G MACDONALD Neutral Bay Surprise party ON November 19 this year, my mother, Elsie May Johnson (nee Carter), will be 90. She was born in Poplar in the east end of London in 1907, one of a family of five boys and three girls. Two years previously, her much older brother Alf, who had settled in Australia, married Elsie Green of Sydney. They had three daughters Vera, Gracie and one other. Several years later Alf died but Elsie kept her name by marrying her brother-in-law, Alf's brother Rubert (known as Herbert). They had one son. In 1929 my mother married Bill Johnson, who worked on the Ben Line ship Benalla, which did the Sydney-London run. He enjoyed many happy picnics on Woy Woy beach with the Carters. Another of my mother's older brothers, Harry Carter, went to live in Australia in his early teens. On Saturday, November 15 we are holding a surprise 90th birthday party for my mother. Is there any member of the Carter family in Sydney who might care to send their congratulations? RON JOHNSON Brynheulog, Mydroilin, Nr Lampeter, Dyfed, West Wales SA48 7RL England Past masters of deceit
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I FOUND the last paragraph of the letter by Juliet Gellatley of the England-based Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (October 5) most interesting: "(Australia's) dash for export dollars by grazing ever-increasing numbers of cattle and sheep is destroying your environment . . . " The writer conveniently forgets that it was our British ancestors with their "we know all - you know nothing" approach to this ancient land who introduced feral animals (and birds) to this continent. After all, the Aborigines have been here for 60,000-plus years. We have been here for just 200. Gellatley's comments show us, where Australia is concerned, the English haven't changed! BRUCE DONALDSON Newcastle Document shd0000020011008dtac0051f
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FED - ACTIVISTS SUING HEALTH MINISTER OVER VACCINATION. By Katrina Willis 446 words 15 October 1998 23:06 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. CANBERRA, Oct 14, AAP - Anti-immunisation activists are suing federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge over the immunisation of a boy allegedly carried out without parental consent. The activists have lodged a test case in the Federal Court suing the Commonwealth Health minister over the vaccination of a boy for diphtheria, typhoid and polio. Dr Wooldridge initiated the $30 million campaign to increase immunisation against measles, mumps and rubella last July, noting that 12 per cent of Australian children were not properly protected. The campaign aims to reach 1.75 million children at about 7,000 schools. As of today, 1.1 million students had been approached, 93 per cent of whom had returned forms from their parents. Of these, 86 per cent had consented to vaccination, and 94 per cent of these, just over 840,000 children, had been immunised. A spokesman for the commonwealth Health and Family Services Department said there was no breakdown of the number of parents who had withheld consent, but it was likely to be very small. As many as 10 per cent of students would have seen their local doctor to be immunised, while a number of older children would already have had their second shot, he said. The campaign, which will end in the second week of December, aims to bring forward second shots, previously given at a later age. "These figures are quite encouraging," the spokesman said. The number of adverse reactions to immunisation was not unusually low or high, and most were minor, the spokesman said. The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) has asked the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to review why the government did not include, in material sent to parents, warnings of risks associated with the vaccine listed by the manufacturer. It also wants Dr Wooldridge to explain why material to parents, including a consent form, was not provided in languages other than English. Page 76 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
But AVN lawyer Jonathan Nolan said the government had been unresponsive to the AAT action and 54 parents had decided to shift their focus to the Federal Court, beginning with a test case earlier this month. "We are suing the federal health minister and the Hobart local council who carried out vaccinations without consent," Mr Nolan told AAP. The action claims a local council medical officer vaccinated the boy, at school, against diphtheria, typhoid and polio, even though his mother withheld consent. A further hearing is set down for December. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Document aap0000020020307duaf00t21
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Adults who spread whooping cough. By SUSAN LINDBERG. 289 words 16 August 1997 Daily Telegraph DAITEL 12 English (c) 1997 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd CONGRATULATIONS on your responsible article (Daily Telegraph, August 9) on the major problem of adults unknowingly spreading whooping cough. The Health Department is well aware of this problem but has given it little publicity, preferring instead to blame complacent parents of unvaccinated children. Officially, our whooping cough vaccine is 70 per cent effective, leaving 30 per cent of those vaccinated without the protection promised. However, last year in Italy and Sweden effectiveness trials were completed on two commonly used whooping cough vaccines with alarming results: they were found to be only 36 per cent effective and 48 per cent effective, leaving more than half of those vaccinated without protection. According to the Health Department there have been no formal effectiveness trials on the Australian whooping cough vaccine. The vaccination status of those contracting infectious diseases is only recorded in South Australia, Tasmania and Canberra. According to South Australia Health Commission figures from 1990 to 1996, babies from 0 to 11 months (those at serious risk of complications) represented only 3 per cent of the total 128 whooping cough cases, of which 16 were fully vaccinated, 11 not vaccinated and the status of 101 unknown. Of 2036 victims aged 12 months to 19 years, 551 were fully vaccinated, 66 not vaccinated, eight partly vaccinated and 1411 unknown. In 1732 cases of victims aged 20 to 75 years, 206 were fully vaccinated, 26 not vaccinated and 1500 unknown. These figures show most whooping cough cases appear in older children and adults. Because of the mildness of the disease in that age group they would usually be unaware of their condition. SUSAN LINDBERG The Australian Vaccination Network, Brisbane. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1997. Document daitel0020010930dt8g008en
