- Also this one, http://www.ncirs.edu.au/immunisation/fact-sheets/homeopathy-vaccination-fact-sheet.pdf - Sharon
- Carole/m I hope you can convince her to watch the show tonight. Also see this article from the Guardian in the UK. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/15/homeopathy-measles-mp - Sharon
- Interesting discussion. When one in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer by age 85 and 125,000 cases of cancer will be diagnosed this year, surely the discussion must change. - Sandy
- Oh I get it now, I read all your texts. You're insane! There's a consistent theme of paranoia and extreme anger in your writing. All the best for the future. - Kel
- Michaela that's awesome! Mind if I borrow? - Prue
- When travelling through Eastern Europe by myself, if things got a bit hairy or the old lemon of homesickness bit I would repeat (sometimes out loud): 'You can go home if you're desperate but you're not dead and you've got a credit card'. I managed to stay my allocated 4 month stay and had the time of my life. - Prue
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- Thank you Sharon , you've confirmed what I thought , what a worry . I believe in immunisation and have tried , carefully , to convince her of the dreadful consequences of Polio , Hooping Cough and TB etc but she insists that her children are protected . Maybe I can convince her to watch tonights show . - Carole/m
- Hi DP, it may not be a case of laying blame on the basis of whether an individual has or has not been vaccinated. What the community does as a whole appears to be more important. It seems that the rate at which a disease spreads through a community is determined by the proportion of the population that has been vaccinated. The situation where most of the community are immune to an infection is apparently called 'herd immunity'. 'This situation provides some protection to any people who are not immune as there is less opportunity for the infection to spread.' (http://www0.health.nsw.gov.au/PublicHealth/Infectious/whoopingcough/facts.asp; http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/2/07-040089/en/) Apparently the level of 'herd immunity' (the proportion of the population this has immunity) required depends on the nature of the infectious disease and whether it is viral or bacterial. If you believe medical researchers, the herd immunity threshold for pertussis (whooping cough) requires 92-94% of the population to be immunised whereas measles requires 83-94% immunisation. (http://www.who.int/vaccine_research/documents/WHE_Smith_presentation.pdf) Reaching that level of immunisation is a big ask in today's Australia. Alice Smith neatly encapsulates the dilemma: "I hate the idea of vaccinations and believe they can be harmful individually but we are part of a community and as such, we have responsibilities to each other, so my son’s vaccinations are up to date. I believe that immunisation benefits the community as a whole and am very thankful and full of admiration for the selfless contribution of Australians like Alice to the health of us all. - Matilda
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