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But this morning I had reason to leap out of bed at the ungodly hour of 05:30 to hit the computer and report on some very good news.

Our government has gone done something good and given that this doesn’t happen very often, I reckon it’s worthy of a pre-dawn blog post.

The news, which was brought to my attention by Fuzztwin on Twitter, reports on changes to the current childhood immunisation schedule to include three new vaccines and increase the incentives for parents who complete the schedule, effective 2013.

From http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/inject-children-or-lose-money/story-fn7x8me2-1226205382138

Chickenpox or varicella which as not previously been covered by the schedule (and hence was an out-of-pocket expense for parents wanting to vaccinate against chickenpox) will now be included.

Also new is vaccinations for meningococcal C and pneumococcal.

The new schedule brings the number of infectious diseases covered by the schedule to twelve.

Importantly, reports indicate that the number of shots kids will be required to get will actually be reduced however, since there will be new combination vaccines used.

According to a report in The Herald Sun a new combination vaccine will cover measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox in one shot and will be administered at 18 months replacing the previous MMR given at 4 years. The number of visits will increase however, owing to the new scheduled shot at 18 months.

There are also changes to the incentive scheme for parents and this is where it gets interesting (well, for nerds of legislation like me).

Under the current maternity immunisation allowance scheme introduced in 1997, parents receive two one-off payments totalling $258 if they complete the vaccination schedule. This will be scrapped under the new system and replaced with three payments of $726 each, paid at one, three and five years. If kids are not fully vaccinated, then the $2100 will be withheld. (This is part of the current family tax benefit part A end-of-year supplement so it’s not an entirely new benefit).

From http://www.smh.com.au/national/tax-threat-to-parents-who-dont-have-their-children-immunised-20111124-1nwwx.html

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said: “We know that immunisation is fundamental to a child’s lifelong health and that’s why we want to make sure that children are immunised at the right time.

“We want all Australian kids to grow up healthy, and immunisation is essential to that.”

What is not mentioned in any of the news stories is whether this effects the current options for conscientious objectors. Under the current system, you can still get the maternity immunisation allowance even if you don’t vaccinate, if you identify as a conscientious objector (CO). Excerpt from the Centrelink website which administers the payment:

a recognised immunisation provider (e.g. your doctor) signs a letter or form saying that:

• they have told you about the benefits and risks of immunising your child and you have a conscientious objection to immunising your child (your provider should complete a Health Insurance Commission Immu-12 form),

• immunising your child with a particular vaccine is medically contraindicated (your provider should use the Health Insurance Commission Immu-11 form),

• the child has a natural immunity to the disease, or

• the vaccine is not available,

• you or your partner are a member of the Church of Christ, Scientist and you have a letter from an official of the Church advising that you are a practising member of the Church.

This is certainly going to be the bit the anti-vaxers are interested in. The news stories appeared overnight (at least one was published at 12:00) so we have yet to see a reaction from Meryl and her buddies. But you can expect some major *head asplosions* on this one, guaranteed. Particularly since Meryl had previously claimed she has some sort of influence when it comes to vaccination policy. It seems she might have missed this one.

This is not the only piece of good news in this story either. Reports also detail a new pertussis awareness campaign in the form of mail-outs to warn parents about the dangers of the current epidemic and advise on ways to protect their kids.

This is a direct response to campaigning by the McCaffery family who lost their baby Dana in 2009 at 4 weeks of age in the grips of a pertussis epidemic. The family was never warned about the risks of pertussis or that they needed, as parents and carers, to get boosters, since the effectiveness of the vaccines wanes over time.

From the Age:

Ms Roxon said the aim of the whooping cough campaign was to raise awareness, particularly among parents planning pregnancies and others to be aware of the dangers to infants and the need to have vaccinations at two months, four months and six months after birth.
.

But the vaccinations do not provide lifelong protection from whooping cough and children should have booster shots at age four and then during teenage years, Ms Roxon said.

.

”Whooping cough is not just a childhood disease, as adolescents and adults can account for half the cases in the community.”