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FED - MINISTER PLEADS WITH PARENTS ON MEASLES PLAN. 693 words 9 July 1998 Australian Associated Press AAP English (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. MELBOURNE, July 9, AAP - A plea has gone out to parents to immunise their children against measles to prevent an epidemic in the coming year. Federal Health and Families Services Minister Michael Wooldridge made the plea as he launched a $30 million campaign at Melbourne's Royal Childrens Hospital. Despite popular perceptions measles was a nasty disease with deadly complications, he said. "One in eight (Australian) children are not properly protected and the experts tell me we can expect an epidemic in the next 12 months," Dr Wooldridge said. New Zealand and other South Pacific nations had suffered measles epidemics in the past 12 months leading experts to expect a similar epidemic in Australia, he said. Ninety-five per cent immunisation coverage was needed to avoid it. "Measles is not a trivial disease," Dr Wooldridge said. "It's dangerous and (this campaign) is the only way we can stop the epidemic." The campaign, to be run between August and November, would be the biggest immunisation effort in Australia and aimed to reach 1.75 million children across the nation. Registered nurses would visit 7,000 schools, after a publicity campaign including television advertisements and information supplied to school children. Dr Wooldridge said it was expected one per cent of parents would refuse to give consent for the immunisation of their children. "That's their right, but I'd say to them: Measles is not trivial and not only are you putting your own child at risk, you're putting other children at risk," he said. Canberra woman Gay Davidson, whose teenage daughter Kiri died in 1984 from measles complications, backed Dr Wooldridge's plea, saying parents who refused to give required consent to immunisation were irresponsible. "I don't think they've got the right to put their own kids at risk, or the kids of other families," Ms Davidson told reporters after describing the death of her daughter. "She took 15 months to die after diagnosis, she was a vegetable within just a few weeks of diagnosis." Page 79 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
A lobby group, the Australian Vaccination Network, said the government was using "bully-boy tactics" and that schools were an inappropriate venue given medical complications caused by vaccination. Dr Wooldridge acknowledged some risks but said they were outweighed by non-vaccination. At the launch, Dr Wooldridge said the immunisation campaign would be the largest in Australia's history. He said it was important for people to realise measles was not a trivial disease. Between 1978 and 1992 an average of 12 Australians a year died from measles. Dr Wooldridge said that three years ago he was faced with the scandalous situation that just 53 per cent of Australian children were fully immunised against diseases like measles. "That left us ranked 68th in the world - behind Algeria, India, Vietnam, Laos and the Peoples Republic of China," he said. In many cases children had received a dose of the measles vaccine but not the important second dose that ensured full protection, he said. A strong message to parents who may be reluctant to have their children immunised was delivered by Canberra journalist Gay Davidson whose daughter died of complications arising from measles in 1984. In Sydney, the New South Wales Health Department later urged the parents of the state's 650,000 school children to support the campaign. Chief health officer Andrew Wilson said the program was crucial to avoiding an epidemic and possibly eliminating the disease. "Measles is not a harmless illness for children. Complications following measles can be very dangerous," Dr Wilson said in a statement. "One in 25 children with measles develops pneumonia while one in 2,000 develops encephalitis which can lead to brain damage and even death. "Measles can be controlled by immunisation and it is hoped eventually the virus will be eradicated by increased vaccination rates." Dr Wilson said the federal government had allocated $2 million for the campaign in NSW. (c) 1998 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd All rights reserved. Available for personal use but not for sale or redistribution for compensation of any kind without the prior written permission of AAP. Document aap0000020020307du7901orq
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Saturday Extra David's Story: From Trust To Tragedy STEVE DOW 2,749 words 23 August 1997 The Age AGEE 4 English Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd A SUPER-8 reel of memories. Birthdays, christenings, holy communion. Images focus in and out: siblings and cousins beam and wave to the camera. Candles are extinguished, tuxedos dutifully worn. There is no particular order for this catalogue of a shared life of three brothers; the boys are alternately younger and older thanks to their father's enthusiastic splicing. The youngest of the three, a chubby, good-looking baby with the family trademark of dark, curly, Maltese locks, is in his play pen one moment, and walking up and down the veranda the next. He is perhaps a little over a year old in this scene; his parents cannot recall his exact age. He looks happy and content. But why are his arms flailing like that? Another scene, and a coffee table on wheels in the lounge room becomes a go-kart. There's the Bonello baby, David, in front. The eldest, Michael, sits on the table holding him, while a grinning Warren, the middle brother and showoff, pushes them along. Now it is the video age. In the same lounge room almost two decades later, a family looks back and laughs. Michael, 27, slaps Warren, 20, across the back of the head, the way older brothers do, as the family watches the films, which have been converted to videotape. Both boys still have their thick curly hair, though Michael's is hidden under a baseball cap. Their father, Joe, jokingly chides the pair and says their little brother, who has just celebrated his 19th birthday, is the better looking of the trio. But David does not hear. He sleeps on a couch at the back of the room, a blanket across him. David always sleeps in the early evening. His mother, Caterina, keeps a quiet vigil, sitting on the edge of the couch. His luxuriant curly hair has straightened; medication will do this. Several times, while the rest of the family watches their filmed memories, David's eyes open, an arm flies into the air, and his eyeballs roll back. His mother comforts him, stroking the straightened locks. Her beautiful, but melancholic, dark eyes threaten to well up. Tonight, as in every night of looking after her baby boy since the time these films were made, he will sleep on a bed next to her and Joe's bed. The chubby baby is captured on videotape away from the crowd again. "There's David there," says Joe. "Poor David was left out of everything." He is perhaps under a year old in this scene. "Did you know if he had brain damage then?," Warren asks his father. Joe nods. The family was told when David was 10 months old that he was severely retarded. "But we could never accept something was not right." Warren studies the images of his baby brother, from whom he is separated in age by just 18 months. "You can tell in his walk that something's not right," he says.
