Our children. Is there anything we wouldn’t do for them?

These little bundles of gorgeousness obsess, charm and scare the daylights out of us! Every little thing they do is a miracle. Watching them discover the wonders around them can keep us entranced for hours at a time.

But every sneeze, fever and rash has the capacity to frighten us as nothing else can. We lose hours of sleep waking when they wake and then, hours more worrying about them.

Wanting happy, healthy, intelligent children is the ultimate goal for all parents. Whether you are a parent who uses mainstream medical treatments, natural therapies or a combination of the two, there are certain choices you will need to make from the day of your child’s birth through to adulthood.

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This article was originally published on our nocompulsoryvaccination blog. I felt it was important to repost here because this is a question many parents have and one which is especially important now that you can stand to lose $2,100 in the Family Tax Benefit Supplement if you aren’t aware of the exemptions available to you.

New information has just come to light on this question, which I wanted to share with you because it is very important and will have implications for all parents who are filing as a conscientious objector to vaccination. It is also quite different from my previous understanding of this issue.

From the very beginning of the policy that required parents who were not vaccinating to see an immunisation provider in order to get their conscientious objector form signed (in order to get the Maternity Immunisation Allowance and the Childcare Benefit), the AVN has had a steady stream of parents approach them because GPs were refusing to sign the form.

We were told by the AMA that there was no requirement for doctors to actually sign this form – leading to parents seeing up to 20 or more doctors before finding one who would agree to sign. One wonders if the AMA were lying or simply ignorant. Either way, it is not a great recommendation for their integrity.

This made no sense to us because the requirement was for a doctor to ‘counsel’ the parent on the benefits and risks of vaccination and then, sign the form to say they had counselled – not that they agreed or disagreed with the decision of the parent.

Despite this, as I said above, it has been common for doctors to refuse to sign these forms leading to great stress on the part of parents who have felt bullied, intimidated and even abused by some less than ethical medicos.

Now however, I have been given a copy of an article from the Australian Doctor Weekly.

Written by Dr Craig Lilienthal, a practising GP, medicolegal consultant and a member of Avant’s Medical Advisory Council, it appears that there is a legal requirement for doctors to sign these forms. This is information parents need to be aware of and, if doctors do refuse to sign, it looks as though parents would be well within their rights to file an official complaint with the healthcare complaints commission in their State or Territory.

From the article:

Case one:

A young mother asks you to provide her with a medical certificate stating she is a conscientious objector to her children being immunised. She needs the certificate so they can attend school and she can receive Family Assistance payments (please note – this information is incorrect since the conscientious objector has nothing to do with school entry or Family Assistance payments – only the two payments noted above).

You are personally opposed to her views and believe her thinking – about the risks of vaccinations and the benefits of immunity through healthy eating – is unrealistic.

You advise her accordingly and state that you are a conscientious objector to providing the requested documentation.

Options:

You can decline to provide her with the requested document because:

A – Her views fly in the face of accepted medical knowledge.

B – You are opposed to her views and believe she is putting her children at risk.

C – The legislation allows you to decline the request.

D – None of the above

Answer A may be supported by the great bulk of your professional colleagues, but does not constitute grounds for declining her request. Answer B represents your personal views and we know and accept that we cannot impose our personal opinions on our patients. Answer C is not correct either. The Family Assistance Act imposes a legal duty of care on doctors to sign the forms after discussing the pros and cons of the situation with parents. Your refusal to sign a form or provide a certificate amounts to a disregard of the legally recognised right of every person to refuse medical treatment. The correct answer, therefore, is D, none of the above.

Please share this information widely since the best way for parents to defend their rights is to be aware of them and we all need to be aware of this requirement on the part of doctors.

Also, remember that the Health Insurance Commission regularly ‘loses’ the Conscientious Objector Forms that have been submitted by parents. Therefore, be sure to keep a copy and to send your form in by registered mail.

