I've read through the comments so far to see if there were any substantive objections to your eminently sensible article. The only thing that held up as a possible issue is the notion that we may be at some risk from travellers, refugees and other individuals who are participants in the more global social world of our current times. I also remember the days when measles, chicken pox, etc. were normal experiences of primary school age children, with no great social impact. If anyone died of measles in those days it was certainly not generally known, and by deduction VERY uncommon. Modern medicine would seem capable of preventing even that. Yes, I have noted the so-called 'anecdotal' frequency with which children who were fine and healthy suddenly acquired mysterious and hard to describe maladies and some kind or other of general malaise immediately after vaccination. We also have NO IDEA of how many children experience 'developmental delay' or adult diminished potential as a result of vaccination.(A similar argument holds for animals, who have even less capacity to register impairment than people, and whose vaccines are subject to even less regulatory oversight). I therefore think that the cautious approach is a lot safer not only for the individual child but also for the general level of population well-being. I suspect that mass vaccinations, as distinct from vaccination of those at particular risk may be a function of the economics of the vaccination producing pharmaceutical companies.

Freddington, vaccines aren't 100 percent effective, so it is possible to catch a disease even if vaccinated, although the percentage of vaccinated people who do so is much much lower than the percentage of unvaccinated people. There are also children with severely compromised immune systems who need the protection of community herd immunity to be safe.

thanks Sophia for informing us of the very inconclusive science on this one. Certainly the so called climate 'scientist ' as well as evolutionist have shown how dishonest some 'scientist ' can be.

Sophie Love,

I'm fascinated at your advocating "....firmer vaccination protocols for travellers, in order to protect those innocent and developing immune systems."

So you advocate vaccination to protect our children from outsiders, yet you claim all is fine is we don't bother to vaccinate within our own borders.

It's all very well to say that diphtheria is eradicated in this or that country - how do you think that came about?

Measles "was' pretty much shown the door before Dr Wakefield got in on the act in the UK.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/05/22/the-legacy-of-andrew-wakefield-continues/

Going from a few dozen cases to 2,000 in 2012 and already 1,200 cases this year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/years-after-scare-linked-measles-shot-to-autism-unprotected-uk-children-drive-measles-spread/2013/05/20/73f4ac2a-c134-11e2-9aa6-fc21ae807a8a_story.html

The one that I find most outrageous is small babies and whooping cough. I takes vaccination at 2,4, and 6 months before a baby is sufficiently protected Many babies contract this disease before they have had the chance to be fully vaccinated.

It's all very well to say it's not 100 percent and perhaps being exposed to these diseases at parties was once fashionable - but a tiny baby at risk from whooping cough may well lose the battle for life while "boosting" its immune system - same goes for children and the deadly disease of measles.

runner

Science? I'm curious, where do you think Sophie made any reference to science? In fact, basically all she says is that because some of the diseases haven't been sighted in Aus for some time we should stop vaccinating babies against them. She doesn't stop to think that there haven't been any new cases because the vaccinations have been maintained.

Then she puts forward her own theories about babies should have their immune systems toughened by being exposed to more diseases.. This is a line of thought similar to those who suggest that cleaner modern environments explain the rise of asthma. So are we going to recreate the smoke filled air of cities when every living room had its own fireplace to reduce the incidence of one disease? Sophie is welcome to her views, but she is not welcome to put them into practice if it puts the rest of the community at risk..

I can't believe this drivel.

Diseases require a population pool to survive and mutate; with an increasing number of self-absorbed nitwits not vaccinating that pool is provided and diseases which are effectively dormant, not extinct, can revive and mutate beyond the parameters of the vaccinated restraint.

Most vaccinations provide a high probability within a population pool that most of the people will no longer catch a disease which has been vaccinated against in the population pool. There will still be a slight chance, 1-5%, that a vaccinated person would catch the disease but if all people within the pool are immunised then there is no chance of that small chance occurring.

It would require an external introduction of the disease or a group of people within the vaccinated group not being vaccinated for the disease to get a leg-up again.

In my opinion people who don't vaccinate should be treated as potential carriers of disease and treated as such.

As for this complete bs about toughening children up by exposing them to diseases; this is just Lamarckism. Noone unvaccinated is resistant to these diseases; all that differs from person to person is a variation in the reaction to the disease. You can't toughen a genetic predetermined predisposition through exposure. In fact a vaccination is a controlled exposure to the disease which is designed to prevent the possibility of the worst reaction from occurring.

This article and the attitude behind it are just rubbish.