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Come September, the Bonello family will have their day in court because everything is wrong with David. In fact, it will be a two-week hearing in a civil lawsuit against David's doctor, whom they allege gave David his triple antigen vaccination (against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, the latter more commonly known as whooping cough) at an inappropriate time. They say David was obviously ill at the time with congestion and a cough and that the vaccine and his illness combined to cause his brain damage. Caterina says she raised her concern with the doctor that David was not well enough for his vaccination, which at that stage, when her baby was four-and-a-half months old, had been two weeks overdue."Trust me," she alleges the doctor told her. In a preliminary hearing in June this year, the doctor said he would never have given a vaccination to a sick baby, although he had no memory of the consultation. The Bonello family hopes the court hearing will be a straight-out case of proving negligence. They seek unspecified damages to set David up financially for life on the simple grounds that their doctor was allegedly negligent in vaccinating the child while he was ill. But, in fact, the New South Wales Supreme Court will have to consider more complex conundrums to answer that claim; questions that perhaps should be considered by every parent when assessing the pros and cons of vaccination. First, does vaccination during illness actually pose a risk to the child? If so, is the risk significant? This involves consideration of a more basic but fundamental question: do triple antigen vaccinations per se cause side-effects such as brain damage? If so, does illness increase that risk? For the first time in Australia, childhood vaccination, or at least the triple antigen, will be put on trial in a court of law. Warren Bonello is taking the action on behalf of his brother. David Bonello cannot speak. He used to talk. His vocabulary included "Mumma", "Nana", "Dadda" and, pointing with a finger, he would mimic his mother with "don't touch". At the age of three, he stopped talking. "Words just stopped like (he) fell off a cliff," says Joe. "Like part of his brain just died." JOE BONELLO, a television and video electrician who grew up in Melbourne, met his future wife Caterina, a telephonist, at a Maltese dance in Sydney in 1969. They dated and married in a short time. Michael was born the following year. "We wanted just a normal average life," says Caterina, sitting on the veranda of the family's home in Seven Hills, west of Sydney. "We had that until this happened to us." Seven years separates Michael from Warren, the second-born. Then, on 27 June, 1978, came David. Caterina wanted more children. But, after David ... Caterina ushers David out on to the veranda. "Come on, David, come on outside," she says. David's head always hangs slightly. He looks up at his mother affectionately. Big, brown adoring eyes. His wrists hang limp. He flaps his hands and clicks his teeth when he's happy. Hugs. He always want hugs. The veranda is fenced in. As a younger child, David toppled over the edge and on to the ground several metres below. He turns his back to the aluminium fencing now and bashes his backside against it. David likes to do this around the home. Walls and fences shake and thudder as he throws his weight against them. But he is a docile child. Or, rather, young man. He knows his name. Recognises family members. No one knows how much he understands. Exceptionally little, it appears. Caterina recounts Melbourne Cup Day 1978, when she took David to the family doctor. She says she told the doctor of David's apparent chest complaint. Although David was overdue for his second triple antigen, she questioned whether her son should have the vaccination there and then, Page 82 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
given his illness. "He (the doctor) told me to trust him," she says. "I did trust him. I put my kid's life in his hands." Everything went well, she says, until 8.45pm, when she found David lying in his cot with his eyes wide open. His left arm, she says, where he'd had the vaccination, was twitching. He began fitting; turning blue. The family was petrified. Joe raced him to the car and to the Blacktown Hospital, swiping a neighbor's car in the process. There, David was given a valium injection, and a bath to bring his fever down. Joe rang Caterina at home with the other boys and told her the doctors said David had had an epileptic seizure. One doctor said it was a reaction to the triple antigen. Two weeks later, it happened again. And so on. For the first four years of his life, David spent more time in hospital than at home. One minute, Caterina would be washing and cooking. The next, she'd be rushing to hospital with two babies in her arms. "It really turned our lives upside down," she says. "I was living in fear all the time I was alone with him. I didn't know when he would have a seizure." The seizures got milder with time, but David still has numerous fits every day, particularly at night time. Caterina recalls being told by another doctor that David, at the age of 10 months, was retarded. "He just checked him, went over his notes, and told us bluntly he was severely retarded." She breaks into tears. "It hasn't been easy." Caterina's crying makes up for David's lack of crying. He hasn't cried for a few years, even if he hurts himself. Caterina sometimes takes David shopping. He likes sitting in the car. He likes going out on a boat when the family spends the occasional weekend