One of the most vital of these decisions is whether to vaccinate our children fully, partially or at all. All of these choices are valid but, since vaccines, like all medical procedures, can carry with them the possibility of serious injury or death, we need to be able to make our choice with the best available information.

Unlike medical treatments which are given to relieve the symptoms of illness, vaccination is given to healthy babies, children and adults. Therefore, the requirement to ensure safety is greater for vaccines then for any other medical product or procedure.

The medical community and government health authorities want to ensure that every child, and indeed, every adult, gets each vaccine on offer. But the ultimate decision is and must always remain with us – the child’s parents. After all, vaccination is not compulsory for school, pre-school or childcare in Australia and no parent will lose out on any government payment if they choose not to vaccinate.

By the time an Australian child is 12 months old, they will receive 23 vaccines and by the time they start school, that number will more than double. We owe it to our children to be fully informed about all aspects of vaccine safety and effectiveness. If we don’t investigate this issue fully, we may not be doing the best thing for our children or for ourselves.

The Australian Vaccination Network, Inc. (AVN) has been operating since 1994 with a mandate to provide scientifically-sourced information on this complex and difficult issue. We believe that everyone has the right to access all available data on vaccinations, immunisations, immunizations, inoculations – whatever you choose to call them. The government and the medical community provide you with one side of the story – the AVN gives you the other side. Taken together, this data will allow you to make the best possible decision for the health of your child.

The AVN – because every issue has two sides

Please note – there is an action alert at the end of this posting.

Since being vindicated by the NSW Supreme Court on the 24^th of February and subsequently having our authority to fundraise reinstated on the 18^th of April this year, the AVN has been the subject of no less then four separate government investigations.

1- The Health Care Complaints Commission received a 90-page complaint by Ken McLeod – member of Stop the AVN and a man whose obsession with me seems to border on the psychotic. McLeod filed the original complaint, resulting in a 12-month ‘investigation’ by the HCCC and a public warning – both of which were later deemed to be illegal by the NSW Supreme Court. It appears that McLeod must spend hours every day trying to prove that I am a liar and that the AVN is responsible for global warming, the current financial crisis and the death of every child from infectious disease no matter where in the world it occurs (this is only slightly tongue in cheek). I will be uploading McLeod’s full complaint and the HCCC’s response next week – I am just waiting to receive the last 67 pages which were sent to me by post.To their credit, the HCCC told McLeod that they had no jurisdiction to investigate either myself or the AVN (we were both named as respondents in the paperwork) based upon his evidence – some of which was gleaned by searching the archives of our email discussion list going back as far as 1998!

Despite the HCCC’s rejection, it is obvious that McLeod will continue to try and get me charged with some sort of crime and will not stop trying to shut down the AVN until one of us is imprisoned or he is finally provided with the psychiatric support he seemingly needs.

Please click the link below to read the rest of this post on the AVN’s no compulsory vaccination blog:

via V is for Vendetta « No Compulsory Vaccination.

Join the club! Vaccination information is so contradictory, it’s hard to know what to believe.

That’s why the AVN says that you need to look at both sides of this issue, ask lots of questions, look at your own family’s health history and then – and ONLY then – make a decision that you think is right for your child and yourself. Vaccination is and must always be your choice so make sure you make and informed decision.

In this section, we will have information on every vaccine currently targeting children and adults in Australia. Much of it is sourced from medical journals. All of it is important to be aware of.

Let’s look at it this way. If you were going out tomorrow to buy a new car and your budget was $35,000, you would not just go to the first car yard you came to and say, “Here’s $35,000. What can you give me?” That would be stupid!

Instead, you would do research, read car magazines, speak with family and friends about their experiences, do some test drives and then, after you had satisfied yourself that you had found the right care for your needs, would you plonk down your hard-earned cash to buy a vehicle.

You would take the time to make this decision because your money is important to you and not easy to come by.

