Please send in your letters to support freedom of choice

The article from yesterday calling for compulsory vaccination and criticising women who home birthed actually WAS on the web, It had a different title - All Aussie Kids Should Be Vaccinated. The woman who wrote it, Susie O'Brien, seems to have had correspondence in the past with both the Australian Skeptics and their splinter hate group, Stop the AVN. I would like you to read the comments she has written - especially those to people who have chosen not to vaccinate. Should this person really be gifted with the right to write an article in a major Australian daily newspaper without it being called an opinion piece or an advertorial for big pharma? This is a scandal! Please, if you haven't already written to the Herald Sun, can you drop them a quick line today at hsletters@heraldsun.com.au and send me a copy at meryl@avn.org.au? If you want to see the letters that have already been sent in (more going up all the time), visit - http://www.nocompulsoryvaccination.com/.

In response to someone who cited Dr Andrew Wakefield and supported informed choice on vaccination, the response was:

I am familiar with some of Wakefield’s work but also the thousands and thousands of peer reviewed medical journals showing that vaccination is best. There is no need for a debate that fills people’s heads with scare-mongering and means that parents dont do what is best for their children. Involved with the AVN, are you?

Susie O’Brien Tue 31 Jan 12 (07:17am)

In response to a person who said that parents should read as much as they could - and someone who admitted that they were finding this a difficult decision to make, she replied:

Sure as long as it is not misleading and has a medical basis to it, not just emotive biased rubbish. And it’s not difficult - doctors across the world agree that vaccination is best. Sounds like you are on the AVN bandwagon…

Susie O’Brien Tue 31 Jan 12 (07:15am)

And the most egregious of her comments, in response to someone trying to defend parental rights to choose what is best for their child, the outrageous response basically says that we only have the right to obey our doctors and certainly not a right to listen to the AVN!

Well I have gone on to do a separate post on home births so no doubt you won’t like that either. I think parents have a right to listen to reasoned, qualified medical opinion and follow expert advice, not listen to the AVN. There can be minor side effects so good procedures must be followed, but these minor side effects are nothing compared to the risks of whooping cough and polio.

Susie O’Brien Tue 31 Jan 12 (08:07am)