at their holiday home. Joe and Caterina will occasionally leave David with his brothers, but usually Caterina is with him. A few days a week, he attends a school with other disabled adults. The family says they would never consider placing David in a home. One night, when he was put in respite care, he went missing for three hours. He was found outside, covered in mosquito bites. Never again, they swear. The boys have promised to look after David when their parents die. The family is Catholic. They remain believers. "I did lose my faith, but I got it back again," says Caterina. "I do believe in God and that everything happens for a reason. I do try to believe that. Now, I just try to accept life as it comes; each day as it comes." In January, a group called the Australian Vaccination Network, which questions the use of vaccinations and whose newsletters are punctuated by exclamation marks and bold, upper-case indignant statements ("THE RISK IS 100 PER CENT IF IT HAPPENS TO YOU!"), submitted 156 "reaction reports" to the federal Health Minister, Michael Wooldridge, alleging everything from rashes to fever to strokes as a result of vaccination. However, says the group, the Government was not interested in these reports because they were made by parents and not by doctors. A spokeswoman for the group says: "Herein lies one of the main problems in gaining realistic figures of the amount of damage and disease occurring in children post-vaccination." While Joe and Caterina's view that vaccination should not be given when a child is ill is clear-cut, they are less clear on what they think about vaccination itself. "I have got nothing against immunisation," says Joe. "He just shouldn't have been given the immunisation at the time." The anti-vaccination lobby "may" be right, he says, "but I don't know, I'm not getting on that bandwagon. Page 83 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
"I feel my son's case is straight up and down. He was sick at the time. He was wrongly given the injection, and that's what it's all about. We just trusted our doctor, as Catey said. You put doctors just below God, you know." But then Joe wonders about the vaccine itself. He questions why there have been recent announcements of a triple antigen that is "more safe". "Does that mean it was unsafe?" he says. And later: "I hear bits and pieces on the radio that whooping cough (the DTP vaccine) has just been made safe again. Why are they saying that? Is it because they know David's case is coming up? ... I think I'd rather see a kid with a bit of a cough than go through what he went through." IF Caterina's life has been almost completely sublimated to that of her youngest son, then Michael is probably the most affected of David's two brothers by the upheavals that David's brain damage has caused. As a child, he would often come home straight from school rather than play with his mates, and weekend sports were often out of the question because of the disruption to the domestic routine. But Michael was never resentful of his little brother. He used to push him in the pram around the neighborhood streets. Some kids would shout things like: "Look at the spastic." "He's still my brother," says Michael. "He's retarded; wouldn't want him like that but have just had to learn to live with it. I still see him as David my brother, even though he doesn't talk back to me." David is not toilet-trained. There are still accidents. Everyone has to help out. David has been through the mill of every experimental anti-epileptic drug. But there is no drug that makes words return to his brain. "You keep hoping for that big miracle," says Joe. But there's no hope, says Caterina. "The damage is there." Years ago, the family thought of suing, but were told to forget about it. It was a researcher who found out about David's case and drew it to the attention of the Sydney law firm Teakle Ormsby, which took up the case. David stands on the sunny veranda, wanting to play ball with his father, who needs to go to work. Joe insists that any compensation won will be for David and no one else. "It's not going to make him normal," says Joe. "It's not going to make him a normal boy. But it will just help to make his life a little better." David is insistent. He hugs Joe. Caterina smiles and her reddened eyes brighten. "He's my pride and joy," she says. VACCINATION: WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SAYS THE OFFICIAL line from the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services on the possible side-effects of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccination is that 20 per cent of children will have a low-grade fever and will be grizzly for up to 48 hours after the injection. More than half will get soreness and swelling in the area. "If none of the children in a childcare centre of 150 children were immunised and a whooping cough outbreak occurred," says the department's booklet, Understanding Childhood Immunisation, "about 135 children would come down with the disease. On average, one child would get encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) as a result of the disease. If every child in the centre were immunised correctly with four doses of DTP, possibly one child at the centre every 170 years would get Page 84 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
encephalitis as a result of the immunisation." And of the link with brain damage? The booklet says careful long-term studies show there is "probably not" a link between DTP and brain damage, "and the risk is thought to be less than one in a million, if any at all". The Commonwealth Serum Laboratories' research director, Ian Gust, says vaccination has been one of the most successful, if not the most successful, medical intervention of the 20th century. "It's had an astounding impact in terms of the rates of morbidity and mortality worldwide in children," he says. "For those sceptics who believe the introduction of immunisation was coincidental with falling morbidity and mortality, you only have to look at the impact reducing immunisation in the community has had." In the '60s in the United Kingdom, for example, scares over whooping cough vaccine led to a drop in its usage, and a subsequent epidemic of the disease. The same occurred in eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet empire and the destruction of its vaccination program, he says. Gust says a series of scientific studies by American researchers following millions of people's progress has shown no evidence of a link between DTP and an increased risk of neurological damage. But is there an increased risk of side-effects if the vaccine is given to a child who is ill? Gust says that for many vaccines, manufacturers include "suggestions" for the "conditions" in which a child may be vaccinated, and the doctor "needs to weigh carefully the risks and benefits". There is no blanket rule on whether or not to vaccinate during illness "because illness is such an ill-defined thing". Says Gust: "You can't make blanket statements on all vaccines." He declined to comment further on this aspect, because he may be called to give evidence as an expert witness in the David Bonello case. Document agee000020011005dt8n00c86
