Right: Some organisations, such as the "Australian Vaccination Network" claim that governments are working towards making vaccination for children compulsory. In fact, no state or federal government has such a law. In a recent case, it was left to the courts to decide on whether a child should be immunised, against the wishes of its parents. Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said. |
Further implications
All current research indicates that vaccinations are a highly effective means of protecting children from a large number of diseases. The issue is complicated by the fact that a small number of children have adverse reactions to vaccinations and that for an extremely small sub-set of children these adverse reactions can be serious.
There are a number of alternative medicine groups and parent lobbies that have taken an extreme position on vaccinations, judging, against the weight of scientific evidence, that the risk posed by vaccinations is too great to have children exposed to them. They argue that parents should be able to freely decide whether their children are vaccinated. Some of these groups, such as the Australian Vaccination Network, actively disseminate information seeking to demonstrate the dangers associated with vaccinations.
To this point no Australian government has tried to force parents to immunise their children. There are provisions in all states which indicate that children should have received all age-appropriate vaccinations before they start school; however, parents can be exempted from this obligation if they declare their conscientious objection to vaccinations. The same is true regarding the tax exemptions and child allowances that have been linked to the completion of all recommended childhood vaccination programs. Again parents can avoid these financial penalties if they declare their conscientious objection to vaccinations.
The prevailing view is that education is the best means of convincing parents of the need to have their children vaccinated. Indeed there are those who argue that to attempt to compel parents to have their children immunised would only consolidate opposition to the practice.
The fear that vaccinations will be made compulsory seems to be largely confined to the anti-vaccination groups. It is unclear whether their apparent belief in the likelihood of some legislative means to force their compliance is genuine or merely a way of fostering further opposition to childhood vaccinations.