Why ‘Tolerating’ Anti-Vaxxers Is a Losing Strategy [View all]

[HuckleB]

Last edited Fri Dec 11, 2015, 02:42 PM - Edit history (1)

http://time.com/4144359/vaccines-tolerance-anti-vaxxers-melbourne-australia/

"Now and then, in just the right situations, there’s a lot to be said for intolerance—especially when it comes to the safety of kids. We don’t tolerate bullying in schools on the false belief that a few scuffles can build character. We don’t tolerate smoking on playgrounds because parents should have the right to determine the tobacco habits of their second-graders.

And we shouldn’t—but too often still do—tolerate parents who deny established science and refuse to vaccinate their school-age children, potentially endangering every other child in the school and the community beyond as well. That’s a lesson the families at Brunswick North West Primary School in Melbourne, Australia are learning in the worst way possible after as many as 80 of 320 students—or up to 25% of the student body—have been struck by chicken pox in just the past two weeks, thanks to the school’s liberal policies concerning vaccine refusers.

Brunswick’s no-vax tolerance was not just an unwritten thing, but was formally stated in a newsletter distributed in May. “Staff respects the right of every family to make choices about immunisation and we will definitely not exclude children who are not fully immunised from our service,” said the text of the newsletter, according to the Victorian edition of the newspaper The Age. “We expect all community members to act respectfully and with tolerance when interacting with other parents and carers who may have a differing opinion to their own.”

The same newsletter conceded that the school’s vaccination rate was only 73.2%—far below the level needed to ensure herd immunity (generally over 90%), which protects the few people in any community who can’t be vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons. That made the school a target-rich opportunity for the chicken pox virus. Across the local postal code the vaccine rate is 92%; it’s a slightly lower 90.2 in the entire state of Victoria.

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Anti-vaxxer's baby hospitalised with whooping cough (then lies to docs to get the kid released)
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/antivaxxers-baby-hospitalised-with-whooping-cough-20151211-gll6hl.html

"The 11-week-old daughter of an anti-vaccination activist has been hospitalised for two nights with whooping cough, a week after a maternal health nurse told child protection authorities of her concerns for the unvaccinated baby girl.

But hours after being discharged from hospital on Friday, the Melbourne woman struck a defiant note, hinting to other members of the Facebook group Unvaccinated Australia that she had lied to hospital doctors in order to leave the hospital.

Doctors had urged her to immunise the baby because having had the disease only gives a child immunity for five years, and the vaccine contains immunisations in addition to pertussis.

"I ended up sayIng I would be talking to GP about it juto [sic] shut them up," she told supporters.

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