Overall, this is a step in the right direction by the Australian Government and I applaud Nicola Roxon for (finally) taking action. The introduction of the chickenpox vaccine is also a welcome addition to the schedule, since it costs as much to get as the current maternity immunisation allowance (~$200) making the incentive seem moot.

It’s still early in Australia, and since this story only broke overnight, I wait with interest for the response of the anti-vaxers. I’ve also searched, but to no avail, for a government media release, as I’m keen to find out if any changes have been made to the CO conditions.

One suspects they will remain in place, at least in some form, since they are necessary for kids with genuine medical reasons for not vaccinating, but given that the maternity immunisation allowance scheme is to be scrapped, it appears they will at least need to be migrated, if not re-drafted.

I await with interest.

—
Update: the government statement about changes can be found here

You know the type;

“Was Dana a premature baby? Was Dana breastfed? As a baby suposedly (sic) receives antibodies from the mum in the first eight weeks of life. Did Dana receive the Hepatitus (sic) B injection? Did Dana receive the Vitamin K injection? Did Dana have any reactions to these injections? Was Dana on any medication, etc?.”

Thereby, strongly inferring that pertussis, or whooping cough was not the cause of Dana’s death. I find this highly offensive and told @watf as much.

These type of questions were part of the reason why Toni and David McCaffery spoke out in the first place. They were appalled that the AVN, and in particular Meryl Dorey, were suggesting that the official cause of death (according to the Dept. of Health) as pertussis, was simply a plot by authorities and government to force people to get vaccinated.

But, as we have come to expect with the AVN, just about everything that involves conventional medicine is deemed a conspiracy of some sort; Big Pharma is only interested in money and not our health; they want to keep us sick to make more money; vaccines have never been tested, vaccination causes disease, etc etc. These are the kind of people who wouldn’t surprise you if they told you that the world is flat, the Holocaust didn’t happen and that 911 was a government/inside job.

But, this post was so offensive, Toni McCaffery decided she had well and truly had enough of the misinformation, half-truths and outright lies spread by these people. She responded to @watf to tell them precisely that, the facts.

I am amazed by the strength and resolve of Toni McCaffery at a time like this.  But, as she says below, she has had enough of the AVN and associated cronies and their nasty intent to somehow prove that pertussis was not the cause of Dana’s death.

It was. It’s that simple. Pertussis can be deadly, for every 1 in 200 children. Three babies have died from infections in Australia this year.

Wake up anti-vaxers. And learn some respect.

Toni’s comment is re-posted below, with her permission. You can see the entire comments thread here.

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@where are the facts

Where is your sense of human decency? Your comments are the most hateful and hurtful words that any grieving parent could read.

As Dana’s parents, we are absolutely outraged that groups such as the AVN are intent on proving that Pertussis did not kill her and is not dangerous. We expected opposition to vaccination, but it is unacceptable and despicable that we have to ‘prove’ that Pertussis killed her. Haven’t we suffered enough – now we have to defend the very thing that killed her.

We are outraged that without our knowledge, Meryl Dorey rang the Director of the NCAHS Public Health Unit on 12 March seeking details on Dana’s death and contended the department had misled the public.

Even after I told Meryl what happened to Dana at the debate, a few weeks afterwards I found an AVN blog with members making false claims that stated they had information she was sick from birth, immune-compromised from the HiB vaccine or died as a result of the antibiotics or medical treatment she received.

Not only is no-one privy to this information, it is wrong and extremely distressing. In the latest Living Wisdom, Meryl got every fact wrong about Dana – her age, when she died, where she might have caught it, when the last death was and uses language to downplay the seriousness.

I am pleading with the AVN to leave my beautiful daughter alone and stop this misleading chatter. And I plead to other parents, please do not expose your child to this dangerous disease.

Don’t you think as Dana’s parents, watching every agonising moment of her death, we would know what killed her. We undertook extensive research and spoke with the specialists over several weeks to understand what happened.

Let me be very clear. She was born in perfect health, was breastfed and was putting on weight. Nothing is sacred. We decided to speak out after reading comments in media and blog sites that dismissed the severity of whooping cough, claims of ‘only one baby’, criticisms that we had not acted quickly and that I had not passed on immunity to Dana through breastfeeding.

Reading this blog is almost too much to bear!

