Stephanie Messenger: childhood infectious disease advocate

Every now and then something pops into my inbox which is such an affront to ethics, reason, and public health that I’m not sure how to address it. The best thing to do, I figure, is to highlight it. This is one of those times.

Stephanie Messenger is an anti-vaccination zealot from Queensland. She is currently giving seminars under the banner of “informed choice” information (red flag right there).

Messenger has written a book. A book for children:

Melanie’s Marvellous Measles

a children’s story

written byStephanie Messenger

This book takes children aged 4 – 10 years on a journey of discovering about the ineffectiveness of vaccinations, while teaching them to embrace childhood disease, heal if they get a disease, and build their immune systems naturally.

This thing doesn’t so much need debunking as outing. Measles can be deadly. Recent outbreaks in Australia, the US, and New Zealand are all traced back to unvaccinated individuals. The overwhelming majority of those infected are unvaccinated or undervaccinated individuals. In Europe there have been several deaths this year alone.

Stephanie Messenger is a friend and colleague of Meryl Dorey and her Australian Vaccination Network. Dorey and Messenger have co-written a book together:

For a concise run down on Messenger and her anti-vaccination colleagues, see the excellent Antivaxxers site here and here.

Anti-vaccination advocates are a threat to the health of our children. Speak up about the risks they pose due to their dishonesty, ineptitude, and their incessant refusal to acknowledge facts. Counter them whenever and wherever you see them. They are a public health menace.

Update January 6 2012

Meryl Dorey is selling this book in her online shop.