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News And Features Prick Flows The Tears As Sheepish Take A Jab At Measles By Nadia Jamal 431 words 4 August 1998 Sydney Morning Herald SMHH 3 English (c) 1998 of John Fairfax Group Pty. Ltd. The needle came as a surprise to six-year-old Sivash. His mother had told him the nurses at the school were going to put cream on his arm. Instead, the pupil of Kent Road Public School at Eastwood found himself among thousands of children yesterday who were the first to receive a measles injection as part of a national immunisation campaign. "It hurt," he said. And while his classmate, Phillip, 6, said the needle did not scare him, a Year 2 pupil, Yosha, 7, said: "It felt like I was stung by a bee." One of the biggest mass immunisation campaigns undertaken in Australia began yesterday with students in 18 primary schools in the metropolitan, Central Coast and Hunter regions being the first in NSW to line up for a free measles vaccination. About 650,000 students aged 5 to 12 in all primary schools in the State will have the vaccine sometime in the next three months. It is part of the Federal Government's $30 million campaign to protect them from a forecast measles epidemic. The school's principal, Mr Allan Wilson, said about 300 of its 330 pupils took part in the program. Parents had to give permission for children to be vaccinated. Mr Wilson said some students had opted to go to their doctor for the needle, while others had parents who did not believe in vaccination. "Out of the whole school we probably only have half a dozen families who have not responded either way." The State's measles co-ordinator, Ms Janet Broome, said every school would have two immunisation nurses and a clerical support worker on hand for the vaccinations. She said children would have three vaccines - measles, mumps and rubella - in one needle. The Federal Minister for Health, Dr Wooldridge, said that having measles may not just mean a few days off school. Page 86 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
"Measles is a dangerous disease that can cause complications such as pneumonia, permanent brain damage and, in some cases, even death," he said. "One in eight children is not properly protected, and the experts tell me we can expect an epidemic in the next 12 months." Ms Meryl Dorey, a spokeswoman for the Australian Vaccination Network, a parent group which has opposed vaccination, said schools were a "dangerous" and inappropriate place for a medical procedure. But the president of the NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations, Ms Beverly Baker, said schools had always been an acceptable and accessible venue for immunisation. Document smhh000020010919du840080i
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What makes parents ignore the threat of potentially fatal diseases? By JENNIFER FORESHEW. 1,036 words 21 January 1997 The Australian AUSTLN 11 English (c) 1997 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd Up to 150 children could die this year from a whooping cough epidemic sweeping parts of the country, prompting calls for compulsory immunisation. Jennifer Foreshew reports TWO decades ago few Australian parents would have thought twice about immunising their child. Today, however, immunisation levels have slumped to just 53 per cent - worse than in some Third World countries. This dangerously low level of immunisation is making health professionals and Michael Wooldridge, the Federal Minister for Health, nervous. "One in every 4000 kids who is unimmunised against whooping cough is likely to die, now that's a pretty frightening figure when you've got so many kids unimmunised," Wooldridge warned yesterday. In NSW, whooping cough, a disease easily prevented by immunisation, has claimed the lives of three babies since November and afflicted about 1000 more children over the past 12 months. "There is a belief in the community that whooping cough is a disease of the last century," the NSW Minister for Health Andrew Refshauge said on the weekend. So what can be done to prevent more deaths? While State and Federal Governments acknowledge that the education of doctors and parents has not achieved the results they had hoped, they remain unconvinced the answer lies in compulsory immunisation. The director of health services at the Australian Medical Association, Harry Nespolon, disagrees. He says laws should be introduced compelling all children to be immunised when they start school, as is the case in the United States. "About 97 per cent of parents actually agree that their children should be immunised and are not opposed to immunisation of their children," Nespolon says. "It really is just complacency. I think there is a general problem that this generation of parents have not seen kids with callipers from polio, have not seen people dying from tetanus or dying from whooping cough, although that is beginning to happen again." He says most young doctors have had little experience in dealing with deadly childhood diseases and may not be as forceful about immunisation as they should be. While immunisation does have a 5 to 6 per cent failure rate, if 90 per cent of the population were immunised the risk to children who are not immunised would be remote, according to Nespolon. So angered by the lack of community vigilance towards immunisation, Professor Clem Boughton from Sydney's Prince Henry Hospital was recently driven to produce a graphic new video showing children choking from whooping cough and tetanus patients tortured by cramps. Page 88 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
