Julie Leask writes:
The Federal Government has announced a major shake up to the way vaccination is linked to financial incentives, which will begin taking effect from July 2012.
Changes to financial incentives for immunising
The former immunisation allowance, with instalments of $129 paid at 2 and 5 years of age, has been scrapped. Now the Family Tax Benefit Part A that most parents already receive, will be linked to full immunisation. A total amount of $2100 will be paid for each child who is fully vaccinated at one, two and five years of age ($726 each time).
Also the Government has expanded the range of vaccines linked to the incentives to other vaccines already on the schedule but previously not linked: chicken pox (varicella), pneumococcal and meningococcal C vaccines. This will happen from 1 July 2013.
These changes will raise the ire of some parents who selectively vaccinate, some social policy commentators and the anti-vaccination lobby. Others will continue to object to non-vaccinating parents being able to still claim the payments.
History repeats itself
The idea of taking a welfare payments already given, and linking them to vaccination is not new in Australia.
The Howard Government did this back in 1998 when the then Maternity Allowance was linked to immunisation status, thus being re-named the Maternity Immunisation Allowance (MIA). It was paid to all parents or carers whose children were fully vaccinated by 18 months of age or those with a registered medical exemption or ‘conscientious objection’.
Vaccination was also linked to child care rebates. From January 2009, the MIA payment was split into two instalments at 2 and 5 years of age to try to boost low coverage for children in the latter age group.
Incentives increase immunisation rates
Incentives appear to work. Although such moves have been never rigorously evaluated, immunisation rates appear to be very sensitive to changes in incentive payments, particularly in disadvantaged population groups who already are at risk for under-immunisation.
Splitting the MIA receipt to ages 2 and 5 years was followed by a sharp rise in vaccination rates for 5 year olds from 79% to 89%, mostly through improving timeliness.
Similarly, the new scheme will also potentially improve timeliness of receipt of vaccines, which remains an issue in Australia. See here and here.
Conscientious objectors should have access to the payments
One contentious issue will be whether parents who refuse to vaccinate their children should still be able to receive incentives. Currently, they must register as ‘conscientious objectors’. This requires a form to be signed by them and a health professional. About 1.7% of parents are doing so.
While it’s preferable to have no parents refusing vaccines, it is better that these families can still access the payments for two reasons. First it means that children who already miss out by not being immunised are not further disadvantaged through economic disparities. Second, the interaction with the doctor or nurse that is required for parents to register a conscientious objectors enables health professionals to (1) ensure the parents are fully aware of the risks of not immunising (2) persuade some to reconsider their decision. This does occur.
Need for a broader set of players in the debate
Vaccination opponent groups like the Australian Vaccination Network have always objected to the linking of immunisation to welfare payments, calling them bribes. This will be another opportunity for them to air their views in the media as outlets predictably seek out opponents to the policy.
Perhaps the media should go further afield and seek out social commentators who oppose the linking of health behaviour to tax benefits – a more nuanced issue that should be raised.
Coverage will appear to decline in late 2013
One note of caution. Once full set of changes come into effect by July 2013, it will look like our immunisation rates have declined due to changes to the way immunisation will be measured.
Currently, the “fully immunised” algorithm only incorporates the vaccines under the current incentives scheme. It has not included pneumococcal, meningococcal C or chicken pox (varicella) vaccines. Once they will be linked to the incentives scheme, they will be part of the calculation for Australian immunisation coverage.
To date, immunisation rates for the 18 month varicella vaccine dose have been just 82%. No other vaccine is given then. So incorporating the varicella vaccine into coverage estimates will drag our rates down by a few percentage points until parents and providers get used to the new requirements. And it will be important they do because that 18 month dose will incorporate a combined vaccine against measles-mumps-rubella and varicella (MMRV) and pneumococcal vaccine.
Ultimately the changes will be good for children – more will be protected, in a more timely fashion.
• Dr Julie Leask is Senior Lecturer in the Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney
***
• The Australian General Practice Network has welcomed the changes.
The “consultation” with a doctor to get the conscientious objector form signed is a farce because health conscious parents know far more about vaccination than doctors do. For a start, doctors don’t even know what ingredients are in vaccines.
Not vaccinating your kids is reprehensibly stupid. AVN should be declared a terrorist organistion.