Why should your child’s health be considered any less precious than your cash? After all, you can always earn more money and buy another car if the one you’ve selected turns out to be a lemon, but once your child’s health is compromised, there’s no going back (though there are more and more treatments emerging for vaccine injuries – it’s always better to make an informed choice first in case your child is going to be susceptible to a serious reaction).

So take your time, do your research, and make your choice.

Keep the following in mind:

1. The vaccine package inserts or data sheets contain vital information from the vaccine manufacturers themselves including ingredients, side effects and contraindications or reasons why the vaccine might not be appropriate for everyone. Read these first if you do nothing else! Each vaccine information page will contain links to the relevant package inserts.
2. Vaccination is not compulsory in Australia for school, preschool, childcare or playgroup.
3. You will NOT lose any government entitlements should you choose not to vaccinate.
4. Vaccines are NOT safe for everyone. If your child reacts to a vaccine, the risk for that child is 100%. Some children are more susceptible to vaccine injuries than others. You need to be aware of the risks.
5. Vaccines do not prevent you from being infectious to others. In fact, if you have received a live virus vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), oral polio (OPV), chicken pox, etc.), you can be infectious for up to 90 days after vaccination. This is one of the reasons why the theory of herd immunity makes no sense.
6. Vaccines are NOT 100% effective. Vaccinated children and adults can still contract the diseases they are vaccinated against and in some cases, it is more common to get the disease if you’ve been vaccinated then if you have not. Be informed.
7. No vaccine can give you lifelong immunity – only natural infection can do this. So everyone who is vaccinated may, at some unknown point in the future, again be susceptible to the diseases they were vaccinated against.
8. There are natural alternatives for both the prevention and treatment of all infectious diseases which have not been approved by the government but which have stood the test of time. Check them out to balance against medical vaccination. It’s your right.

First of all, officials wouldn’t be sure if there really were more people with flu or if it was just better diagnosing of illnesses that they used to call other things. They’d also claim the diagnosis has been expanded and that’s why it looks like more people have the flu. And in the midst of the outbreak, officials would be working feverishly to change the accepted symptoms of the flu.

to read more, click here:

AnneDachel.com » Blog Archive » If the press covered the flu outbreak like they cover autism….

The Department’s open cooperation with the AMA is analogous to them responding to complaints by mining companies about Greenpeace’s name. After all, Greenpeace is not green, nor do they go around looking for peace, therefore, would the Department tell them to change their name too? How about the Cancer Council? Couldn’t someone be misled into thinking that they are FOR cancer? And the Department of Health? Don’t get me started! The Department of Ill-Health would be more accurate in my opinion.

Community concern?

The saga started back in August of this year when the Department sent the following letter to the AVN’s office (please click on the image below to view it at full size in your browser)

On September 7th, I sent the following response to Mr Jones at the Department of Fair Trading and, having never received a response from him, I assumed that this government body realised how misguided it was to try to stop our group based solely on our name (which had been registered with them since 1996). It seems however, that I overestimated the maturity of government agencies!

Don Jones 07 09 12 re Name Change

Yesterday, the following letter was hand-delivered to my home by two Department of Fair Trading officials. I was not home to accept the letter since I was attending a conference on bullying at the time – pretty ironic, don’t you think? They had come to our home about 2 hours earlier looking for a different address – and it took them almost 2 hours to find the correct location. This is despite the fact that the Department of Fair Trading has had our physical address on file for many years.

In this letter, the Department is ordering the AVN to change our name or they will deregister us come February 2013, effectively closing our organisation down – apparently a long-time goal of government departments, the Australian Skeptics and Stop the AVN as well as the AMA and the pharmaceutical industry.

Hand-delivered letter re-name change

What’s in a name?

As I said in my letter of September 7th:

The Australian Vaccination Network has been registered with the Department of Fair Trading since 1996 and at no time until the present has our name been called into question. We represent a group of Australians who discuss the issue of vaccination and we are also a network of like-minded individuals who have banded together for mutual support and for the dissemination of information on the issues surrounding vaccination in Australia. Can you please inform us which of these words – Australian – Vaccination – Network, could possibly be considered to not represent our organisation? Which of these words does the Department consider to be misleading and why? Also, can you please inform us of what name the Department would consider to be appropriate for our organisation?

