A recent study of medical students and residents found they were reluctant to engage with parents who have vaccination fears. But listening to parents is important.
Olena Yakobchuck/Shutterstock.com
A recent study suggests that shunning parents who are reluctant to vaccinate their kids isn’t the best strategy. A better strategy might be old-fashioned, but it works.
The plan to withhold payments of child-care and family tax benefits for unvaccinated children could cost non-compliant parents up to A$15,000 a year. But is it ethical to punish parents?
Armed conflict remains the major obstacle to ridding the world of this devastating disease.
James Gordon, Los Angeles.
As if the children of Syria had not suffered enough, the news of an outbreak of polio (poliomyelitis) signals that even more suffering lies ahead. The polio virus invades the nervous system and can kill…
Despite the availability of a safe, effective vaccine, measles outbreaks continue to occur throughout the world.
CDC/Wikimedia Commons
New South Wales has become the latest Australian state to issue an alert about a measles outbreak, joining Victoria and Queensland. Queensland’s chief health officer has even written directly to parents…
Too much urging can backfire and entrench some parents’ opposition to vaccination.
Flickr/skippytpe
Dr Seuss’ book Green Eggs and Ham is built around the urgings of a weird creature, Sam I Am, who insists the narrator eat the food of its title. When the narrator refuses, Sam issues an ever-widening range…
There is no truth to claims that immunisations cause autism, brain damage or sudden infant death syndrome.
theloushe
When I was an infant I had whooping cough and was ill for three months. I don’t remember it, of course, but I know it was very distressing for my parents. I do remember later trips with my researcher father…
Interbreeding by modern humans with Neanderthals may have helped boost Homo sapiens’ immunity.
Flickr/JacobEnos
Homo sapiens mated with their ancient human counterparts, including Neanderthals, and helped improve the modern human immune system in the process, according to a new study. Researchers from the Stanford…
Chiropractors may be good at what they do but immunisation is not their field.
Planetc1/Flickr
The publication by Australian Doctor of a controversial public lecture given earlier this year by Sydney chiropractor, Nimrod Weiner, has created a flurry of criticism about the lecture, particularly regarding…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand