Grant Jacobs • Nov 25, 2019 •
The Ministry of Health has announced that “people under the age of 50 travelling from New Zealand to Samoa, Tonga, Philippines and Fiji” are now on the list of national priorities for MMR vaccination. Given the outbreaks of measles in Samoa, Tonga, Philippines and Fiji, the Ministry of Health is asking primary care providers to ensure vaccinations are up-to-date … Read More
Eric Crampton • Nov 07, 2019 •
The National Party has come out in support of encouraging greater vaccination uptake. But it sure isn’t the way I’d do it. National’s suggested docking the benefits of those on benefit whose kids aren’t keeping up with their vaccinations. Some in National have suggested extending that to payments under Working for Families, but that appears more controversial. We can go … Read More
Eric Crampton • Oct 31, 2019 •
Paternalism is contentious. Arguments for state action to protect us from ourselves are fraught. I come down pretty heavily on the anti-paternalism side of the argument, but I’ve heard respectable defences of paternalism. But policy around vaccination is hardly paternalistic. There’s a clear market failure that could be pointed to in any sound Regulatory Impact Statement. In a place with … Read More
Alison Campbell • Oct 22, 2019 •
A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to a health-related FB page that had published a post from a homeopathist, offering homeopathic “vaccination”¹ against measles (using something called a “Morbillinum nosode” at a “potency” of 200C, which I’ll explain shortly). I followed the link, left a comment asking for evidence that this actually, you know, works, & … Read More
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