To date, I have not received an answer to any of my questions nor has the Department acknowledged the AVN’s concerns in any way. 

In newspaper articles which have appeared in today’s papers, the Minister for Fair Trading (perhaps they might consider changing that name because at least in the present situation, it is extremely misleading!), Mr Roberts, stated that, ”People do not have the freedom of choice when it comes to endangering others … it’s the equivalent of saying a bloke can speed down the road and endanger others,” So I ask – is Mr Roberts saying that vaccination is not a choice anymore and does he have any evidence to back up the claim that freedom of choice when it comes to vaccination is endangering others?  The outbreaks in highly vaccinated communities seems to say otherwise. In addition, it might appear that the Minister is be calling for vaccination to become compulsory in Australia when he states that people “do not have the freedom of choice”. This is an issue that should concern all of us – whether we choose to vaccinate fully, selectively or not at all. 

The minister then goes on to state that he, “has warned other states if the AVN tries to register elsewhere.” We regularly hear of scam businesses and dangerous medical doctors who, being shut down in one state, immediately register in other states to continue practicing. Does the Minister for Fair Trading send the same APB out in these cases? Since they do this successfully time and time again, I would think he does not. Why the ‘special treatment’ for the AVN? 

Whose pain and suffering are they talking about?

In the same article, it is stated that:

NSW Fair Trading Minister Anthony Roberts fired a broadside at the AVN, saying the information it provided was a public safety issue of “life and death”.

“This is not a victimless issue, it’s about the ability to stop pain and suffering,” he said.

It’s great that Mr Roberts wants to stop pain and suffering, but where is his concern for those children and adults who have suffered as a result of vaccination? And is his Department really supposed to make their decisions based on medical information or simply based on whether or not our name is considered to be misleading in some way by some unknown and unstated measure? If they based their decision on medical information, what was the source of this data and did they seek a range of opinions?

Rights? What are these rights of which you speak?

Most frightening of all – to anyone who is interested in issues of human rights and freedom of speech, is the fact that the Assistant Commissioner for Fair Trading is actually proposing changes to the legislation based solely on their desire to be given more power to force organisations like the AVN to change their names:

Mr Vellar said the NSW Government was working on changing definitions in the Associations Act to include group names that were in conflict with the group’s charter.

Two very important points to make here:

1- This is the second government body which has proposed changes to government legislation in order to better attack the AVN. The HCCC, who we bested in the Supreme Court earlier this year, is trying to change the legislation which allowed us to win against them. Astoundingly, they want complaints to be valid no matter who files them – and the person complained about would not have to be a practitioner or to have treated or advised the complainant – they simply would need to have made a statement which ‘affected’ the complainant in some way. Such legislation would be so open for abuse it would leave every Australian at risk of being the victim of one of these complaints. The only exception proposed to this legislation would be medical practitioners. So the government body which was set up to protect Australians from dangerous practitioners seems to instead want to protect practitioners from Australians!

2- Mr Vellar says that our name is in conflict with our charter, but I believe that Mr Vellar has never even read our charter (I am assuming he means our publicly posted constitution and code of ethics since we don’t actually have a document called a charter) because if he had, he would see that our name is absolutely representative of what we stand for. Here is a link to our constitution and here is our code of ethics. 

Blog overlap

The letter from the Department was handed to my daughter at approximately 11:45 AM and the first article appeared in the Australian media approximately 10 hours ago. But Skeptic blogs started to announce this information approximately one hour before the media did. How do you think they came by this information? I really do wonder. Is there a direct line of communication between the Australian Skeptics, Stop the AVN (SAVN) and government departments? There is a long and open history of collusion between media outlets and various ‘skeptics’ so it is not impossible that they heard about this letter before the AVN had even received it. Is this collusion one of the reasons why these departments have been ‘putting the boot’ into us for the last 4 years at an apparent cost of millions of dollars to the taxpayer? Is the fact that many SAVN members are actually employed by government departments – and use their government email addresses when writing about the AVN and wanting to close us down – cause for concern? I will leave those questions with you to ponder.