Julie Leask wrote “While it’s preferable to have no parents refusing vaccines, it is better that these families can still access the payments”. She also mentioned the conscientious objection “out clause”. If parents are so stupid or what I would call criminally irresponsible, as to risk their own child’s life and potentially those of other people’s children ( or vulnerable adults)as well, why would you want to reward them? After all, the the interest of community safety, we don’t allow drivers to exercise a conscientious objection to obeying speed laws or mandatory drink driving limits! Where’s the difference?
Well Ron, obeying a speed limit doesn’t exactly subject one’s child to a statistical risk of an anaphylactic reaction, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, or any other health risk. Did you not hear about the number of children affected by the trial CSL FluVax last year that resulted in myriad hospitalisations, and the tragic case of Saba Button who suffered brain injury and liver, kidney and bone marrow failure after she went into convulsive seizures following her flu shot? Saba may never walk or talk. Or is this a satisfactory ‘price’ for protecting the herd? If this was your daughter, you might think again before branding those who do their research ‘criminally irresponsible’. Surely it’s ‘criminally irresponsible’ to release a trial vaccine into the community, targeted at children, without adequate clinical trials. Or do you hold up one law for parents and one for the vaccine industry?
To link informed choice to payment of the Family Tax Benefit Part A is evidently an attempt to bribe those who choose not to subject their children to such risks. May as well link the Family Tax Benefit to a clean driving record, since that’s the analogy you wish to draw. There’s the difference.
John, you can single out individual cases, tragic though they may be. However, as I understand it, the tragic and unfortunate influenza vaccine adverse reaction in children issue is being addressed and appropriate recommendations for the current year have been made. On balance from a whole of community persepctive, if we don’t ensure that as many children as we can, are immunised against the common infectious diseases that have claimed the lives or irreparably damaged health of very many children in generations gone by(think polio, whooping cough, tetanus, some forms of pneumonia and meningitis etc.), we are doing a grave disservice to many more children and at-risk older people who may succumb to life-threatening infections. That’s why it is important to try to maximise the childhood immunisation rate within the community.
Frankly, I find it hard to comprehend that supposedly loving parents would be so stupid or what I would call criminally irresponsible, as to risk their own child’s life and potentially those of other people’s children ( or vulnerable adults) as well, by not vaccinating their children against potentially lethal diseases.
Then again, as for self-indulgent and criminally-neglectful behavior evident in many areas of medical care within the community, I’m not that surprised. They are probably the same parents who choose to give their poor unsuspecting little kiddies worthless homeopathic lolly water, (usually products which will no doubt have a TGA Aus L number!), so that they (the parents) can sleep well at night with a clear conscience, instead of seeking proper medical advice, when the infants or children may in fact have respiratory or other concerning symptoms that could turn into life-threatening pneumonia or meningitis,
Parents are criminally irresponsible when;
1) They don’t bother to find out what the ingredients in vaccines are (formaldehyde, aluminium, mercury, lung cells from aborted babies etc.).
2) They don’t bother to find out what the actual risk of an adverse reaction is.
3) They don’t bother to find out how likely it is that the vaccine will actually prevent the disease that it is supposed to prevent.
Hi Wendy,
There *is* a lot of sensational misinformation about vaccine ingredients and those four are amongst them.
I guess the major (or most silly) one is aluminium. It’s true babies can receive 4mg of Al within the 1st 6 mths of life. In context however they receive 10mg from breast milk, 40mg from formula and 120mg from Soy formula in the same 6 months. It is rapidly eliminated from the body. The main source of Al for humans is food. Here’s some info’:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/59038656/Aluminum-in-Vaccines-What-You-Should-Know
With formaldehyde it’s a matter of dose not compound. It’s true that it is listed as potentially dangerous, but only when we’re exposed at levels our body cannot tolerate. “Carcinogenic” levels of formaldeyhde can be found in furniture and building materials such as particle board, many thousands of times that in vaccines. So, fighting a house fire for example requires breathing gear. Burning building materials in the back yard or on a building site is very dangerous.
There is no mercury in childhood vaccines and those (like adult vaccines or flu vaccines) that contain a mercury compound contain ethyl mercury. This is quickly eliminated from the body. Interestingly the fish we eat contains methyl mercury which is not eliminated and builds up over time. This is called bioaccumulation. Elemental mercury is the dangerous/poisonous element people think of. Yet even when this was used in teething powder back in our grandparents day and reacted over time or with sunlight to produce mercurous chloride only 0.2% of babies suffered poisoning. And these guys had massive doses of the stuff.
