There are two sides to the vaccination issue - but only one gets heard

For the second time in as many months, a Herald Sun opinion piece writer has defamed the AVN and every parent who has taken the time and effort to research health issues before making a decision in an article she wrote for their opinion page (this same article ran in many of the Murdoch papers as well as on Mia Freedman's web site - mamamia). Many of you would have read Mia Freedman's article and my response to it earlier in the week (Celebrating Ignorance - Mia Freedman Says 'Embrace Your Inner Moron) and I have published a selection of your letters to her on this blog and hope to publish more, time allowing.

Just as it happened the first time around back in February, when I contacted the paper to complain about the one-sided and insulting article, I was invited to write my own opinion piece giving the AVN's side of the story as a way of ensuring our right our reply (The Herald Sun Does Not Care About Balance or Fairness). Once again however, the paper said that my opinion piece will not be running and no information was provided as to why that was. It seems that the vaccination issue is one of those 'special cases' where balance and fairness are not required.

But at least this time, what I wrote will be used as a letter to the editor though in a severely cut-down form. Below, is my original opinion piece and under that, is the letter to the editor that will supposedly be running tomorrow morning in the Herald Sun. As you can see, much of the information was removed. I understand that many of our members and supporters had letters published in the Herald Sun letters page on Thursday and Friday this week in response to Mia Freedman's article and that is truly excellent! I will try and find the letters and publish them on this blog for all to see.

Keep on writing and keep on being active on this issue. We ARE having an effect!

Opinion Piece - Ignorance is not bliss!

Nobody ever told me that I had a choice when it came to vaccination. I thought vaccines were compulsory and that I would lose out on government entitlements were I not to give my child his shots. That was and still is incorrect.

Nobody ever told me that for some children, the risks of childhood shots could outweigh the benefits. Nobody ever told me that I should be checking the manufacturer’s information for the list of ingredients, side effects and contraindications before I allowed my child to have his shots.

Like most Australian parents, I was never given any information about the safety or effectiveness of vaccination and, had my own child not reacted to his shots, I probably never would have looked twice at this issue. But he did react – first to his DTP / Oral polio at 2 months of age and later, to his MMR, at 18 months.

It was only after seeing my own child suffer that I decided to start looking into this issue and truly, I wish I had known then what I know now!

In my son’s preschool class of 18, there were 3 children who were vaccine injured – one of whom died before his 5th birthday as a result of vaccine-associated seizures. My son and I attended his funeral.

Mia Freedman states that we should trust the doctors’ expertise on medical subjects but time and time again, we have seen doctors getting it completely wrong. From recommendations that pregnant women take thalidomide for morning sickness, to prescriptions for Vioxx, Avandia and other medications which, over time, have been shown to be more dangerous then the conditions they were meant to treat.

We shop around and test drive cars before buying them. Were we NOT to do this first, we would be considered both foolish and crazy.

Why then is medicine any different?

Do we need to be doctors in order to understand information from medical sources? And are all doctors supportive of every vaccine for every individual? Ms Freedman seems to think so but that is simply not correct.

There are thousands of doctors worldwide who believe that vaccinations should only be administered after the individuals have been fully informed of both the benefits and the risks. They also believe that not every person can or should be vaccinated safely and therefore, both the government and the medical community owe Australian citizens a duty of care to ensure that those who should be excluded from vaccinations are protected.

The fear shown by Ms Freedman towards those who have made informed choices not to vaccinate is neither logical nor correct. If her vaccinated children are at risk from exposure to healthy unvaccinated kids, then vaccines are not protecting.

That is exactly the situation Australia currently finds itself in. Today, we are in the fifth year of a record-breaking epidemic of pertussis (whooping cough) despite increased vaccination. We have gone from approximately 71% of our children vaccinated in 1991 to over 95% vaccinated in 2008 and over that time period, we have seen the reported number of cases go from just over 300 per year to almost 40,000 per year – the highest incidence per capita since before the pertussis vaccine was added to Australia’s childhood schedule in 1953.

It is the unvaccinated who are being blamed for this epidemic despite the government’s own data showing that 75% of those under 5 who get whooping cough are fully vaccinated against it and a further 14% are partially vaccinated.

Mia Freedman claims that the Australian Vaccination Network was found to be misleading by the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC). Yet she is ignorant of the fact that the NSW Supreme Court found the HCCC acted outside of its jurisdiction in either investigating our organisation or issuing a warning against us. Both the investigation and warning are now null and void. If Ms Freedman had done her research, she would have known about that just as she would have known about the risks of childhood shots and the fact that many doctors question mass vaccination.

There are many valid scientific concerns about vaccination and the one study that would give parents the confidence to vaccinate has never been done. That is an independent study comparing the overall health of the fully vaccinated compared with the fully unvaccinated.

Parents of Australia, you are your child’s advocates. You will always love them more than any doctor will. You will always be the experts on how they are progressing, feeding, and learning. Doctors are advisers and good ones – but your vaccination decision must be made with full information from many sources including your own research and advice from health practitioners including from GPs and natural healthcare providers. Do your research carefully and make your choice an informed one.

You owe it to your family to get a second opinion and to know both your rights and the information on this important health issue.

Below is the letter that ran in the Herald Sun this morning:(click on the image to open in full size)