Let me be very, very clear – Pertussis can and does kill 1 in 200 babies. Sadly, THREE babies have died in Australia this year – we are the only family to go public and I wouldn’t recommend it. If your baby is ‘the one’ – it is unstoppable.

The intensive care experts were in contact with experts all around the world and tried everything. I stood and watched them try to save her and did the unthinkable and wished she had cancer instead, because maybe then she would have had a chance.

Meryl might call what we have done a fear campaign. We call it a reality check. We only wished someone had warned us of the epidemic as we would have done everything in our power to protect Dana from catching it.

We saw the healthiest, most beautiful baby suffer the most agonising death – and there was nothing we could do.

We will not stand by and let this happen to another family.

Please STOP DEBATING our daughter’s death. Show some respect and leave Dana in peace. We are so sorry we have exposed our beautiful girl to such hurtful people.

—

Please note: Comment threads that are deemed offensive, at the discretion of the author, will be removed from this post out of respect. Comments are now closed.

The report centred around the death of four week old Dana McCaffery from whooping cough. The tragedy was Dana was too young to be vaccinated, but lived in an area of low herd immunity, resulting in her contracting the deadly pertussis bacteria. There is no cure for whooping cough.

Dana’s parents, Toni and David made the brave decision to speak out to reporter Rebecca Maddern of “Sunday Night”. What resulted was a wake-up call for parents who don’t vaccinate as we viewed footage of tiny babies with pertussis and heard of the heart break from the parents. Dana’s paediatrician, Dr Chris Ingall, who was unable to save Dana, implored parents to vaccinate, not only to protect the lives of their own children but others as well.

Our own anti-vaxers, the Australian Vaccination Network, whose role is to “empower people everywhere to make informed health choices for their families and themselves” were given some air time. Represented by Meryl Dorey, she stated that her mother used to just put her out with sick kids so she could get infected, and thereby gain natural immunity. She had this to say about measles and whooping cough;

“You didn’t die from it 30 years ago and you’re not going to die from it today”.

When reporter Rebecca Maddern asked her; “What if one of your children got whooping cough? (to which she responded they had), “And did you seek help from the medical profession?”, she offered;

“No, we treated whooping cough homeopathically and none of us were sick for more than 2 weeks. My vaccinated children got it and my unvaccinated children got it. And none of us were sick for more than 2 weeks and it was nothing more than a bad cough”.

This juxtaposed alongside footage of tiny babies with hacking coughs, gasping for air and barely able to breathe.

The story was intended to be “..a wake-up message to parents about the vaccination debate which needs to end right now”. And it was. It was also a rare example of responsible scientific reporting, based on science and evidence. Although the anti-vaxers did get input, what they got was minimal and in the context of the tragedy of Dana, made them look rather irresponsible.

As was expected there has been an overwhelming response to Channel 7, both positive and negative. Some of the negative responses from the anti-vaxers has been published as part of a story called “Channel 7 – one-sided reporting” on the AVN website.

The usual suspects have had an airing; vaccines have never been subject to double-blind clinical trials (wouldn’t that be unethical?); drug companies are not interested in our health, only money; drug companies pay millions of dollars a year to vaccine injured people; my child started exhibiting autism-like symptoms shortly after receiving the vaccine; vaccines are full of toxins (formaldehyde, mercury), you’ve heard it all before. One letter sent to Channel 7 had this to say;

“Perhaps you can inspired by the organisation headed by actors Jim Carey & Jenny McArthy in and supported by shows much more renowned & respected than yours such as OPRAH WINFREY & LARRY KING LIVE”.

I also encouraged as many people as possible to send positive feedback and many of you did (thank you). The response, both positive and negative, has been so overwhelming, that Channel 7 have agreed to have a “debate” on this week’s show. As a result of my congratulatory email sent to the show, I have been invited to be in the audience. I was informed by Channel 7 that Meryl Dorey will not be on the panel since they; “only want people with a scientific background”.

Further, for the “positive” they have a paediatrician (I believe it is Dana’s) however, they are having trouble finding a doctor for the negative. Apparently all the doctors they have spoken to told them vaccination is a good thing, (go figure). I was also told that all the doctors consulted so far, assured the researcher there is no link between vaccination and autism.