Just to be sure, authorities base the ethyl mercury in vaccines not on what’s safe for that but what’s safe for methyl mercury, that bioaccumulates. So, it’s a doubly safe approach and serves as a vital preservative. One can always simply ask for a thimerosal free vaccine but there’s no point. Salt is sodium chloride. But we don’t hear people claiming it contains chlorine which is highly toxic. When chlorine mixes with hydrochloric acid – which we have in our stomachs – it reacts to produce chlorine gas, the deadly WWI poison. But we don’t hear people warning of chlorine gas poisoning from eating salt. Similarly, scare stories about mercury have absolutely no basis in reality.
Finally fetal tissue. This is really bizarre as tissue cultures are used in medicine all the time. Think of burns patients. Or patients with grafts from corpses. Or filled with the blood of donors. But yes, human culture is a starting point. And that cell culture is from the 1960’s. The Medical Journal of Australia states:
“Patients should be aware that cell lines are self-sustaining and are not the end therapeutic product…No human cells are actually present in the vaccine, and no abortions are conducted specifically for the purpose of harvesting cell lines.”
The end result is so removed from the cell culture it’s also a bit like saying because fruit is grown on trees that have roots in soil fertilised with manure then eating the fruit itself is eating dirt and poo.
It’s also interesting to note that our shampoo contains tallow products. This is gained from boiling the head, anal tissue and other unusable parts of cattle until a greasy runoff is collected. Similarly lanolin is derived from washing the fatty grease from sheep’s wool until a yellow sticky ear wax type goo is collected. Both then go through a chemical procedure and into the products we associate with being clean. And that’s because they are clean. Just like vaccines are perfectly safe. But we don’t say “shampoo contains boiled cattle anus extract”, do we?
And the list goes on.
Vaccines carry a minuscule risk. Eg; one in 1 million children with genetic susceptibility (a mitochrondrial disorder) may develop a severe reaction to MMR vaccination. Yet as many as 1 in 500 non susceptible children develop the same reaction to just measles itself. 1 in 8000 children under 2 suffer SSPE from measles – a serious brain damaging condition. Zero MMR recipients develop SSPE. Between 1 in 2500 to 5000 children die from measles. Zero children have ever died from MMR.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/53705984/The-Encephalitis-Society-Measles-Mumps-and-Rubella
http://luckylosing.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/measles_mumps_encephalitissociety.png
Saba Button is the first injury in decades of flu vaccines in Australia despite the deaths of babies from flu every year. What happened is inexcusable, but not the norm.
To seize on this as people are doing is like saying the Burnley tunnel fire in Melbourne is an expected daily occurrence. Even seat belts kill and maim, but the risk of not wearing one is clear.
Finally, vaccines do prevent the disease except in rare cases. Unvaccinated may also catch the disease more than once, with much greater chances of being maimed and disabled for life. Babies vaccinated against whooping cough may also catch it. But they receive a much milder dose with less severe symptoms. All whooping cough fatalities in Australia over the last 4 years were in unvaccinated. Those many unvaccinated babies who survived have permanent brain and organ damage from oxygen starvation – just like Saba Button.
Here’s a vaccine fact sheet:
http://www.ncirs.edu.au/immunisation/fact-sheets/influenza-fact-sheet.pdf
Here’s some more myths, busted with science:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/59038656/Aluminum-in-Vaccines-What-You-Should-Know
My mistake,
Actually, here’s the vaccine myths busted with science:
http://www.mamamia.com.au/news/vaccination-myths-busted-by-science-cheat-sheet-on-immunisation/
All National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance Fact Sheets answer all possible queries and are available here:
http://www.ncirs.edu.au/immunisation/fact-sheets/index.php
Excellent summary Paul, well explained and out into perspective. As typified by this vaccination issue, one of the major problems is always the tendency for some people to seize on a chemical name and develop an viewpoint as to its toxicity of that chemical in an undifferentiated way that completely ignores the gradation from high-level exposure with toxic potential to ultra-low level exposure where risks are effectively non-existent.
Paul, you are ignorant of the facts. I will just pick on a few points. Some vaccines do contain human cells, and they say so on the package insert. The Medical Journal of Australia is wrong when it says, “No human cells are actually present in the vaccine”.
There is mercury in some childhood vaccines, including in some of those that are labelled as mercury free.
