an autodidact meets a dilettante…

actually, a fairly unsystematic campaign to protect kids, often from their own parents

Jacinta: I believe the federal government is bringing in new rules penalising parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. Do you know the details, and how do you think the anti-vaccination movement, which is quite strong in Australia, is going to react?

Canto: Well, first I’ll note that when looking up this issue on the net I found a disproportionate number of anti-vaccination or ‘vaccination skeptic’ sites cropping up on Google. It’s very disheartening that the ‘AVN‘, formally deceitfully titled the Australian Vaccination Network, now forced by law to call itself the Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network, comes up first all the time. Other depressing sites that come up include nocompulsoryvaccination and ‘natural society‘. These appear to be US sites promoting the ‘nature is better’ fallacy or some dubious form of libertarianism, and I suppose they have ways of maintaining a high internet profile.

Jacinta: Well, this is the thing, they have a ’cause’ to rally around, whereas the immunologists and doctors who know the science don’t see what the fuss is about, and just assume that everybody respects scientific methods and results. Which is obviously far from the case.

Canto: Well anyway yes the federal government, and the Victorian state government, have created bills to better enforce vaccination, and the Australian government’s measure came into force on January 1. Child care payments and family tax benefit part A supplement will only be paid for children who’ve been immunised or have an approved immunisation exemption.

Jacinta: So, can you get an exemption easily, due to your firm belief that vaccinations cause diabetes, or autism or whatever?

Canto: Only on religious grounds.

Jacinta: Ahh, but can’t the refuseniks claim to be religious, since they have very strong beliefs based on no evidence?

Canto: Ha, well, I’m sure they’ll try. And actually I think it’s going to be difficult for the government to enforce this one.

Jacinta: Why should it be? Surely they have immunisation records through Medicare, it would be easy enough to check.

Canto: And what if the child spent the first few years of life overseas? And what if a parent insists the child was immunised but there’s no record?

Jacinta: Mmmm, I think these are minor difficulties, and I belief it has a support level of over 80%.

Canto: Yes so we’ll have to wait and see what plans the AVN have to try and sabotage it. Other state governments, in Victoria, Queensland and possibly elsewhere, are introducing measures in harmony with this, so it does seem to deal a serious blow to the refuseniks. And of course it’s hoped, or expected, that it’ll bounce the fence-sitters off the fence and so increase community immunity.

Jacinta: And that reminds me, I was reading somewhere about anti-vaccination hotspots. Any info on that?

Canto: Well yes, they’re the places to look to for trouble. The low-down on all that can be found at this slightly unlikely source, Mamamia, an entertainment and lifestyle website – and good on them. It also has a graphic from the Department of Health that reveals the alarming rise in ‘conscientious objectors’ to vaccination in Australia over the last 15 years, from 4000-odd in 1999 to over 36,000 in 2013.

Jacinta: So does it mention anywhere in South Australia?

Canto: Yes, and I’ve noticed that these hotspots are often in quite affluent regions…

Jacinta: Depressing.

Canto: Yes, the Adelaide Hills region, which I would think is generally quite affluent, has one of the highest objection rates, with 86% of children under 5 vaccinated compared with the state average of 91.5%. But then they say that many other areas are under 85%, including Port Adelaide, Holdfast Bay – that’s the Glenelg region, and Playford. So a mix of semi-affluent and relatively disadvantaged regions. Hard to make sense of it, but I think there’s a distinction to made here between the refuseniks and those who just don’t get round to vaccinating their kids.

Jacinta: Right, and that wouldn’t necessarily come out in the data.

Canto: Yes, some are slackers and some are refuseniks.

Jacinta: And some might be fence-sitters who might be spurred into getting their kids vaccinated by this stick approach.

Canto: Yeah we’ll have to wait and see whether the unvaccinated numbers go down over the next few years.

Jacinta: Which makes me wonder, how do they know that those figures you quoted before – some 36,000 – were ‘conscientious objectors’?

Canto: Well they probably don’t for sure, but it’s highly unlikely that those numbers have gone up by almost a factor of 10 in fifteen years due to sheer complacency. I mean, is it plausible that in the last 15 years or so we’ve become 10 times more slack as a nation about our children’s health? No, there’s something much more disturbing going on. Mamamia quotes a Melbourne virologist, who claims that in some pockets of the nation our immunisation rates are lower than South Sudan.

Jacinta: Oh well done. I’m guessing they enforce vaccination in South Sudan, or I might be suffering from the delusion that most African governments are brutal dictatorships. Anyway, what are the biggest or worst hotspots nationally? I’m thinking Nimbin.

Canto: Yes, that area – Nimbin, Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, that whole northern New South Wales coastal area has vaccination rates down between 60% and 70%. Mullumbimby is the town with the highest objection rate in Australia, and the lowest immunisation rate, at under 50%. Steiner schools are popular in this region, unsurprisingly, and they’re openly promoting refusenik behaviour. But there are many other problem regions, such as Queensland’s Gold Coast and Sunshine coast. Noosa on the Sunshine coast also has very high objection rates.

Jacinta: These are quite wealthy areas I suppose. Any idea why this is happening?

Canto: Well, I can only speculate, but I think, with wealthy people, there’s a greater degree of resistance to government measures, obviously in the case of taxation, but also with health matters. They’re rich, they’re healthy, they feel they’re already immune, and that if they just maintain a healthy lifestyle they’ll be fine. Clearly they’re not particularly informed about the benefits of vaccination, or choose to believe those benefits are exaggerated. I suspect that the further we remove ourselves from the bad days of TB, diphtheria, mumps and measles, the more we’ll get this creeping belief that vaccines are over-rated. The positive thing, though, is that we still have some 83% of parents in favour of some kind of punitive measure for those who don’t or won’t vaccinate their kids. But I do suspect that percentage will reduce over time. We humans have short memories and an over-supply of hubris, it seems to me. Or perhaps we’re just a bit over-confident with respect to our survival mechanisms. We’re like teenagers, we rarely listen to our parents – they’re history, after all. We need a few life-blows to counter our cockiness.

Jacinta: Hmmm, grim but probably true. Anyway, the government has acted and that might reduce the number of fence-sitters, even if it polarises the issue a bit more.