Abuse of process

According to Section 11 of the Associations Incorporation Act 2009,  the Director General must specify why a name is unacceptable in order to force an organisation to change it. As far as I have been able to determine, he has not done so in this case. In addition, despite our asking what name or names the Department would consider to be acceptable, we have been left in the dark. We have also never been told what part of the words “Australian Vaccination Network” are considered to be misleading. This puts the AVN and our 2,000 members in a difficult – even impossible position – in regards to complying or negotiating with the Department.

In addition, the Director General has not responded to the AVN’s submission of September 7th regarding the reasons why we believe that our name should not be changed. Not allowing us to communicate with them on this matter is, we believe, an abuse of process and evidence of procedural unfairness.

It’s not about health or fairness

This struggle has never been about something as ridiculous as our name. Instead, it concerns the right for an organisation to provide information to the public that government has neglected or refused to do. Why won’t the government exercise its duty of care and fully inform Australians about both the benefits and  the risks of this medical procedure? And  when will this policy of information suppression and suppression of dissent change? If the AVN is fully dismantled, access to full information and support for families whose children are vaccine injured is even less likely or possible. But does the government truly think that shutting down the AVN will stop parents from questioning? Questioning vaccination has been going on for over 200 years – closing down one small group will not change that. And surely the parents of Australia deserve better than that from their government departments!

Since winning our case in the NSW Supreme Court in April of this year, the AVN has been targeted on more than 10 different occasions by 7 separate government departments. It is hard to see how this can be anything but a blatant attempt by these departments – working closely with industry groups – to suppress dissent on a health issue. Forcing the AVN to close or change its name is not in the public interest – it is only in the interest of pharmaceutical companies, government policy and mainstream medical organisations.

Interviewee: Meryl Dorey (M)

I:               The issue of vaccination has come to a point again. It was about this time last year we were talking about an outbreak of something in particular and we were talking to the parents of a couple of very … or families that had smaller children, almost toddlers. It was prior to Christmas and there were some concerns about these kids hadn’t been vaccinated. But the issue goes on. Meryl Dorey is President of the Vaccination Network and is my guest. Meryl, good afternoon.

M:            Good afternoon Mike, thank you for having me on your show.

I:               Now, I guess in preface across the board here but we did have an issue in Canberra. There was a particular school with a philosphy that it didn’t vaccinate or could children at that school who weren’t vaccinated and it was a very … them being very slow to act in sending kiddies home who might have been carrying whatever the thing was floating around at the time. But across the nation, where is the debate happening? Are there still people reluctant to vaccinate and is that a growing group or not?

M:            Well, I’m not sure if it’s a growing group or not because the government statistics are not really all that accurate but there are certainly valid reasons for parents to question whether or not they want their children to be vaccinated and we have … I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but with whooping cough right now …

I:               Yeah.

M:            … we’ve been in a 5-year epidemic. It started in 2008 which was the first year when Australia’s vaccination rate went up above 95% and today we have more cases of whooping cough in Australia than we’ve had since before the vaccine was introduced in 1953 and the vast majority of the people who get whooping cough are fully vaccinated against it. So just because you’re vaccinated doesn’t mean you’re protected and just because you’re not vaccinated doesn’t mean that you’re going to get the disease. There’s a lot more to it, it can’t be that simple.

I:               So, is it just … in some part of those who don’t vaccinate, is it just that they don’t get around to it or … I noticed that this time last year there was a big uprate and the encouragement of the local health authorities to make sure. And I think for me there was a very high percentage [unclear] 90% I think at the ACT.

M:            Well …

I:               So what is … what are the parts of those who just haven’t bothered, but what’s the other reasons?

