IMMUNISATION rates in the Bega Valley Shire are well below other areas of the State.
With recent outbreaks of whooping cough and cases of other preventable childhood diseases in the local area, doctors and health professionals say this is a worrying trend.
Data from the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR) shows that while the vast majority of local children receive their birth-to-12 months vaccinations, a growing number do not complete the immunisation program.
The number of fully immunised four-year-olds in the Bega area is now at 84 per cent, compared with the NSW average of 89 per cent.
Southern NSW Local Health Network director public health Tracey Oakman said the high drop-off rate after 12 months could be attributed to parental apathy or fear created by popular vaccination myths.
These myths are centred around the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine, which is first given at one-year-old.
In 1998, British doctor Andrew Wakefield published a study in respected medical journal The Lancet, claiming to have found a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
This article and the alarm it caused led to a rapid decline in vaccination rates world-wide.
Then last year, after the longest medical investigation in history, the General Medical Council found Mr Wakefield guilty of “dishonesty and misconduct” and banned him from practicing medicine in Britain.
Mr Wakefield’s research into the MMR vaccine was shown to be deliberately fraudulent, containing serious medical and ethical breeches, and subsequent studies have failed to find any link between vaccination and autism.
But, Ms Oakman said, his legacy is still with us.
“Tragically, that article has done an awful lot of damage,” she said.
“Measles kills around 150,000 people a year worldwide, mostly children under five, it is currently spreading through Sydney at an alarming rate and we recently saw a case in Bega.
“The complications of measles include encephalitis (brain inflammation), pneumonia, ear infections and, in rare cases, SSPE (Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis) which is always fatal.”
Ms Oakman said recent outbreaks of whooping cough in Bega should also serve as a reminder that young children are particularly vulnerable to complications from preventable disease.
“One in 200 babies under six-months of age who contracts whooping cough dies,” she said.
“Although the whooping cough vaccine is only 88 per cent effective, compared with a 99.9 per cent efficacy rate of the measles vaccine, children who are vaccinated tend to get a milder dose of the disease.”
Ms Oakman said we live in an age of international transport and the belief that we in the first world are out of the reach of serious diseases is dangerously misguided.
“These diseases do exist, they can be extremely dangerous and vaccination is the single-most effective defence we have against them, more important even than clean water.
“Of course, parents have the right not to vaccinate but most simply don’t want to take that risk.”
Bega naturopath and mother of three, Rian Smith, is one of the growing number of parents who have made the decision not to immunise her children.
“I am a conscientious objector,” Ms Smith said.
“Vaccination may have a role in developing countries, but we live in a country with good sanitation and nutrition so our immune function should be adequate.
“The danger of immunisation is that we are telling our bodies, ‘I am going to do your job’, which suppresses our natural response to the disease.”
Ms Smith said all three of her children had contracted whooping cough and she had not been overly concerned.
“Statistically, it’s a very small percentage of children who die,” she said.
“Part of being human is that we have to deal with adversity, whether it’s cars on the road or extreme weather events, and I knew that (whooping cough) was boosting their immune system.
“It may sound harsh, but the reality is that people are going to get sick and some people are going to die – that’s life.
“We travelled as a family through Thailand and Vietnam and none of our kids ever got sick over there.”
But Bega GP Dr Duncan McKinnon said parents who chose not to vaccinate were relying on “herd immunity” to protect their children.
“Herd immunity means that enough members of the population are vaccinated to protect those who aren’t vaccinated because the diseases are being successfully controlled,” Dr McKinnon said.
“However, this relies on a high percentage of people being immunised and, as that percentage falls, our immunity as a society naturally decreases.”
Dr McKinnon said complacency and skepticism towards immunisation had arisen because serious disease was no longer part of many people’s day-to-day experience.
“At the moment, most people don’t see the effects of Polio, Rubella, Measles and Tetanus but these viruses are still out there.
“Having been a doctor for 25 years I have had some patients with polio, I’ve seen the complications of measles and I’ve recently seen several children with life-threatening whooping cough, one a six-week-old.
“This is a democracy and we have to respect people’s rights, but seeing children suffering from completely avoidable diseases is soul destroying.”
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