Scarier than the articles are the comments left. The gloves are off on both sides. Most people of course are for vaccination. It isn't perfect but it's the best we've got is their reasoning and they cannot fathom people who choose not to participate in this apparently life saving initiative.
Among non-vaxers conspiracies run rife and fun is made of those who believe them while others are worried about allergic reactions and permanent disability.
The pro-vaxers fear that the non vaccinated children will some how make their vaccinated children sick. they argue herd immunity for the sake of the immune compromised, neonates and elderly.
But how many of these fears are actually fact? well lets look at the facts:
according to Mr Abbott in his article in the daily telegraph there are around 80,000 unvaccinated children in Australia and roughly half are conscientious objectors: Out of everyone in Australia only 80,000 aren't vaccinated. so what does this mean?? well next lets just check out how many people overall there are in Australia. Google tells me 22.68 million (2012)
So lets do the MATHS (80, 000/ 22.68 million)* 100= 0.35273368606
0.35273368606% of Australians are not vaccinated. LESS than ONE PERCENT!
There aren't even enough non-vaxers to have ONE family for every town and city in the country!
Still think the non-vaxers are a problem??
There is a different reason that the government wants to bring this up all the time, it has nothing to do with money or even public health. It serves as a way to "unite" the people in a common goal and distract them from the real problems: health crisis because of immigration (opening our borders brings in more diseases), tense relations with our neighboring countries, the fact that education, whales and the environment seem to have been forgotten while BILLIONS are being handed to primary producers and miners (C'mon Gina Rhine hart totally needs help affording her new machinery).
And you can say goodbye to: pay rise to the aged care workers, pay rise to the child care workers, broadband, marriage equality, school kids bonus, Education reform, Holden, Fair Trade, Renewable energy that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, Fair treatment for refugees, Fair work act and the ABC television network who had the guts to call him out. Oh ho yes he's done such a wonderful job he's targets those who can't defend themselves, gets rid of them or forces their hand and sends a very loud message of mess with him and the same will happen to you.
Anti-Vaxers having their choices taken away is only a tiny part of his dictative streak but it's none the less a message- you're not really free, I can MAKE you do whatever I say because if you do not then I will simply take away your livelihood and make you pay for it til you've been bled dry.
Cutting out care for 0.35273368606% of Australians isn't going to help the country economically or health wise, it is simply a ploy; a misdirection of Freudian proportions so we are looking the wrong way while they screw us over. Why does this tactic work? they've hit us below the belt. We ALL love our children and want them to be safe. suggesting that a minority is to blame is a really effective and quick way to accomplish a rallying of the troops. Mob mentality kicks in and all bets are off.
REALITY: There's no epidemic of non vaxers. there isn't even enough of them to noticeably impact the death rate even if everyone of them caught something horrible and died from it.
Please leave them alone Mr Abbott, they aren't the problem. Have the balls to look us in the face when you break your promises and try to make it someone elses fault. Didn't Hitler do something similar with the Jews, gays and disabled??
Watch out Australia this is Dangerous, he's about to blow our country sky high and we won't even see it until it's too late.
Disclaimer: I am neither pro- VAX nor Anti-VAX. I feel people will almost always do whatever they choose because they believe it is in their childs best interest. Do whatever you want regarding vaccination, I refuse to enter that debate in itself rather this article is to point out that people are "barking up the wrong tree" in regards to non vaccinating families and need to take a step back and look at the figures again.
here's the daily telegraph link:
http://m.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/parents-who-refuse-to-vaccinate-their-children-may-lose-their-family-benefits-payments-or-child-care-rebates/story-fni0cx12-1226814870963
But surely there must also be unvaccinated *adults* in Australia, so in fact the overall number of unvaccinated people would be quite a bit greater than 80 000? Also, what's meant by 'unvaccinated'? Is that including all the partly vaccinated ones who could still be at risk of passing on some diseases even if not all of them? And, since those unvaccinated people won't in practice be spread out evenly between every town and city in Australia, how many towns and cities actually contain enough of a cluster to start spreading an infection?
ReplyDeleteI wrote all that before I'd even looked at the article. Now I have, and there's a key figure you missed out - that figure is a sixfold increase over twenty years ago. So, how fast is it going to keep on rising? We've seen in other countries how having rising numbers of non-vaxxers around can restart the spread of diseases that seemed to be fading out. If the numbers are rising, I think it's far better to start doing something about it while they *are* still relatively low.
You are right. That was my point. Its unvaccinated adults that are the problem if there is indeed a problem.. And so by removing parenting payments from less than one percent of the population the gov is going to save a few cents, quell the angry mob who think that a few parents making an informed or religious decision bot to immunize are killing their children and appear like they are doing something. My point was that this "solution" is going to do five fifths of nothing except make it unnecessarily hard for families based on a personal decision that is their basic human right to make. I am neither for nor against vaccination and support a parents right to informed choice wholely. If the government really cared about "fixing" this then they would advertise that immunizations from childhood only last 5-10 years and make all boosters free. This solution of theirs was nothing more than a marketing ploy playing on the paranoid who think that theyre in danger because of a child when in fact the only danger (if there is one) is that their own immunization has worn off. They did it to get votes. Nothing else
ReplyDeleteOh and btw I know it says Australians not Australian children. This is because it is widely accepted that if you were immunized as a child then you are vaccinated. Not that this is the case, it isn't but that is the general consensus if you ask an adult who was vaccinated as a child if they are vaccinated they will almost always say "yes I got all my baby shots" they don't consider themselves unvaccinated. So if going by what the population thinks of as vaccinated then the reality is they are terrified of a tiny fraction of people. Thanks for the question. Its an interesting topic. You can go further and further down the rabbit hole with this topic and never get a clear cut answer since everyone has different morals and values.
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