Michael Knapp • Sep 07, 2019 •
Earlier this week, my colleague Neil Gemmell released the results from his year-long hunt for the Loch Ness monster. As expected, the story attracted enormous media attention. Also, as expected, it attracted some criticism from fellow scientists pointing out how unnecessary it is to conduct such a large-scale experiment to find something that every sane person and certainly every … Read More
Alison Campbell • Sep 02, 2019 •
Pretty much everyone in NZ should be aware by now that the country is facing its biggest measles outbreak in years, with Counties Manukau being particularly hard-hit. Here’s the data for the week ending August 23rd, from ESR’s Public Health Surveillance page: This hasn’t stopped those opposed to vaccination plague enthusiasts pushing all their usual tropes, … Read More
Helen Petousis Harris • Aug 05, 2019 •
Authentic resistance appears to be a two woman army advocating that the body’s natural immune system is all that is required to keep healthy. They assert that parents must make an informed decision about vaccines based on information from the medical literature. On the latter point we agree. The Resistance is holding seminars around the country on “Informed consent and … Read More
Alison Campbell • Apr 30, 2019 •
We’re continuing to hear of new measles cases in New Zealand, most recently in this Stuff story about 4 new cases in Auckland (with the possibility that up to 1600 people may have been exposed). One of those ill with the disease is a 10-month-old child, too young to have received her first dose of the MMR vaccine. Completely predictably, … Read More
Guest Author • Mar 30, 2019 •
Jane Roberts Amid a growing tug-of-war between adherents of evidence-based immunisation practices and a roiling online subculture of suspicion, conspiracy, and misinformation related to vaccines, a beloved symbol of impartiality and free access to information — the public library — may now find itself at the centre of the scrum. Earlier this month, Hoopla — an … Read More
Sarah-Jane O'Connor • Mar 08, 2019 •
This week a new research paper concluded, again, that there is no link between the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine and autism. It almost seems mundane to report on, given we established many years ago that there was no such link and the persistent myth was based on fraudulent ‘research’. But as a friend and family member of people … Read More
Alison Campbell • Mar 06, 2019 •
A few years back, University of Wollongong student Judy Wilyman received a PhD for a thesis that claimed to offer a “critical analysis of the Australian government’s rationale for its vaccination policy.” Both the thesis, and the processes at Wollongong in relation to PhD study and examination, attracted a considerable amount of scrutiny and criticism (see here … Read More
Alison Campbell • Mar 05, 2019 •
One of the myths (and there are a lot of them) continually pushed by those opposed to vaccination, is that “the MMR vaccine causes autism” – often coupled with claims that “there are no studies comparing the health of vaccinated & unvaccinated children”. (That’s another myth, by the way.) The origins of this claim can be laid squarely … Read More
Alison Campbell • Mar 02, 2019 •
Measles is making a come-back on the global stage (Madagascar, the Philippines, Japan, Europe, and the US). And, sadly, this vaccine-preventable disease is popping up again in New Zealand: most recently in the Waikato, Christchurch, Dunedin, and now Auckland. New Zealand, like the US, hasn’t had ‘home-grown’ cases of measles … Read More
Alison Campbell • Feb 01, 2019 •
A couple of days ago Newsroom published an article about smallpox, by Farah Hancock. It’s a very good story that covers the nature of smallpox and the history of efforts to develop a vaccine for this particularly nasty disease. And it’s the first of a science-based series about vaccines. Smallpox is a disease that’s extinct in the wild, with … Read More