Just in.*
On August 12 2013, in this term’s election cycle, anti-vaccination crusader and leader of the anti-vaccination Australian Vaccination Network, laid down her template for the future; a challenge to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, if you will:
Given that Dorey has been a successful and formidable protagonist for legislative change, this was not a challenge at which any Opposition Leader should sniff. Dorey is a juggernaut. She has successfully changed the Health Care Complaints Act, so that unpalatable health practices are now more easily held to account. And she has successfully changed Section 11 of the Associations Incorporation Act 2009, as to what constitutes an appropriate name for NGOs and charities, making it easier to demand inappropriate organisation names to be changed. This is not a person to be ignored.
Well, today, the Opposition Leader has been forced to act on Dorey’s challenge, From the Daily Telegraph:
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott said he supported the Government’s tougher stance on vaccination “in principle”.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised to strip parents who refuse to vaccinate their children of family payments worth more than $2000.
Mr Abbott, like Mr Rudd, had no choice but to accept the inevitable change to legislation, based on the previous successes of Meryl Dorey.
*Yes, it’s basically a copypaste of this post from this morning.
Wow, how much more win can there possibly be?
Well, it’s good to see that Meryl can influence political bipartisanship ….hehe!
So that’s the Greens, Labor and Liberals all raining on her parade. I can feel the angst from here. Loading persecution claims in 3 , 2, 1.
The religious exemption is still a concern. We’ve already seen the zealots flocking to some hastily assembled cardboard cutout church to register their faith in the almighty Dorey and her doctrine of public health damnation haven’t we?
That exemption needs to be overthrown, as religiously proscribed genital mutilation has been.
Religion? Bewdy! Let’s get started. If ANY party is looking for savings to fund a campaign promise, please, please, please end the ALL of the various ways religions benefit from the tax rules.
That would fly as well as a leaden balloon, Doug.
The very first words out of the various churches leaders mouths would be, “We’re now taxing a fundamental human right?!”
Of course, in the US, the discussion would then get downright zany, complete with threats of secession and armed rebellion.
That said, we, the sane in the US (all three of us ) just sit back and laugh at the ensuing comedy and *wish* the idiots would take up arms. It wouldn’t last long and the proportion of sane to insane in the populace would rise in favor of sanity in true Darwinian fashion.
Sorry folks, I’m in a rather dark mood today. I had to tell my father six times last night that my mother won’t be coming in from work, as she died a dozen years ago. I’d have rather masturbated with a cheese grater than have that task.
It’s long been said that “Nothing succeeds like success”. I’ve even found it true that “Nothing succeeds like excess”.
It’s new and in this case, welcome, to learn that nothing succeeds like abject failure.
Is she available to represent the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and my county in regards to my property taxes?
If she is, this property will be tax exempt for a thousand years.
But what is Julian saying?
The existence of unimmunised children has given rise to concerns that children in some communities are at risk of contracting diseases such as measles and whooping cough.
“The science cannot be disputed,” Mr Rudd said.
“Immunisation is the safest and most effective way for parents to protect their children from disease, and one of the most important public health measures at our disposal.”
And yet, religious faith is considered an appropriate reason to ignore the indisputable science, threaten public health and put your child at risk of contracting diseases such as measles and whooping cough. How does this still happen in the 21st century?
“And yet, religious faith is considered an appropriate reason to ignore the indisputable science, threaten public health and put your child at risk of contracting diseases such as measles and whooping cough. ”
The number of recognized religions that have prohibitions against immunization are vanishingly small. Indeed, the largest majority of those claiming religious prohibition are lying through their teeth.
For those who do have *valid* religious objections, their numbers are small enough that herd immunity would protect all, including those misguided souls.
The problem really is those who lie about their religious objection as an easy out from conforming to the law. That is something that could be easily fixed, but would be considered politically incorrect due to freedom of religion, identification of religion, etc.
My concern is that the government will allow someone to claim an exemption if their personal unscientific philosophy leaves them opposed to vaccination, but only if that philosophy is driven by belief in a deity of some kind.
I can’t see how an irrational fear of toxins in vaccines, or a tendency toward a conspiratorial mindset – both based on things the believer accepts as evidence – is any less of a valid reason to ignore the facts and put your child and community at risk than a similarly irrational belief in a metaphysical patriarch.
It’s not so much about the numbers as the message.
Regrettably, that *is* where it stands now in the US and from what I’ve been able to gather from afar, Australia. Rather than checking what a particular sect accepts as prohbitions, the politically correct and least effort path is followed of letting any flake say that their sect does anything that they wish to say that it does, even when it does not.
That is simply capitalizing upon an exception to violate the law, hence is not a lawfully permitted excemption by its very nature. When it comes to vaccination, I’d consider such an effort to be akin to getting around laws against human sacrifice by capitalizing upon pro-euthanisia laws. Frankly, after witnessing first hand epidemics of polio and measles and more in small third world villages, as equal in severity.
As for irrational fear of toxins, I do possess a somewhat irrational fear of toxins. If I were working with purified toxins, I’d exceed the commonly accepted protective measures by far. I well remember the lesson of Karen Wetterhahn. (In a case like hers, I’d have neoprene, butyl rubber and nitrile gloves underneath that lot, fume hood, face shield, mask and be using tools to hole the glassware.) 😉
But then, when speaking of toxins, I speak of purified, high potency ones. Ones that minute amounts in the lab would kill you and one can only find such in a lab. 😀
As I’ve only worked with such briefly in the military, the probability of me ever having to work with such again is beyond remote. For, I’m speaking of toxins such as ricin, blood agents, blistering agents, vomiting agents and nerve agents, all a field I’m happily far away from now that I’m retired from the military.
But then, my illustration shows a more rational approach to an irrational fear of something lethal when mishandled, in purified form, where a mishap could kill those about and especially the handler.
On a rational approach, I have misgivings over live attenuated polio virus vaccines in less than optimally controlled conditions, where an immunocompromised person could end up exposed. That is rational, indeed, the standard of care is to not administer it if that is likely.
I greatly dislike the smallpox vaccine, it is the most hazardous vaccine in our arsenal. It’s also why vaccination is only performed on those who are likely to be called upon to respond to a bioterrorism attack with smallpox (I can’t think of any nation that retains smallpox in weaponized form, they quickly figured out that the blowback onto their population would exceed any potential tactical benefit).
The rest of our vaccines are literally orders of magnitude safer than vaccinia is. Something that would be misunderstood if given as a message and the antivaxers would run with that ball into an extinction level event, if we let them.
Still, freedom of religion is freedom of religion. Either you have it or not. Either you oppress it or not. Whether or not one agrees with religion overall, at all or a particular religion or seven is irrelevant. But, one sets boundaries. As I hinted about in the extreme example of human sacrifice.
But, one does not provide an exception for someone professing to be a Catholic and claiming that they cannot have an egg based vaccine on a Friday or something similar. The various faiths are quite well documented in practices and prohibitions.
Still, I’m reasonable. I’d grant that exception, conditionally. The condition being no tax exemptions and additional taxes assessed, say double or triple. 🙂
For, government is the exception to Wheaton’s Law. To enforce compliance, one *must* be a dick.
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