When you say that one in a million children with a mitochrondrial disorder may develop a severe reaction to MMR vaccination, are you referring to the 17 American children who have been paid compensation after MMR made them autistic? But then you go on to say that as many as 1 in 500 non susceptible children develop the same reaction to just measles itself. So do you mean that 1 in 500 children who don’t have a mitochondrial disorder become autistic from measles?
You are correct that children don’t develop SSPE from MMR vaccine. Instead they get a variety of disintergrative disorders. You are not correct when you say that zero children have died from MMR. The first time that a death from measles vaccine was acknowledged in the medical literature was in 1994. (BMJ 1994;309:759.)
On one of the sites that you recommend, Dr. Rachel Dunlop says, “All vaccines currently available in Australia must pass stringent safety testing before being approved for use by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), which is our government body responsible for regulating pharmaceuticals.” That is the dream version of what happens. In the real world the TGA gets absolutely no funding from the government, and as a TGA member has admitted on Four Corners, the TGA is accountable to the manufacturers, not to the consumer. The TGA is funded entirely by the companies that want their product to be approved. Everything from the salaries of the workers to the carpet on the floor is paid for by the clients. I have obtained material from the TGA under Freedom of Information, and I can assure you that the testing of vaccines is not stringent.
The “fact sheets” put out by the government are not factual. For instance, the health department printed a booklet for parents called Understanding Childhood Immunisation in which they said, “Serious reactions to Hib vaccines have not been reported.” At the time that the booklet was printed, Australian doctors had already reported 1161 serious side effects from Hib vaccines, 16 of which were reports of death.
Responsible parents do not sit on a couch and swallow the claims of the vaccine industry and their lackeys in the government.
Wendy,
Thanks for your reply. Much of your query could have been solved with a bit of reading. No children have developed autism from vaccines. Not one. Sure, there’s the accusations of “autistic like symptoms” and such but as is apparent in the article and image I provided encephalitis is the condition.
And here’s a handy breakdown of a fraud to boost the imaginary vaccine autism cases in the USA:
http://bit.ly/s4iDKI
And yes, let’s be conservative even and go with 1 in 1000 measles sufferers develop encephalitis. Given MMR – a three in one vaccine we find 1 in 1 million or more develop encephalitis. That’s a 1000x greater risk.
So, no I am not saying anything about autism and the graph I provided is very clear on what the independent Encephalitis Society of New England is suggesting.
http://bit.ly/v8Bd4t
You ask, “are you referring to the 17 American children who have been paid compensation after MMR made them autistic?”.
No, Wendy. No children have never developed autism from vaccines. I admit the symptoms are all but indistinguishable from severe encephalitis and I’m a huge supporter of vaccine compensation, but I must observe the evidence. Even in nations where vaccination was stopped completely, autism rates remained on the same trajectory.
I worked years in ABI rehabilitation. My road trauma, drowning, drug OD, stroke, sporting accident, violent assault….. all presented with identical symptoms. A large amount present with autistic like symptoms. But they are not autistic and neither are any compensated American children with autistic like symptoms.
Like Hannah Poling these children who react to vaccination have a mitochondrial deficiency. Hannah Poling was compensated for encephalopathy brought on by mitochondrial enzyme deficiency. Whilst not unusual for children with her disorder to develop autistic like symptoms in the first two years of life, her parents were adamant vaccination was the cause. But authorities did not agree.
After the Polings’ press conference, Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, responded to their claims that vaccines had caused their daughter’s autism. “Let me be very clear that the government has made
absolutely no statement . . . indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism,” she said.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0802904
And:
“The government has made absolutely no statement indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism.”
“That is a complete mischaracterization of the findings of the case and a complete mischaracterization of any of the science that we have at our disposal today.”
That doesn’t sound like “17 children” to me.
Onto your BMJ article. http://www.bmj.com/content/309/6957/759.1
If I may ask a tiny favour, please provide a hyperlink so I may read it without searching. Yes, the tragic and still unproven story of Hannah Buxton who was vaccinated at 18 months of age – not with MMR but with a contaminated batch of MMR. Hannah developed a neurological reaction and suffered fits. After 18 months at the age of three she died. The BMJ state – “the official tribunal dealing with vaccine damage has held that the vaccine was to blame and awarded the parents pounds sterling 20 000 compensation.”
And rightly so. The contaminants that killed her were in the vaccine. But the MMR vaccine itself, played no part. Indeed the entire article you provided refers to children who have died at such a time that parents blame the vaccine.