M:            I don’t believe …

I:               That people don’t vaccinate 

M:            I don’t believe that with the current … the way that the government is treating vaccination, there is nobody in Australia who doesn’t bother to vaccinate because if you don’t bother to vaccinate you can lose out on financial entitlements. But if you …

I:               Yeah, so that … there’s probably no way to escape is there?

M:            No, no, no. That’s not true. If you choose not to vaccinate and you register as a conscientious objector, which lets the government know that you have made a conscious decision not to vaccinate, you still get all of your government entitlements. There’s been a lot of misinformation about this. Now, it’s interesting you talk about the ACT because when I checked the records last year for the ACT, the ACT had the highest rate of vaccination against whooping cough in the country and I believe that they had the highest per capita rate of whooping cough as well, so you can’t necessarily correlate that a lower vaccination rate means lower … means a higher rate of disease, ‘cause it doesn’t necessarily work that way. 

I:               Now there’s a fair bit of judgement goes on those who choose not to vaccinate their children, isn’t there?

M:            It well … and it shouldn’t happen that way because the fact is that if you, as a parent … I’m just doing a hypothetical here, but if you as a parent choose to vaccinate your children you’re doing it because you think that the vaccination is going to protect them and if you think that the vaccines are protecting your children, then why are you concerned about other people who’ve chosen not to vaccinate? Either the vaccine will protect or it won’t, and if it does not protect then other people are not putting you at risk, you are at risk because the vaccine’s not working and with many of the vaccines that we’re using today, we are finding, you know, a bit too late, but we are finding that the effectiveness of these vaccines is much lower than what we’ve been told and of course, vaccines are medical procedures and they can carry with them some pretty serious risks.

Our organisation maintains an adverse reactions database and we have over 1,200 families who’ve registered their children’s reactions and deaths, we have 25 deaths on this register, following vaccination and unfortunately none of these reactions were ever reported by the doctors involved so most people, when they react to vaccines, it’s not reported.

We are asking for the government to take better care when it comes to vaccination. To actually track adverse reactions and to do the one study that will, for once and for all, set parents’ minds at ease when it comes to vaccination and that is a study comparing the overall health of the fully vaccinated with the fully unvaccinated. Very simple, very cheap, very easy study to do and it’s never been done.

I:               You’ve been around since the mid ‘90s and I would imagine there’s been a fair bit of controversy surrounding some of the things you might do and say as an organisation, not you personally. Is it … where is it at now as far as the debate issue as you see it? 

M:            Well …

I:               From say the mid ‘90s when you formed the group to offer what you say is more information and the other side of the story but have there been times when there’ve been more people keen to find out and less times … or less to find out in the other times? I mean, that’s what is the debate at a sort of a hot point at the moment?

M:            The fact is that since we started there’s always been a huge demand for our information but the one thing that has probably made more people contact us than anything is the situation in Western Australia in 2009 when the government, you know, recommended that children as young as six months of age get the flu vaccine without telling their parents that this was an experimental shot that had never been tested and hundreds of children were hospitalised with seizures, so it’s nothing that we’ve done, it’s certainly what the government has done which has made parents want to question vaccination and for the first 15 years that the Australian Vaccination Network was in existence, there was nothing but respect on both sides when it came to this issue. But an organisation was set up in 2009 called Stop the Australian Vaccination Network and since then the debate has gotten not just heated but abusive and bullying and in fact I am going to … 

I:               Well there’s been a suggestion by recently, this was not too far back in fact, was it last week or so that a particular scientist suggest that your lobby is wrong, dead wrong.

M:            Well, you know the thing about science is that …

I:               Is that the nastiness you’re talking about?

M:            I’m sorry? No, it’s not. No, being called wrong is not abusive. Being called wrong is not harassment, I’m talking about the fact that I have to go to court next month in December to file AVOs and I’ve got them and I’ve got … that’s an Apprehended Violence Order  and …

I:               Yeah, I know what that is.

