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Education Medicine Australia Science

Australia To Ban Unvaccinated Children From Preschool (newscientist.com) 281

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: No-jab, no play. So says the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who has announced that unvaccinated children will be barred from attending preschools and daycare centers. Currently, 93 percent of Australian children receive the standard childhood vaccinations, including those for measles, mumps and rubella, but the government wants to lift this to 95 percent. This is the level required to stop the spread of infectious disease and to protect children who are too young to be immunized or cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. Childcare subsidies have been unavailable to the families of unvaccinated children since January 2016, and a version of the new "no jab, no play" policy is already in place in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Other states and territories only exclude unvaccinated children from preschools during infectious disease outbreaks. The proposed policy is based on Victoria's model, which is the strictest. It requires all children attending childcare to be fully immunized, unless they have a medical exemption, such as a vaccine allergy.
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Australia To Ban Unvaccinated Children From Preschool

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  • GOOD. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @07:56PM (#54047943)

    Wonderful. Good on ya, Australia. Outside of very uncommon medical situations, there is no damn reason for anything less than this. It's a goddamn embarrassment that there are fracking measles outbreaks in the 21st goddamn century, much less that they're getting larger and occurring with increased frequency.

    Vaccines save lives. Full stop.

    • Re:GOOD. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @09:36PM (#54048425)

      The best thing about this comment? It is both completely true and delightful idiot bait.

      Come forth! Reveal your ignorance! Bask in your self-righteous stupidity! Expose your selfishness to the world!

      Vaccines save lives. Are they perfect? NOTHING is perfect. But they're damn good.

      Your risk of a SEVERE vaccine reaction is still FAR LESS than your risk of "rare" complications of the infections they protect against.

      And just for disclosures sake, my child JUST got her MMR and chickenpox today. And it's a relief, since I actually have to worry about these diseases now, thanks to the jerkoffs raging about how they "don't work" or moaning about "adverse reactions."

      You want an adverse reaction, you selfish bastards? How about pneumonia from measles? How about measles encephalitis or meningitis? How about sterility from mumps?

      NONE of that happens with the vaccines. And if it wasn't for people like you (yes, you. You know exactly who you are) Measles and Mumps would be in the next best thing to the ash-heap of history.

      Vaccines save lives. Even more importantly, they protect against profound injury and disability.

      Get your damn kids vaccinated, cowards.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 )

        You want an adverse reaction, you selfish bastards? How about pneumonia from measles? How about measles encephalitis or meningitis?

        Go on....

        How about sterility from mumps?

        Dammit. Way to undermine your entire point.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        We need to do more to protect children's rights and not allow their parents to harm them or put them at unnecessary risk. Too many libertarian/conservative types are adamant that they should be able to do what they like to their children, but the child's rights should come first.

        They get vaccines.
        They get a good, secular education.
        No genital mutilation, male or female.
        Access to medical care, regardless of parent's religious beliefs (e.g. contraception, blood transfusions).

        • They get a good, secular education.

          And thats the problem right there. Public schools in a lot of places are not good, and they are only secular in that the religion they teach doesnt have a god.

          • Protip: if it doesn't have a god then IT ISN'T A RELIGION, you definition-mangling moron. Unless, of course, you're claiming that public schools are teaching the explicitly nontheistic varieties of Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., but I really doubt you are.
    • Re:GOOD. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by flopsquad ( 3518045 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @09:41PM (#54048445)
      This.

      As a parent, I get how easy it is to be absolutely paralyzed by fear of $everyBadThingEver happening to your child. I still have no sympathy for those who subject their own children and everyone else's to the very real threat of deadly, preventable diseases because of thoroughly discredited nonsense.

      You're not allowed to put uranium in your kid's lunchbox because you mistakenly believe it emits Healing Jesus Waves; you shouldn't be able to send your kid to school with (even the potential of) active measles virus because you mistakenly believe the not-mercury in vaccines is going to give her autism.

      Your freedom to believe post-truth pseudoscience bullshit ends at the point where it endangers my child's safety.
  • Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kqs ( 1038910 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @07:59PM (#54047955)

    This is a great idea. I'm sad that kids with stupid parents cannot get into school, but it's not worth risking all of the other kids, especially those who cannot get the vaccine due to medical reasons.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @08:11PM (#54048013)

      This is a great idea. I'm sad that kids with stupid parents cannot get into school

      This is to do with day care for pre-schoolers, I don't think we are at the stage where we are going to stop kids attending school. Even the link in the above story to the Australian Anti-Vaccination Network --a link to the AVN ... FFS editors, how about here [vic.gov.au] instead?! --doesn't make that claim.

      The Federal policy in force at the moment is the "no jab, no pay" policy, meaning that parents of unimmunised children are not eligible for childcare related tax rebates etc.