“More than 100 families who blame their children’s deaths or serious injuries on the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine have won legal aid to investigate a possible multimillion pound claim for compensation.”
That was 1994. Looks like they weren’t compensated. Since the Wakefield fraud much more research has been done. If you have any references newer than 18 years I’d be grateful. Vaccines aren’t 100% safe – nothing is. But diseases kill, not vaccines. In effect, you provided me with nothing. There are many reports of babies dying after MMR but no causality is established. Another case in Dec. 2008 with the headline “MMR baby ‘chatting away’ hours before his death, inquest hears”, goes on to inform that the MMR vaccine was 10 days earlier.
Still, nothing is 100% safe, so it’s a matter of risk/benefit and not looking for what you want to find.
Other tragic cases where parents shake or hit their babies are also blamed on the vaccines. Meryl Dorey of the AVN coined the term Shaken Maybe Syndrome and argues even mashed brains and broken collar bones are down to MMR. SBS does not exist she argues with vaccine conspiracy the real reason violent baby killers are in jail. SIDS is also a vaccine injury, regardless of when. We must be careful of such sources.
I also have little time for the TGA and am appalled at the breakdown between it and CSL over the Fluvax debacle. But your claim above is begging the question of corruption and I see no evidence of that. I agree the source of income for the TGA is at present a problem for both listed and regulated products. Think of the billion dollar vitamin and supplement industry. Alternatives to medicine – sometimes called “natural” – tend to be on shelves having passed no trials of efficacy and as such, doing nothing but turn a profit.
Vaccines undergo extremely vigorous testing and quality control. Good Manufacturing Practice is a reality despite shonky claims against the TGA. You provided no source for the doctors citing death from Hib.
The good news is we now know that autism is at an all time low. Changes in diagnostics are the source of the rising numbers. The ASD spectrum is huge. But to be sure, we must use today’s criteria against autistic adults – in fact those not diagnosed 30 or 40 years ago. We find 9.8 adults per 1000 and 10 children per 1000. In essence the same. As we know autistic scores (or ratings) fall with time and learned behaviour also contributes to a lowering of diagnoses, so it’s likely that these adults were well over 10 per 1000 as we see today. So, magically cases are falling and notably so. The University of Leicester did some hard yards.
“Not a single person identified with autism or asperger’s syndrome during a community survey in England actually knew they had the condition, research led by the University of Leicester reveals.”
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=102107&CultureCode=en
Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Adults in the Community in England.” Archives of General Psychiatry – doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.38
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/68/5/459
What has caused this lowering of autism despite the inclusion of many more criteria for diagnosis? What has increased over the last generation? Vaccination. Yes, Wendy vaccination!
Autism is low and vaccines are the cause of this incredible decline. Better health means better development.
All the best Wendy.
On which planet did Meryl Dorey coin the term ‘shaken baby syndrome’?
Also you say, “You provided no source for the doctors citing death from Hib.” I thought it was clear that the TGA is the source.
Whew. Thanks for that, both of you. Personally, I come down firmly on the side of Paul and the evidence cited in his responses.
I thank you, Wendy, for your robust debate on the matter including many ideas which I will build into the next academic exercise where I am assigned the role of ‘devil’s advocate’.
I will also thank you to keep your unvaccinated kiddos apart from my own.
My unvaccinated kids are 24 and 29 years old. Beware! You might pass them in a shopping mall and not know that you are in mortal danger. I’m glad that you are aware that the vaccines that have been injected into your kids do not offer protection. All that formaldehyde, aluminium, mercury, duck egg and lung cells from aborted baby have been injected into them for nowt.
Wendy,
Thanks to herd immunity we still have time to chuckle at your appeal to ignorance. Interestingly as of today, the current Auckland measles outbreak; 481 cases, 81 requiring hospitalisation. A 17% hospitalisation rate is profound given the quality of modern outpatient care. As vaccination rates increase cases decrease:
http://www.tewahanui.info/twn/index.php/aucklands-measles-outbreak-eases-as-vaccination-rates-rise/
In Australia 3 recent scares came out of S.A. from 3 unvaccinated subjects. I blogged about the second case as the young lady in concern ignored health dept’ requests to self quarantine and immediately went to work in a large shopping centre, then clubbing, then pubbing.
http://luckylosing.com/2011/08/12/australian-vaccination-network-silent-on-s-a-measles-outbreak/
I also list all potential outcomes. The idea that your children may have been in any of the vicinities listed is the locus of “mortal danger” Wendy. You will note the efficacy of measles vaccine. Despite exposure to at least many hundreds – if not thousands – vaccine induced immunity and herd immunity prevailed.
