We might have one of the highest rates of childhood vaccination in the country but there’s no room for complacency, if you listen to the experts.
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It takes just one child who is not immunised to risk the health and safety of others.
So, along with medical and health professionals, childcare providers, most parents, and a broad cross-section of the wider public, we welcome the announcement by the federal government to penalise parents who don’t do the right thing.
Those who don’t, and who are conscientious objectors to childhood vaccination, will risk their family tax and childcare payments.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on Sunday parents would no longer receive payments worth up to $15,000 a child from January 1, 2016.
Mr Abbott rightly said the choice made by families not to immunise their children was not supported by public policy or medical research, nor should such action be supported by taxpayers in the form of childcare payments.
Although Australia’s overall childhood vaccination rates remain high –
about 97 per cent – the numbers of people who are registered conscientious objectors has apparently risen in the past decade, to where the number of children aged under seven who are not vaccinated because their parents are conscientious objectors has risen by 24,000 to 39,000.
The Labor opposition has signalled its support of the science of vaccination too.
Politicians are often accused of failing to make the tough calls, particularly on controversial issues, so it’s good to see this step to take a punitive stand on vaccination.
The emergence of the so-called “anti-vaxxers” threatened a new world where we could have a have a whole cohort of children who are not fully immunised.
Parents have an obligation to protect their offspring from preventable disease and protect other youngsters who come into contact with them.
Ask an older person who may remember disease epidemics that swept the nation – polio being one – and ask them their thoughts on refusing to vaccinate.
The fact that the northern region of the Hunter New England Health area has something like nine out of 10 young children vaccinated is something we can take some pride in. But vigilance is a necessity.
While most children are vaccinated, the fact that our society is so mobile and portable now, places children at risk if they travel anywhere where they come into contact with other children who are not immunised.