      • by nbauman ( 624611 )

        This is to do with day care for pre-schoolers

        That's the right policy because the important vaccinations must be given long before school age.

    • This is a great idea. I'm sad that kids with stupid parents cannot get into school,...

      Ironically enough, the anti-vax crowd are the people most in need of education. This is basically prohibiting dumb people from going to school.
    • Well hopefully this is just a step along the way. IMO, parents who refuse to get their kids vaccinated for anything other than a legitimate medical reason should be treated no differently than parents who try to treat their kid's meningitis with prayer beads and homeopathic "remedies"... it's neglect and therefore child services should step in and force the issue. Your right to hold ridiculous views ends where it puts your child and others at a serious risk of easily preventable harm. And "religious" exempt
  • I'm unsure banning children of uneducated parent is the best course of action...

    • by GumphMaster ( 772693 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @08:11PM (#54048015)
      This is not a ban from primary or secondary schools, only pre-school and day-care facilities where the concentration of children with less developed immunity is high.
      • Around here kids are banned from school(primary and secondary) if they don't have up to date immunization records, or a reasonable reason to why they're not immunized(i.e. severe reactions). Considering the absolute shit that happened a few years back with multiple measles, mumps and rubella, not to mention whooping cough outbreaks, it's nothing but a good option.

        If there'd been a chickenpox vaccine when I was a kid, I would have taken it. 2 weeks of absolute shit, and it nearly killed my one sister(who spent 6mo in ICU). All because some little shit stain and their parents decided that it was a good idea to have their kid out in public while infectious.

        • Around here kids are banned from school(primary and secondary) if they don't have up to date immunization records, or a reasonable reason to why they're not immunized(i.e. severe reactions). Considering the absolute shit that happened a few years back with multiple measles, mumps and rubella, not to mention whooping cough outbreaks, it's nothing but a good option.

          Having contracted whooping cough after herd immunity went away, about 8 years ago. I can say with authority that if you can do anything to avoid watching your child whoop, lose consciousness and die right before your eyes of an easily avoidable illness, you better do it. Because if you don't, you're complicit in their death.

          Damn near killed me. and the whoops had a nasty tendency to happen when I was all alone. They hit whenyou are at the bottom of a breathing cycle, and the whole world actually turns ki

        • What's happened? I actually agree with one of your posts! This is all very strange.

        • All because some little shit stain and their parents decided that it was a good idea to have their kid out in public while infectious.

          Is this speculation on your part, or do you know this for a fact?

          Because chickenpox can be contagious before [cdc.gov] you show any symptom.

          1. Chickenpox can sneak in without any symptoms. You may be contagious even before you know you have chickenpox. But, the time you are most contagious is probably the first few days after the "pox" appear.

    • I would prefer to ban uneducated parents, myself, but policing it would be a nightmare.
      • by hoofie ( 201045 ) <(mickey) (at) (mouse.com)> on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @09:25PM (#54048379)
        It's not uneducated parents that are the problem. It's a lot of middle-class mothers who are totally convinced by the pseudo-science and rubbish that's peddled on the internet and by "Wellness" gurus. Australia seems to be infested with them.

        Someone [abc.net.au] has just been hammered for this.

        The Paleo Diet [wikipedia.org] is alive and well here, pushed by a chef who somehow has become a dietary-science expert and made a mint from pushing books [sbs.com.au] that contain dangerous pseudo-diets.

        We also seem to be very susceptible to charlatans spruiking special-cancer treatments that do nothing but give false hope, drain someone's bank account and leaves them dead quicker.
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          "It's a lot of middle-class mothers who are totally convinced by the pseudo-science and rubbish"

          You're being far more charitable than called for.
          I think many of these parents fully understand the risks involved, but have chosen the selfish path.

          If you shield your child from vaccinations you shield them from the low risk of vaccine related complications (which in rare cases can be very serious). Given the very low risk that your child will be exposed to the more serious diseases these vaccines protect again

          • I think many of these parents fully understand the risks involved

            You clearly haven't met these people. Here let me provide you a thought process:

            "There is no risk of infection because
            a) herd immunity,
            b) my daughters diet of kale, avocado, and unicorn piss makes her immune,
            c) you can never believe doctors as they are in the pockets of big pharma,
            d) yes of course I know what big pharma means,
            e) what do you mean I'm talking crap, you clearly don't understand. Maybe you should do a sugar detox because detoxing helps your brain and reduces the risk of cancer too.

    • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @09:41PM (#54048443) Homepage Journal

      In my experience it's not necessarily uneducated parents. Uneducated parents, if they have access to a pediatrician, are apt to follow his or her advice. It's educated parents who question, and the miseducated ones question and come up with bad answers.