Measles vaccination is hard to refute given NZ, and SA. And that’s just 8 months.
legs22 has their own reasons for asking to keep your children separate. The dreadlocked, feral, unwashed, bong touting, chronic bronchitis and louse riddled status of many unvaccinated is *not* typical but denial of germ theory may translate as simply not washing hands and clothes. I know these are stereotypes but lots of people won’t take the risk. If an outbreak occurs your kids are first in line.
Whatever the reason, it is not due to vaccines failing. If you have substantial peer reviewed data – and not the usual reports of mumps leaking from religious objectors (unvaccinated) to vaccinated colleagues and close friends – then please provide them.
Certainly with pertussis, vaccine induced immunity offers protection against lethal infection but unvaccinated children still spread the disease as astonishing rates. They are less likely to reciprocate with conventional medico’s and FOUR TIMES more likely to visit anti-vax proponents, such as chiropractors. Although vaccination does not provide a magical shield the facts are that 100% of fatalities are unvaccinated and whilst about 5% don’t receive the vaccination their notification rate is 27.6%. That’s even with their avoidance of doctors and consequent absence from notification data. Imagine if we could sample them all! So, the infection notification data are significantly skewed AWAY from unvaccinated and TOWARD the vaccinated.
The alternative claim condemning the vaccine because 95% are fully vaccinated and some still catch it is simply the “99.999% of drivers killed on our roads had a full licence and wore a seatbelt” trick used on ignorance. Here’s a good look at placing pertussis notification data in context:
http://luckylosing.com/2012/02/06/pertussis-notification-and-vaccination-status-in-context/
Your final myth is the claim of cells in vaccines. For this to be true a steady source of aborted foetal tissue must be provided. Strange then that the Catholic Church accepts the initial use of TWO tissue samples. And please show some respect for the 3 month old female (USA), and the 14 week old male (UK) foetus’ in concern. Whatever ones position on abortion, appealing to a fictitious “Yuk factor” is simply reprehensible.
WI-38 came from the US in 1961. MRC-5 came about in 1966. Of rubella, varicella, rabies and Hep. A only one disease can be prevented with a vaccine NOT produced using human diploid cells.
“These two cell strains have been growing under laboratory conditions for more than 35 years. The cells are merely the biological system in which the viruses are grown. These cell strains do not and cannot form a complete organism and do not constitute a potential human being. The cells reproduce themselves, so there is no need to abort additional fetuses to sustain the culture supply. Viruses are collected from the diploid cell cultures and then processed further to produce the vaccine itself.”
So – viruses grown in tissue samples, collected and processed. What you’re claiming is like saying eating an apple grown in an orchard of rich mountain soil, fertilised with manure is the same as eating horse poo and dirt.
It’s a sad day when even the Vatican are more astute than yourself, Wendy.
/face*palm/
lol. The Auckland outbreak; The measles virus becomes virulent in the environment and both vaccinated and unvaccinated people get measles. The health department drums up hysteria and vaccinates as many people as it can muster, no matter how many doses of vaccine they have had in the past. Over the months the measles virus reaches a peak in virulence then begins to decline. !0 months after the vaccination campaign, when the number of cases is few, the vaccinators declare that it was their campaign that made the outbreak go away.
This scenario of the medicrats claiming victory when the virus undergoes natural waning is repeated over and over again.
But then you come along and say that it proves that herd immunity works! That is a new one on me.
Herd immunity is a hypothetical construct which actually does not exist.
Your description of unvaccinated children is hilarious. So how many of the two million unvaccinated children in Britain are dreadlocked, feral, unwashed, bong touting, chronic bronchitis and louse riddled? And what percentage of their parents deny the germ theory?
Another funny thing is that you have got it backwards. Parents who don’t brush their children’s hair, don’t teach them to wash their hands, and blow smoke in their faces are irresponsible parents. And because they are irresponsible parents they comply with the bullying authorities and allow their children to be injected with formaldehyde, aluminium, mercury, lactose, ammonium sulfate, peanut oil, egg, pork, dog brain, monkey kidney, caterpillar ovaries, lung cells from aborted babies and borax.
It is also funny that you say that my children were protected from measles by herd immunity. Your “evidence” is that they are still alive. lol.