The video will be a routine part of antenatal and post-natal classes in the hope that it will emulate the impact of the Grim Reaper anti-AIDS advertising and road safety "shock" campaigns. "If that is scare tactics then I am prepared to use it, because this is actually as it is," Boughton says. He also thinks compulsion is the only way to go, however, he accepts that the general community won't readily accept such a move. "I think one of the reasons why parents find it difficult to make a decision [to vaccinate] is that they don't really know what these diseases are," he says. He has also produced a second video for use in medical training to assist those unfamiliar with the symptoms of diseases such as diphtheria and tetanus. Between 1978 and 1993, 227 babies and children died from diseases such as whooping cough and measles, polio and tetanus that could have been prevented if their parents had immunised them. While immunisation levels are at 90 per cent for newborn babies, the rates fall away rapidly as children get older. A child has to have six sets of injections between two months and four years of age to be fully immunised against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, poliomyelitis, Hib, measles, mumps and rubella. Children aged between 10 and 19 years need to have booster shots for measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis and Hepatitis B. Under a plan flagged by Wooldridge earlier this month parents would be eligible for a cash bonus every time their child received an injection, in a bid to boost the immunisation rate to 95 per cent by the year 2001. The Government increased funding for immunisation by $2.5 million in last August's Budget but the proposed "cash for a jab" campaign is expected to cost the Government more money. Wooldridge is also expected to announce new initiatives for dealing with the vexing immunisation problem in the coming weeks. He admitted yesterday that both State and federal health ministers had not been "aggressive enough" in promoting immunisation or countering campaigns by the antiimmunisation lobby. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Family Services, Kay McNiece, says that the stages associated with vaccination were time consuming and a turn-off for many parents. Despite the latest whooping cough scare, the Government is still firmly against compulsory immunisation. "We believe the best way is to try to point out to parents their responsibility, but not only parents but doctors," she says. "To be quite frank, doctors have been as apathetic as many parents. Many of the young doctors have not come across infectious diseases either." Over the past few years a number of programs have been implemented to try to stem the decline in childhood immunisation, including advertising and educational materials for parents and immunisation providers. There has also been the establishment of a National Childhood Immunisation Register, working in co-operation with GPs. The president of the anti-immunisation organisation, the Australian Vaccination Network, Meryl Dovey, says studies have shown the main reason parents choose not to vaccinate their child is a fear of side effects. "All this talk about parents being complacent and ignorant is just talk," she says. "Most parents who don't vaccinate have made an informed choice. It is because parents have started to Page 89 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
get information that they realise the vaccines that we are using right now are not as safe and not as effective as they should be." ` It really is just complacency. This generation of parents has not seen kids with callipers from polio '. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1997. Document austln0020010929dt1l012xj
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Grandmother's motto - Let's all share a mild bout of tetanus. By Vera AbrielSimon Chapman. 1,986 words 5 June 1999 The Australian AUSTLN English (c) 1999 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd `Do the right thing' is a cliche, but the sentiment behind it isn't. Vera Abriel explores its impact `DO what you know is right," was my grandmother's motto, and with this simple philosophy she brought up seven fine children who passed on her credo to us, the children of the next generation. "Be honest, be accountable, be fair, be kind," we were told. "Never rationalise, never look for excuses, never compromise. Always do what you know is right." Back then, when the world was a far simpler place, it wasn't so hard to live up to Grandmother's expectations. The signposts were clear, the path was straight and narrow. But then came new, permissive times bringing acceptance of formerly unthinkable mores. There came the sexual revolution; there came new approaches to crime and punishment, sometimes with more sympathy for the criminal than for the victim; there came the era of selfishness and greed, with less consideration for ethics and morality than for the bottom line. Old moral certainties were no longer the absolutes they once had been. We could still aspire to do what was right, but distinguishing between the truly right and merely acceptable was getting more and more difficult in an increasingly complicated world. As old age began to take its toll on Grandmother's health, the family felt we should no longer burden her with our troubles. Instead, when a problem emerged, we called the rest of the family together to discuss what should be done - some acting for one point of view, the others as devil's advocate - hopin g that our input would sway the outcome in a direction Grandmother herself would have approved. As with most modern families, we had our share of difficult dilemmas. With the modern world, it probably should not have come as such a shock when 16-year-old Amy fell pregnant to Kenny, himself barely out of his teens. What to do? Encourage this pair of virtual children to have the baby, or try to convince them to terminate the pregnancy? The family council was called together. "Such a responsibility at such a young age would be horribly irresponsible," said the pro-terminationists. "What kind of life could these two youngsters provide for a child? At this stage, the foetus is nothing but a bunch of cells. In a few minutes the procedure is over and they can both get on with their lives." "Not so," said the opposing court. "That tiny embryo you call `nothing but a bunch of cells' is a potential human being with as much right as you and I have to come into the world." So arguments went on. In the end a consensus was reached, but I can't honestly say that we had no doubts that what we suggested was right. Some months later Sebastian, a spoiled young nephew, committed one of those stupid things immature people sometimes do which, if he confessed to the police, could land him in jail for a spell, or, at the very least, with a community service work order. Though we all came down hard on him, on the issue of confession the family was divided.
