On April 17th last year Paul Offit was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour of CNN on the fact that there is “no legitimate reason” for not vaccinating.
This video very recently accompanied a February 21st article by U.S. pediatrician Dr. Edith Brancho-Sanchez, entitled Several vaccines at once might be too much for parents, but kids are just fine. The article reinforced the fact that the misinformation regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines causes variations of anxiety in parents who take their children to be vaccinated.
It was reported that a 2014 USA National Immunization Surveillance Survey indicated that;
… over a third of parents of children ages 19 to 35 months followed delayed immunization schedules. Of the parents surveyed, 23% followed an alternate schedule that either limited the number of shots per visit or skipped at least one vaccine series altogether. Another 14% followed an unknown or unclassifiable schedule that did not follow a pattern and was not in line with national recommendations. Children who followed an alternate pattern were four times as likely not to be up to date on their vaccines and those who followed an unclassifiable pattern were over twice as likely not to be up to date.
Regrettably pediatricians are in a Catch 22 situation. They need to build parental trust. A 2015 study published in Pediatrics indicated that 93% of 534 pediatricians had been asked by parents of children under 2 to spread out vaccines. 82% believed complying with the parent’s request would build trust, whilst 80% thought if they declined, this may lead to parents leaving their practice.
In Connecticut, USA state lawmakers “narrowly advanced a bill” this week that seeks to ban religious vaccine exemptions for children. Despite reports of a 25% increase in religious exemptions from last year anti-vaccine opposition to the bill was fierce including protests in Connecticut’s Legislative Office Building. One Democrat representative, who seemed to have abandoned any pretense of basing his decision on evidence, referred to vaccination as “injecting a witches brew of chemicals”.
Here in Australia the leading anti-vaccine disinformation group The Australian Vaccination-risks Network has called on members and fellow anti-vaxxers to heed another infamous Action Alert. They are targetting Victoria and South Australia. In Victoria the Health Services Amendment Bill 2020 seeks to provide for mandatory vaccination of healthcare and ambulance workers with specific immunisations. Ten days ago the Victorian Minister for Health published this media release outlining the logic behind the decision.
The vaccines included are the flu vaccine, whooping cough, measles, chicken pox and hepatitis B. It is astonishing, as we witness the evolving impact of COVID-19 in the absence of a vaccine, that groups such as the AVN seek to multiply these negative effects. They have teamed up with the anti-science, anti-medicine group, Health Freedom Victoria helping to disseminate their “generic letter” for anti-vaxxers to mail to “all Victorian politicians including your local member”. Of course one may pen one’s own. Be sure to stress you “vehemently oppose this draconian overreach of the Andrews’ government”.
They also advise to follow up with phone calls. Following that, they basically suggest harassing Martin Foley who is Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Equality and Minister for Creative Industries. Martin Foley’s mental health portfolio sees him quite active in reducing discrimination for Victorians living with mental health challenges. Health Freedom Victoria want anti-vaxxers working in the health sector to email and call Mr. Foley to;
Tell him you are appalled that he would change the Discrimination Act to get away with forcing you to take an untested and unwanted medical procedure in order to keep your job
In the material they have disseminated to encourage targetting Martin Foley, Health Freedom Victoria refer to him as, “the Minister for amongst other things, Mental Health and Discrimination”.
South Australia introduced No Jab No Play legislation on September 30th 2019. Again there is a “generic letter” ready to go. In both cases the AVN seek to motivate loyal anti-vaccine followers to engage in pestering letter and/or email writing campaigns, asking those involved to follow up with a phone call, in this case “within half an hour but at least by the end of the day”. This is to confirm they have received your email and will be sending a Decision Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS). Of course one should inform the person you’ll call back in two weeks to chase up that RIS. And why?
In the words of the AVN themselves;
Phone calls increase their workload, so they’re more likely to do their job to avoid getting repeat calls.
Yep, you read that right. Wasting the time of your local members already busy and hard working staff is ensuring they “do their job”.
Now, it’s over to Paul Offit…
