Good article and much needed.
I am more than old enough to remember polio, smallpox, whooping cough, measels, mumps etc. Polio: awful illness, crippling. Now effectively eliminated by VACCINATION.
Smallpox: medicines greatest triumph, now eliminated by VACCINATION. Two of my childhood friends got it but were already vaccinated so effect was very small.
Mumps, not supposedly all that bad, but I have this memory of a friend of mine aged about 45 at the time who got mumps. He lay on his back with legs apart and a frame over his legs to stop the bedclothes touching is tennis ball sized testes. Now only the children of the pig ignorant anti vac brigade risk that. Whooping cough in small children is hidious, rib breaking coughing. All kids can have preventatives innoculation. It is a scandal that some children still get it - due to their parents weird thinking.
So the list goes on. We live in an age where mumbo jumbo pseudo medicine is common. Gormless. Even if there is a one in a hundred thousand that a nasty reaction were to take place, then that is trivial compared to the probablity of getting a horrid illness with potential awful long term effects. The only exceptions should be where a person has an allergic reaction to something. I am badly allergic to egg so cannot have the 'flu shots, how I envy those who can have them as I croak my way through yet another bout.
But no, all too many people buy all sorts of dubious (at best) quack nostrums, whilst sounding off about proper medical treatments.
Some of these 'treatments' are allowed under medical care/insurance systems. fatuous and wrong.
Like the writer I am a member of Australian Skeptics. Good stuff especially re quackery.
Proper medicine, scientifically based, blind tested needs support, one way to do that is to get overtly critical of quackery.

a good friend of mine has nursed their daughter for the last 25 years after she was vaccinated at the age of two. Regular fits, the mind of a two year old and constant changing of nappies has certainly taken its toll on them. Whether the risk of vaciination is worth it or not I don't know. What I do know is the dismissive arrogant believers in anything called science is often wrong. Do some research before having your sons and daughters vacinated from every known disease to man. In the end they will die of something. I am yet to have a flu shot and have been flu free for 15 years. Everyone I k now who gets the shot seems to cop a dose.

runner,
the odd anecdote is not evidence.

Moreover, it remains to be proven the childs lifelong issues were the consequence of vaccination - it may not be.

runner,

Spoken like a person who hasn't seen, experienced or bothered to learn about the misery caused by "now" preventable diseases. Ever seen a very young baby in the throws of a whooping cough attack? They catch it before they have had the required inoculations (at least 2 doses required - minimum 4 months old)

"Australia is currently experiencing an epidemic of pertussis" (whooping cough)

http://health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Content/immunise-pertussis

Just as well the skeptics benefit from herd immunity, however if the vaccination rate drops too low, that goes out the window.

eyejaw

I am old enough to recall the terrifying polio epidemic of the 1950s. Two of my schoolfriends were crippled for life. One died in her 40s.

Like you the anti-vaccinators infuriate me.

But everything in life is a trade-off. People must be free to express an opinion even if you and I think they're nuts.

I'm afraid this is one case where the cure - restricting free speech - would be worse than the disease.

Well done Chrys Stevenson.

A good job, a foolish Woodford Committee (prior to changing their view) and this is no doubt what that ex Nazi Youth chap, The Pope, must have been on about in his 'goodwill' speech when he asked his more moronic sheep to reject Reason and the forces of the Enlightenment and revert to runner's form of blind faith.

Runner, I am shocked to learn that you are only 15.

Do your parents know you are on this blog site?

I had a chum who lived in Kyogle and worked in the hospital there. All around the town there are (or were anyway) the sort of gormless ninnies who believe in crystal power and probably are the children of parents who read and believed Lobsang Rampa in their youth.

Whooping cough and other ailments were rife becuase 'faith' even when combined with the ultra magical mystical powers of crystals (to say nothing of tons of dope)simply do not cure anything, even a ham, which this stupid woman Chrys writes about must surely be.

The 'faith' hinterland (read, most of Qld and almost all of the Qld Govt)seem to be winning in the race to imbecility.

"combined with pressure from sponsors, including the Queensland government", now, that made me splutter and choke.

Including the Qld Govt?

So why, pray tell, are these idiots in the Qld Govt so intent on giving the Fiona Simpleton's of this world an upper hand in our public schools, with their promotion of ignorance via chaplains and RI?

Is there a 'wise man' in the Qld Govt somewhere, because there sure as Hell is no wise woman leading it?

Frankly, I would not be shocked to hear that Anna Bligh was as supportive of the non-science approach to medicine as she is to the non-educational approach to education.