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"We all make mistakes," said the pragmatists. "There's a good chance he can get away with it. It would be madness to come forward and confess." "And what if some innocent person is accused in his place?" countered the opposition. "A few weeks in jail or a bit of hard yakka doing community service work won't do him any harm. In fact, it will restore his badly bruised self-esteem." In the end Sebastian was advised what the family thought he should do, but once again some of us had our doubts. Divorced and childless, our cousin Anne-Marie had little happiness in her personal life, so she devoted herself to her career body and soul. Recently Anne-Marie was offered an overseas job promoting the products of a high-profile company. She would be leaving for her favourite city in Europe within the week, her salary would be twice what it was now, and the company made it clear that her prospects would be even more enticing. There was one problem: research by Anne-Marie indicated the company was more concerned with profits than with the safety and efficacy of its products. "Don't touch it!" cried the nay-sayers, quoting: "For what is a man [or woman, in this case] profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" "Rubbish!" countered the yeah-sayers. "She would be a fool to pass up such an opportunity. If she doesn't take the job, someone else will, and the company's products will still get promoted. It might as well be to Anne-Marie's benefit!" Another complicated question, another ambiguous answer. The saddest dilemma of all we encountered during the last few weeks of Grandmother's life. Hardest for us to bear, her once clear, beautiful mind was destroyed, she could no longer communicate with us. At the same time, she was clearly racked with terrible pain. Distressed by her suffering, we asked her physician to do something. "I can increase the dosage to deaden the pain," Dr Welles replied, "but I must warn you, it will kill her." What to do? Let her continue to suffer, or free her from pain but also end her life? Once more we got on the phone to call the family together to discuss this most distressing dilemma. But merciful fate would have it otherwise. The next time the family got together was not for discussion but for Grandmother's funeral. We stood around the graveside, hugging each other, listening tearfully to the eulogy praising her wisdom, her uncompromising honesty and morality. Dr Welles was there, looking sad but relieved, grateful for the last-minute reprieve from an act of compassion he would have been most reluctant to carry out. Young Sebastian was there, his hands calloused but his back proud and straight, specially released from community service to attend the funeral. Cousin Anne-Marie was there - oh, yes, she had told that unscrupulous international company what they could do with their enticing offer and sent them packing. And Amy and Kenny were there, holding hands, their beautiful baby daughter a source of joy for us all. Sure, it had not been easy to meet each family crisis and do what was right. We had our doubts. But I feel confident that if she was there in spirit, if she could see the people and what courses of action they took as a result of our deliberations, Grandmother would have approved.Anti-immunisation groups are a greater threat to public health than vaccination ever could be THE UN's World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox on May 8, 1980, after a 10-year mass vaccination campaign, described by the World Federation of Public Health Associations as "among the greatest public health achievements of all time". At the start of the campaign between 10 million and 15 million people in 33 countries were stricken annually with the hideous disease. Two million died each year. Polio, the limb-wasting and often fatal disease that put thousands into iron lungs and filled hospital wards with its mostly young victims, is also well on the way to being globally eradicated, again thanks to mass immunisation. Anti-vaccination groups counter that these diseases were declining before mass vaccination, and that Page 92 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
such factors as better sanitation and nutrition were responsible. But the recent success of the new children's Haemophilus influenzae b (Hib) vaccine, which between 1993 and 1999 reduced this sometimes fatal childhood illness in Australia from 500 annual cases to less than 30, is rather inconvenient for their argument: living standards and sanitation haven't changed since 1993, so vaccination looks like the obvious explanation. In the face of such achievements, the activities of anti-immunisation groups are about as responsible as calling "fire" in a crowded hall. The Australian Vaccination Network Web site declares solemnly: "The AVN is for free choice - not anti-vaccination." But commenting recently on research that found 25 per cent of parents refused consent for their kids being vaccinated, their newsletter boasted: "The AVN can be very proud of our efforts in this campaign and the resulting low levels of vaccination." Self-styled as heroic voices in a truth wilderness, struggling Galileo-like against the dogmatic church of modern medicine, their Web site cites the philosopher Schopenhauer, reminding the faithful that "all truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident." The lineage of today's anti-immunisation movement