Playgroups and unvaccinated children: Meryl Dorey wrong…again

I meant to write about this the other day; but, hey, it’s been busy.

Earlier last year, I wrote a post on the Skeptic Bros site: Reasons to get school disease exclusion information from your school, not the AVN. The post showed that Meryl Dorey and her Australian Vaccination Network cannot be trusted to provide information on school exclusion policies. That’s not really anything new. I struggle to find Dorey providing any accurate information; so, why start in schools? Hell, why even start in pre-schools? Hell, why even start in playgroups?

Here is a question posed on the AVN Facebook page in regard to immunisation status and playgroups; what can they do, or not?

Hi there, I recently went to join my 13 month old to our local playgroup. Upon reading the terms and conditions they have stated that any unvaccinated children will not be permitted to join. Can they do this? Thanks Kellie

Hey! Good question! This is, indeed, the sort of information young mums and dads need to know when embarking on their child’s organised group setting activities. This is a time when accurate information should be provided, by an organisation which prides itself on informed choice.

Here is Meryl Dorey’s reply:

Dammit, can you not get anything right?

Just once I would like Meryl Dorey to provide an accurate answer to a simple question.

Oh well, a patron of the Stop the AVN page did look it up. Here is what was found on the Playgroup Australia website:

Infectious disease outbreak

In the event of an infectious disease outbreak, unimmunised children could contract the disease and contribute to its spread. For the protection of their own health, these children may be excluded from attendance at Playgroup.

The Co-ordinator of the Playgroup must notify the Director of the Local Public Health Unit (listed under Health in the White Pages) of all cases of vaccine preventable diseases.

The decision to exclude children from Playgroup will be made by the Director of the Public Health Unit.

Seriously, Mrs Dorey: start researching before you offer information and make claims which show how much you don’t know. How do you know which children are “unimmunised”? You ask them on enrolment; that’s how. The Playgroup has a duty of care to “protect” unimmunised children. Remember that word: p-r-o-t-e-c-t. I know it’s foreign to anti-vaccinationists.

As a Saturday Night bonus, if anyone hasn’t seen this finding from the Australian Human Rights Commission, I suggest reading through the whole transcript. It shows how unvaccinated children can be excluded from enrolling in pre-school and childcare centres. It also shows how anti-vaccinationists cling to poor expert witnesses who like to show how wrong they are. It is also funny because Greg Beattie lost.