Guest Author • Nov 18, 2020 •
Barbara Allen, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Michael Macaulay, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The world was ablaze with hope following the announcement last week that a vaccine developed by Pfiser and BioNTech may be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19. New Zealand politicians were quick to … Read More
Alison Campbell • Jul 08, 2019 •
New Zealand’s measles outbreak keeps on ticking along. So do the media stories about it. (The FB posts associated with each article aren’t moderated and I suspect this is partly because they generate so many clicks.) A couple of days ago, TVNZ’s Breakfast show carried an interview with a doctor, on the importance of Gardasil, a vaccine that … Read More
Alison Campbell • May 09, 2019 •
UNICEF estimates that in the period 2010-2017, 169 million children missed their first dose of the measles vaccine – that’s around 21 million children each year. Sadly, this has simply set the conditions for the measles outbreaks we’re seeing around the world, in high- and low-income countries alike. In the first three months of 2019, more than 110,000 measles … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Mar 05, 2019 •
Researchers are pounding the trail of the genetics of autism. There is also more evidence that vaccines don’t cause autism. More interesting is what does cause autism. (Those looking for the vaccine bit should track down to the section, Another nail on the coffin.) Not the Rain Man People with autism or autism spectrum disorder find social communication and … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Jan 29, 2019 •
For new parents or parents-to-be the wildly different opinions about vaccines must be very confusing. This one’s for you. It’s also for people who pass on vaccine messages to their parent or parent-to-be friends. (If you’re concerned about the apparent length of this article, the main body of the article is short.) Half of all parents with small children … Read More
Alison Campbell • Jan 17, 2019 •
You read that right. Vaccine hesitancy – “the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines” – is viewed by the World Health Organisation as one of the top 10 health threats we face in 2019. And worse, that hesitancy will have an effect on other threats in that top 10 list. Ebola and the potential … Read More
Guest Author • Apr 03, 2018 •
Phoebe Roth, The Conversation This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Children with autism and their younger siblings are less likely to be fully vaccinated than neurotypical children and their siblings, new research from the US has found. Of children aged seven years and older, 94% of neurotypical children had … Read More
Alison Campbell • Mar 13, 2018 •
One of the things that’s become quite obvious, in the various anti-vax comments that I’ve followed and responded to on line, is that people with ‘alt’ views have very firm ideas on what constitutes ‘the truth’. And it’s not something that mainstream organisations, authorities, or scienceA are seen as offering. And so (on a new UNICEF New Zealand post) we see: … Read More
Alison Campbell • Mar 07, 2018 •
Back in mid-February, UNICEF NZ posted a piece on the importance of vaccines. Shortly thereafter, the comments thread had been overrun by anti-vaccination pro-disease activists. (I have to say, I’m really impressed with the person who does UNICEF’s social media. Talk about grace and dignity under fire!) This seems to happen every time a story about vaccine-preventable disease hits the … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Nov 23, 2017 •
It’s time to move regulation of genetic modification forward. The current set-up is temporary and unsound. We use a risk-based approach for almost everything because that’s what makes sense. But New Zealand takes an arbitrary approach to genetic modification. So we ‘ban’ a technique that evidence shows there is no special risk in using. That poor logic plays to a vocal … Read More