This is a very positive response from a commercial television station, not previously known for their critical thinking and scientific approach to journalism. I only hope they do not cave into the screeching anti-vaxers in the meantime, and maintain their scientific-background requirement for panel members.

I will keep you updated as more information comes to hand. To watch Rebecca Maddern’s report in it’s entirety go here.

Tonight I was informed, to my profound disappointment and frustration, that Channel 7 received such an overwhelming response to the pro-vax story on Sunday night, the next show will be a forum. This is apparently a result of the “other side” complaining that their story was not heard, so they have demanded a debate in their defence.

I was so angry and frustrated that I actually cried.

Scientifically, there IS NO DEBATE about vaccination. I thought this point was brought home by the report from Rebecca Maddern about the death of 4 week old Dana McCaffery. Whilst we have science and evidence, they have conspiracy theories, hearsay, scaremongering and misinformation.

The fight is not over yet.

If you live in Sydney, the debate will be filmed this Saturday, May 2 and Sunday Night are looking for audience members.

Details: Foxtel Television Centre, 5 Thomas Holt Drive, North Ryde. Hosted by Mike Monroe.
When: 12.30pm until 2pm
Email: Stephen Tucker at STucker@seven.com.au to reserve your place in the audience

Please join us if you can.

—

To all those who have helped this story get out there, thank you. As per my previous post, please Twitter, Facebook, blog, tell your friends but get to Saturday’s debate if you can. Thanks for your support, Rachael

Share and Enjoy:

This comes at a time when New South Wales is experiencing a whooping cough epidemic, with NSW Health warning there has been a large increase in the numbers of cases diagnosed in 2009.

A Health Notice states that Macquarie University has received notification of a confirmed diagnosis of whooping cough on campus. The university warns all staff and students that the bacteria known as Bordetella Pertussis, is highly contagious.

It is spread by droplets from coughing or sneezing and can be spread for up to three weeks after the onset of the cough. Persons at risk include those who are not vaccinated, those who have been in contact with an infected person but particularly babies, young children and the elderly. They provide information on how to avoid contracting the illness and the symptoms to be aware of.

Readers of my other blog will recall I recently did a Dr Rachie Reports on the anti-vax movement in Australia and used the death of a 4 week old baby girl as an example of the importance of being correctly vaccinated.

If you are at risk of contracting whooping cough it is recommended you get a booster shot of the vaccine. Or contact your Doctor / Health Care provider, local public health or community health unit – look under the NSW Government Pages in the white pages directory for numbers.

More information on whooping cough can be found here at the New South Wales department of health website.

Thanks to Johann-Heinrich Schönfeldt from Macquarie Skeptics for the tip-off.

A FOUR-WEEK-OLD girl in northern NSW has died in intensive care after contracting whooping cough, sparking official alarm over a worsening epidemic of the disease.

Free booster shots are being offered to new parents, grandparents and carers of young children in the state in a bid to protect babies too young to have had immunisations of their own.

Health officials are also calling on doctors to bring forward new babies’ first whooping cough jabs. The immunisations are usually given in three doses, at two, four and six months, but NSW Health is asking GPs and parents to consider bringing the first shot forward to six weeks as a result of the latest death.

NSW Health officials said in a statement last night that the baby girl was admitted to an unnamed hospital on the state’s north coast last week, but died on Monday.

It is believed to be the first case of a baby dying from whooping cough in NSW since at least 2000, and nationally since 2004.

———

Babies of four weeks are too young to be immunised for whooping cough, however they are more likely to catch it if other people around them are not. This is a very sad example of the damage done by the likes of The Australian Vaccination Network. I blogged about this recently and reported on it for The Skeptic Zone podcast number 19.

More on this story as news comes to hand.

What a tragedy.

Wake up Meryl Dorey.

Basically all medications and drugs and vaccines are supposed to go through a double blind placebo study where one group is given the treatment and another group is given a placebo or like a sugar pill and in over 200 years of vaccine history, this has never been done for any vaccine. So anything we know or think we know about vaccinations is purely guess work.
Meryl Dorey, The Australian Vaccination Network, 2006.