M:            … against three of the people involved in this organisation Stop the AVN. Once of them is the founder of the group who has issued death threats against me. Now, this is not the way to carry on a scientific debate and this is not the way that we work out what is best for children. I am a parent and I have four children and one of them was injured by vaccines and I had never told anyone what they should or shouldn’t do. I have simply offered information as the AVN has offered information and death threats, bullying, abuse and harassment have no place in this debate. 

I:               So this is getting rather heavy. Is that there was a television commercial or an in-flight commercial that was taken off an airline?

M:            That’s right.

I:               At the behest of the group Stop the AVN?

M:            That’s right. They want, very much, to suppress any information that may call into question this side of vaccination and I have no doubt that your station is going to be getting a lot of flak from them for you having the nerve to interview me, so I thank you so much for allowing this side of the debate to be aired.

I:               Well, it sounds like it’s getting to a state where it’s becoming hysterical if you have to go to court to prevent people from making death threats on you … three did you say?

M:            I have three AVOs and I was asked by a journalist yesterday if I’m going to be filing any more and I said that if I filed AVOs against everyone who abused or harassed me, I’d be there every day so it’s just the ones that I feel the most fear about and yes, if you have to resort to threats then you obviously have no argument.

I:               Well we’ll follow that story. You keep safe and thanks for your time.

M:            Thank you very much Mike, I appreciate it.

I:               Meryl Dorey, President of the Australian Vaccination Network. 

I will be trying to analyse many of the incorrect statements made in this publication, but since there is so much that is wrong here, it will be an ongoing project – not done overnight. I will also be asking researchers in the fields of health and medicine to critique many of the claims contained within this booklet. After all, just because an organisation is backed by the government does not mean that they are correct.

One more thing before getting on to what you can do to help resolve at least some of these issues. As many of you would have seen, the release of this booklet has been used to push for mandatory vaccination in Australia. Newspapers, radio programs and television shows have appeared to be quite coordinated in asking the question – should parents be forced to vaccinate their children? The impetus for this is a supposed decline in vaccination levels. But in reality, there IS no decline in vaccination levels. The number of Australian children who are now vaccinated against infectious diseases is higher than it’s ever been.

The misinformation being spread by the Academy of Science is that 1 in 12 Australian children is not fully vaccinated, but this is a perfect example of the saying, lies, damned lies and statistics.

Several vaccines have been added to the schedule in the last few years. Because many children would not yet have received these shots since they were not available at the time they were due to be vaccinated, these children are counted as not fully vaccinated. But for the common childhood diseases such as measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, mumps, etc, the childhood vaccination rate is over 93% and rising – not declining.

In addition, we are once again seeing newspapers stating that those who don’t fully vaccinate will miss out on the Family Tax Benefit Part A payments of over $2,100. This is completely untrue! The fact is that parents are entitled to register as conscientious objectors and still get all government payments. When the policy linking these payments with vaccination compliance were first announced, the Health Department’s website also stated that those who didn’t vaccinate would miss out on the money. When questioned about this, the Minister for Health’s policy advisor actually stated that since the government’s goal was to achieve full vaccination, they had no intention of ensuring that information on exemptions would be easily accessible!

It is up to us to ensure that compulsory vaccination does not come to Australia

It is time to hold the government accountable for their intentional misstatements and omissions and to let them know that we absolutely oppose any moves towards making vaccination compulsory. I would like to ask you to write a letter to the Minister for Health, the Hon Tanya Plibersek,  asking why the government is supporting the spreading of incorrect propaganda, distributing information that misinforms parents about their rights and asking if she supports the push to make vaccination compulsory in Australia.

As always, be sure to cc me with your letters – the email is meryl@avn.org.au.

If we remain silent at this time, we will have no one to blame but ourselves should our right to choose be taken away from us. Please ask your friends and family to write to the Minister as well. We need hundreds of letters to be submitted on this issue and we need this to be done promptly.

Thank you for your help at this vital time!

Meryl