can be traced to the 19th century, when in 1874 the National Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League was formed in Britain. There is a fascinating continuity between Victorian anti-immunisationists and those pumping out the same quackpottery today. Several themes recur: * Vaccines are unnatural witches' brews, cooked up in pharmaceutical company covens. Injecting them into the pristine skins of little babies defiles natural, ascetic laws that dictate we should all grow stronger from acquiring natural immunity after being exposed to these diseases. So let's all lock jaws for a few weeks and share a mild bout of tetanus; * There is a mutually rewarding conspiracy between vaccine companies, the medical profession and governments to cover up the awful truth about vaccines being both dangerous and useless; * Vaccines explain the existence of virtually any mystery illness or anti-social behaviour. One local champion, Viera Scheibner, has made herself available to defendants in shaken baby cases, promoting the idea that the babies' injuries are caused not by domestic violence, but by ... you guessed it; * Anything occurring after vaccination occurs because of vaccination. When an 80-year-old dies two weeks after a flu jab, this is further grist to the mill rather than evidence of something more obvious - that octogenarians die more often than younger people. Sydney University's Professor Margaret Burgess argues that, by this logic, birthday parties could be declared toxic: "With each child having a birthday each year, it's virtually guaranteed that there will be a few cases of birthday party attendance followed by first diagnosis of autism" (one of the needleknockers' main preoccupations). Anti-vaccinationists claim "hundreds" of British children acquired autism and intestinal disorders following a measles, mumps and rubella campaign in 1994. In fact, The Lancet report from which these claims derived showed there were 12 cases of children with bowel abnormalities, of whom nine also had autism, which became apparent two months after vaccination. These cases were recorded over eight years. But consider this: 600,000 children are vaccinated for MMR each year in Britain in the second and third years of life. The annual incidence of autism is 61/100,000 children. This means that the expected incidence of autism in the vaccinated children by chance alone would be 364. This is a mere 4000 per cent higher than the nine cases recorded. It would be more logical to argue that MMR vaccine protected against autism, rather than caused it. Don't bother holding your breath. Eight per cent of parents who don't fully immunise their children say they don't believe in vaccination or are worried about side effects. With about 30 per cent of kids under two not being fully immunised, this means there's a big pool of children susceptible to diseases that they can pass on to others. Nine Australian children died of whooping cough in 1996-97. Anti-immunisationists are a deadly serious problem. Simon Chapman is associate professor in public health and community medicine at the University of Page 93 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sydney. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1999. Document austln0020010901dv6500jh3
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LETTER - GP CASH REWARDS UNHEALTHY. 324 words 23 March 1999 Herald-Sun HERSUN 20 English (c) 1999 Herald and Weekly Times Limited DOCTORS are just so clever! I mean, if any other group of workers was falling down on productivity and over-servicing, they would probably get the sack, or at least be put on probation. But doctors get a pay rise! Let's see what the Howard Government has done for GPs over the past couple of years. First, there was the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register, which tracks children's vaccination status. Doctors had to enter the child's details on to a government database for this to work. Of course, we couldn't expect them to do this for nothing, so they get paid up to $6 each time they do. Despite this payment, as many as 25 per cent of these entries are incorrect. Do the doctors lose the payment for incorrect entries? Of course not. Next, there is the Better Practice Incentive. Most people aren't even aware of this, but it means that on top of the Medicare payment of $26 for a visit (soon to be over $30 if Dr Wooldridge gets his way), doctors receive $18.50 each time they vaccinate a child. If they get a certain percentage of their patients fully vaccinated, they will receive a bulk payment at the end of the year which could be several thousand dollars. Very commendable. But why do doctors who are supposedly right behind the vaccination program have to be paid extra to do their job? And how can we expect doctors to do what they consider best for our health if they are being paid a bounty to push something. Now, we have the situation where the government feels doctors are over-servicing. But instead of penalising them, we are paying them extra. We need a health system instead of the sickness system we presently have. Meryl W. Dorey, president, The Australian Vaccination Network Inc, Bangalow NSW. (C) 1999 Herald and Weekly Times Limited. Document hersun0020010906dv3n014zd Page 95 of 96 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Legal bid to change vaccine campaign. A better shot. LETTER - No penalty.

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