With recent talk about how the anti-vaccine crowd have effected rates of vaccination in the UK and the States, I thought it might be interesting to look closer to home to see how Australia stacks up.

This week Medicare, Australia’s government run health body released figures from the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register detailing the rates of immunisation in this country.

The latest figures are from December 2008. On the face of it, it seems we are doing pretty well. For kids aged up to 15 months, the national average for immunisation is 91% with the lowest levels being 89.9% for Western Australia. The national average falls to 88.4 % in the up to 5 years of age group with the lowest compliance of 85.5% in South Australia. When you consider that approximately 90% vaccination is needed to obtain herd immunity, but this depends on the vaccine and the disease, these figures are encouraging.

Rob Menzies, from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, said low vaccination rates were often more prevalent where well-educated parents did their own research and believed the myths that vaccines did more harm than good. This was reflected in figures for Sydney’s exclusive Eastern Suburbs, including the harbour view, well-to-do suburbs of Double Bay and Vaucluse, which were ranked the worst, with only 80 per cent of children immunised. This was followed closely by the areas of Lismore, Alstonville and Byron Bay, areas known for “alternative lifestyles” so these figures are not overly surprising.

There has been much discussion and speculation about why the wealthy suburbs are less likely to get their kids vaccinated. One journalist described the parents as, “Selfish dummy mummies need consciences pricked”. Adele Horin, reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald explained; “These are women who spend too many hours on wacky internet health sites and become convinced immunisation is a giant conspiracy”. She further described them as “The educated mother who thinks she knows better than the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists and doctors…” These statements are supported by Arthur Allen, author of the book Vaccine, A History of Immunisation. He observed that “living in a place with a high percentage of PhDs is a risk factor for whooping cough”.

Scathing stuff indeed. But in a case of backward logic the anti-vaccers have actually claimed this for themselves loudly proclaiming, “parents continue to be accused of being ignorant, uncaring and stupid for refusing vaccines which the medical community claim will keep their children healthy when the truth is older, highly educated parents form the basis of the [sic] anti-immunisation lobby’.

Not something to be proud of I would have thought. However, one wonders if these are the parents glued to morning television when the likes of Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) can regularly be seen, spouting her misinformed anti-vacc. nonsense. She is like a watered down version of Jenny McCarthy, without all the cash and the hilarious boyfriend.

The innocuously titled AVN, fronted by the screeching Meryl Dory, go by the catch phrase, “love them, protect them, never inject them”. Meryl is regularly given a platform on morning television shows in Australia, such as Mornings with Kerri-Anne. In defence of Kerri-Anne, they usually have a representative from the sensible side, in this case Dr Penny Adams. However just like the overseas breeds, Meryl is not shy about exposing her ingnorance to a national audience.

As a demonstration of how little the AVN understand about science and medicine, I will use an article written by them called “10 reasons why parents choose not to vaccinate”.

Reason 1: Vaccines have never been tested.
A true indication of how little AVN know about how the drug development process works. I won’t bore you with the details of this process today, but I will tell you it takes millions of dollars, around 10 years and at least 4 phases of testing, which continues even after the drug is released.
Evidence that this process works can be found in the case of a vaccine for the rotavirus called Rotashield which was released in the US in August 1988. In pre-licensure trials, the vaccine appeared to be safe, but in post-licensure surveillance it was associated with an increased risk of intussusception (a rare form of bowel obstruction occurring in infants). As soon as this problem was discovered, the vaccine was withdrawn from the market. Rotashield® was never released in Australia, and each new rotavirus vaccine has undergone testing in around 70,000 young children to rule out a risk of bowel obstruction.

Reason 2: Vaccines contain toxic additives and heavy metals
Here they are of course scaremongering with thimerosol, a mercury-based preservative that has been used in very small amounts in some vaccines since the 1930s to prevent bacterial and fungal contamination. There is no evidence that thiomersal in vaccines has caused any health problems, except perhaps minor reactions, such as redness at the injection site. THimerosol was removed from childhood vaccines as a precaution in 2000. Some vaccines, such as pneumococcal vaccines, MMR and other live attenuated viral vaccines, never contained thiomersal. Whilst there are certain vaccines for adults that stil contain thimerosol, the levels are extrememly low. Much lower than the level of exposure we get to mercury in our daily lives.