      What we are looking at in the anti-vaxxer movement is Emersonian self-reliance run amok. We've succeeded in teaching a generation not to put blind trust in authority figures, but without an interest in STEM for its own sake and with limited critical thinking skills, they have no choice but to turn to alternative authorities, individuals who embody everything that should be feared in an authority: deviousness, venality and ruthlessness.

    • by dbIII ( 701233 )
      Since it's pre-school that's kind of irrelevant. It's a place to park children and a play group not a school.
      • > Since it's pre-school that's kind of irrelevant. It's a place to park children and a play group not a school.

        I've seen some very good pre-schools working with normal kids to help socialize them in ways that modern, smaller families who keep changing neighborhoods find very difficult. I've also seen them do invaluable work with children with learning or physical disabilities, and with children whose parents are struggling to make ends meet and can't themselves provide the variety of supervised outings a

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )
          Perhaps true in some cases but not exactly essential is it? The older posters here would have never been to a pre-school when they were young, and probably a pile of the newer ones as well.
          As blunt instrument attempted social engineering goes it's mostly harmless.
    • by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      Perhaps they should just require the parents to go through school again, seeing as how it didn't seem to stick the first time.
  • I'm 100% fine with this. I did my job, made my kids cry and took the 0.001% chance for the safety of the community. You can't be bothered? Fuck you.
  • Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @08:29PM (#54048079) Homepage
    In my Grandparents' generation, the recruiting posters said, "your country needs you" and people signed up to fight in a *war* to protect their families and communities, and many of those people didn't come back. Now we simply ask that you get a couple tiny jabs to protect your family and community from some of the most terrible diseases imaginable, and people think there's too much risk. Yes, there's a *tiny* risk, but you still choose to drive little Johnny all over town to soccer practices and birthday parties, putting your precious cargo at far higher risk of death from a car accident than any risk from the vaccine, and then there's the fact that your child is now much more likely to get those diseases. It's literally ridiculous.
  • Critical thinking (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dschnur ( 61074 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @08:58PM (#54048243)
    I'm one of those *few* parents who had a child that was allergic and could not be vaccinated against one of the more virulent diseases. Fortunately, when she was older she outgrew that allergy and is now current on all her vaccinations. As a parent, sending my daughter to school where others CHOSE to not vaccinate their children thereby risking exposing mine to something nasty was a hard thing to do. I felt like I was living in the dark ages where being a part of any group could be anywhere from bad to a death sentence.

    We might say that the parents who decide not to do the right thing are simply "dumb," or, as I called them, "*(!^*(&^!*%**'s." Time has taught me otherwise. In the US and elsewhere, many people aren't taught or don't remember basic scientific method. They have no idea what the difference is between doubting what they have been told, and actually engaging in critical, productive, thinking. STEM is important, but perhaps we should require those who can't handle it to take something more akin to STEM lite. Barring that, penalties for parents who refuse to take care of *OTHER PEOPLES CHILDREN* shouldn't be frowned upon. IMHO.
    • Teaching history would also help.
    • by bazorg ( 911295 )

      hi. How did you find out about the allergy? Was it from the first vaccine in the schedule, through other testing, or does it run in the family?

      • by dschnur ( 61074 )
        Without going in to too much detail, she had a bad reaction to the cake at her first birthday party. Allergy screening showed several *strong* reactions to what counted. About 10% of kids who react that way outgrow it by high school. We were lucky.
  • I homeschool my kids. I also vaccinate them.

    I couldn't care less what requirements public education has, here or elsewhere. Just don't make me pay twice to educate my kids and stop letting local politicians be selfish bastards about public resources. The local park won't let a group of homeschooling parents setup a PE program w/o paying a $500/year annual fee for park permit....yet the public school kids get to throw everyone off part of the park during school hours.

  • I finally have an excuse to punch kids in the face at the local preschool playground! "Excuse me officer but does the school not have a policy of 'no jab, no play'?" At which point I know they'll see reason and begin punching the children too. ;)

  • by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Thursday March 16, 2017 @09:49AM (#54050815)

    This is basic "social contract" stuff. Your part of the contract is that you expose your children to the very small risk that they will have an unfavourable reaction to being vaccinated. In return, you get to participate in all the things society provides: schooling, day care, playgrounds, theatres, etc.

    I would never dream of forcing parents to vaccinate their children. But if that's their choice, they shouldn't get all the good stuff that goes along with fulfilling their part of the social contract, either.

    In fact, I'd even go a step further. If it could be proved that somebody who had no choice about being vaccinated suffered because they were exposed directly or indirectly to a child whose parents chose not to vaccinate, those parents should be held legally responsible.

    • This is also why America, and probably other countries, already have funds and procedures in place to compensate people who do, indeed, have the ever-so-rare actual complications from the vaccine.

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