Normally I try to stay away from the whole anti-vax thing.
You can trash a politician, be scathing about the Government, but
question a parents decision and all hell will break loose &
be heaped upon you. I see articles like Blind denial of hard science, means
parents who choose not to vaccinate are endangering children
and I want to scream, inflaming me further is the fact that my
backyard is one of the worst, "The Sunshine Coast also has vaccination
levels below 85 per cent of five year olds and there are 1502
children who have not been fully vaccinated."
Reading "Queensland teacher boasts anti-vax
agenda" by Chrys Stevenson @Chrys_Stevenson yesterday morning
seriously pushed me over the edge. A Teacher, yes a
teacher, employed by the Queensland College of Teachers
advocating the stupid ‘two sides’ to the issue
rubbish. The whole saga is appalling & even though I
don’t thank Chrys for raising my blood pressure, I do thank her
for bringing this to a wider audience for attention. The
final statement by this teacher in her facebook saga, is
horrifying and documented below and if that does not scare the
hell out of any sane educated person, then it should!
“I have school tomorrow to teach all about the pros and cons of vaccination. I win.”
Regardless of how cynical you are about our Government
(regardless of flavour), the point is that they are always scared
of enforcing anything that could result in a massive class action
at a later date. In fact, one of the biggest complaints in
this country is that we have to wait so long to have access to
drugs that are used overseas due to rigorous testing
here? Science is always changing, but the
'Immunisation' science has been around for
decades. There is no debate only proof, we
have almost wiped out some of the worst diseases, yet, because of
“ill-informed”people, many are now making a come-back :(
One of my biggest bug-bears are the pool fencing laws we have in
Qld. They cost a fortune for the home-owner, they cost
Councils heaps in inspecting (which the home-owner pays again in
rates), and the sole purpose is to Safeguard children from
drowning. I have a photo here (please click on it so
you can see it full screen) of our backyard, this is why I find
them ludicrous, my pool has the obligatory fencing, yet we have a
dam at the back which doesn’t need fencing UGH! Don’t
get me wrong, I do care about children drowning, I just believe
that money should be invested in teaching kids to swim. A
barrier is a temporary fix, teaching a child to swim from age dot
is something that will help them all their life. The actual
statistics from the Royal Life Saving Society - Australia
"National Drowning Report 2012" show
that. In fact page 6 of that report will show you that
rivers and creeks record the highest number of drowning deaths in
total. When it comes to littlies, there were 21 children
who drowned, 8 of those were in a pool? I don’t have
a young child anymore, I don’t even have friends with young
children that visit on a regular basis, so my point is...
I don’t have a "choice" with my pool, I HAVE a legal responsibility to the safety and welfare of children in our community.
For some reason in recent years Immunisation has become a
‘debate’ or a ‘choice’ topic in the media? I do not get
it. Media organisations carry on about ‘balance’,
though seriously, if there is some terrible racist event that
happens, they don’t trot out a member of the KKK to give the
‘racists’ point of view for balance do they? They should
not give Anti-Vaxxers any air-time or print space either.
The
science is very clear. For every rubbish excuse that
Anti-vaxxers give, they have been investigated and debunked, see
“The Science of Immunisation: questions
and answers“. Now, there are many children who are born
with issues that mean they legitimately cannot be
vaccinated. Parents of those children live in terror of
their kids catching something that will compromise their immunity
to make their initial condition worse. Yet, it seems that
the anti-vaxxers think they have no responsibility to the parents
of those kids? In fact, it is not just the infants who are
immune-compromised or too young to be vaccinated yet that are in
danger, the likes of Whooping Cough can also be a death sentence
for the elderly. Where is the community responsibility to
safeguard these people?
Sadly, if you do a search for ‘Immunisation’ in Google, the 2nd
result is Australian Vaccination Network ", a group who are
extremely dangerous, disseminating slanted information under the
guise of ‘information’, to add insult to injury they have the
tagline of “Because every issue has two
sides". NO! THERE ARE NOT TWO SIDES!
There is only one side, science & the responsibility for the
health of your children and others in the community. Under
this link is Immunise Australia Program, yep,
under! The site that actually has real information to help
is BELOW the dodgy organistion that has in fact been pinged by
the New South Wales Department of Fair Trading, “Anti-vaccination network told to change
its name or be shut down” as it is misleading! That
site is one of the main reasons so many believe they have a
'choice'.
It is important to note that it is not just babies who are too
young to be vaccinated that are put at risk. Many children
are born with issues that mean they can’t be vaccinated, many
adults are immune-suppressed for a variety of reasons, the
elderly are at risk at the best of times, and this is a larger
than we would like percentage of the population that honestly
have NO choice in regard to vaccination. These people need
to be protected and safeguarded in our community. To put
them at risk because of a particular choice of a parent who has
believed the pseudo-science perpetuated by the Anti-Vaxxer lobby
is just irresponsible and I would go so far as to say
Criminal. If you have HIV and knowing spread that through
unprotected sex that is a criminal act. What is the
difference here? No-one should have a right to put others
lives at risk because of their own selfish choices.
Now, I know this will sound harsh, but if you don’t vaccinate
your kids, I feel it is putting them in danger and action should
be taken. You can’t leave a 3 year old at home all day on
its own without getting a knock on the door from the authorities
for endangering your child? I can’t say stiff bikkies, I
won’t fence my pool as I don’t have kids, so bugger you lot that
do? I can’t get in a car & drink drive because I could
put someone in danger.
As far as I am aware, it is illegal in this country to KNOWINGLY
put another person in danger , so how the hell can these
ant-vaxxers think they have a ‘choice’ to not only put their own
children at risk, but others in the community too?
Cheers
Noely @YaThinkN
PS. A good article for ammo if you have friends or family
(as I do) on how to combat anti-vaxxers: SHARE: 6 things to say when you're faced
with anti-vaccination rhetoric
If you are interested in Pool Fencing, Swimming & how to save
kids from drowning this opinion piece "Those 'Dam' Pool Fences" was written
back in November 2012.