I don’t have time to discuss all their claims, except to day that they are full of accusations and conspiracies we have come to expect from such ignorant people, such as pharmaceutical companies have paid for all the vaccine studies to date, and this outrageous statement;

“Some childhood illnesses have beneficial aspects and therefore prevention may not necessarily be in the interests of the child”

You really think so Meryl Dorey? Why don’t we use one example of a childhood illness, whooping cough, (which can be vaccinated against) and look at whether it’s in the interest of the child to contract it. I chose whooping cough since Australia is currently experiencing an epidemic.

According to some reports, more than 13,000 cases were diagnosed across Australia – a 15 year high. In October 2008, there were more than 40 confirmed cases in the Bega Valley region, most were in school aged children, from the same school and the health service said that most of the cases were in children who have not been immunised.

Whooping cough is caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. Babies are vaccinated against pertussis at 2 months, then 4 months, 6 months and 4 years. Whooping cough is particularly serious in young children, where one in every 200 babies who contract the infection will die. Some can even crack ribs through violent coughing attacks. A recent report about the current epidemic cited the story of a 14 week old girl, who has had whooping cough since she was two weeks old. Her terrified mother explained how she had turned blue several times, whilst gasping for air following long coughing fits.

The ‘whoop’ (which is not always obvious) is due to a deep breath at the end of a bout of coughing. Vomiting after coughing is common. Severe complications which occur almost exclusively in unvaccinated people include seizures and pneumonia. In babies under 6 months of age the symptoms can be severe or life threatening and include;

• Haemorrhage (bleeding)
• Apnoea (stopping breathing for long periods of time)
• Pneumonia
• Inflammation of the brain
• Convulsions and coma
• Permanent brain damage
• Death.

Whooping cough is not a disease you want to mess with. According to health officials, the recent Australian epidemic of whooping cough is likely a result of a reduction in vaccination. North Coast Area Health Service director of public health, Paul Corben said, “Communities with low vaccination rates have had more than eight times the rate of disease seen in those areas with the highest vaccination rates”.

Although the AVN are a relatively small organisation they are well organised and active, therefore they can do significant damage.

Australian listeners may remember the case of parents who fled hospital and the authorities with their new born in August 2008, to avoid having to have him vaccinated for hepatitis B. The sad thing is the mother has hepatitis B herself. Although it is not compulsory to be vaccinated in Australia, it is health department policy that children born of hepatitis B positive mothers are offered immunoglobulin for the child within 12 hours of birth and four doses of the vaccine over six months. In a tragic tale of ignorance, the mother told reporters that the couple believed aluminium in the vaccine could cause him more damage than the child contracting hepatitis B. And of course the father is a member of the Australian Vaccination Network, by which the couple are now touted as heroes.

Australia also has the usual suspects, the chiropractors who don’t proclaim it from the rooftops but upon questioning will tell you not to vaccinate. They will also follow the MMR-autism line. I had one tell me this at a recent Mothers, Babies, and pregnancy expo. And of course we can’t forget the despicable homeopaths who will also tell you on the sly that you can use homeopathy to vaccinate your kids. (BTW, there is no such thing as a homeopathic vaccine or a process known as homeopathic vaccination. It is called homeopathic immunisation, sometimes known as homeoprophylaxis, according to the irresponsible website homeopathyplus.com.au).

For more information about the myths and realities of vaccinations, see the Australian government’s publication “Vaccination; myths and realities, responding to arguments against immunisation” (see below). This is a thoroughly researched and easy to read resource which addresses fact and fiction about vaccination. Also useful even if you are not in Australia and particularly good for passing on to anyone you know who might have some dodgy ideas about the merits of vaccination.

References and further reading:
Immunisation, myths and realites. Responding to arguments against immunisation. A guide for practitioners. Australian Government Department of Health Ageing. 4th edition.

Current immunisation schedule

The MMR Decison Aid from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, Australia.

Fact sheet – A guide to homeopathic vaccination.

Only listen to these homeopathy podcasts if you are sitting down. The stupid, it burns.