Vector Volume 11 Issue 1 - 2017

may perceive the risks from vaccinations to be
greater than the likelihood of contracting the
very diseases they prevent.[5]
In fact, surveys of Australian parents show
that the primary reason for vaccine hesitancy
or objection is concerns about their safety[6]
and a third of parents believe children are
over-vaccinated. Newer vaccines, like the
HPV vaccine, can be perceived to have
a lower risk-benefit ratio, as they protect
against diseases that are less prevalent or
virulent. Older vaccines also face doubts, as
the diseases they prevent are less common
or even eliminated in the Australia, such as
measles. Furthermore, concerns about adverse
reactions to vaccination are growing. This could
be attributed to the fact that such reactions
are perceived to be more common than the
diseases that they prevent.
Common misconceptions regarding vaccines
Rare but severe adverse reactions to
some vaccinations attract great public
interest, and give rise to misconceptions or
over-estimations regarding their harms. For
instance, the 1955 Cutter Incident in the USA
involved administration of 380,000 doses of
incompletely inactivated polio vaccinations to
healthy children, which resulted in 40,000 cases
of abortive polio (a minor form that does not
involve the central nervous system), 51 cases
of permanent paralysis and five deaths. It also
started a polio epidemic, leaving even more
people in the community affected.[7]
This event severely undermined public
confidence in the safety of vaccinations, even
after it prompted the instigation much safer
and stricter regulation of vaccines.[7] Incidents
such as this undermine trust in vaccine safety,
and these fears must be addressed in the
community.
Commonly, anti-vaxxers also claim that while
they are not against vaccinations themselves,
they oppose the adjuvants and preservatives
that are potentially harmful, like thiomersal.
However, studies have not been able to identify
any harmful effects related to thiomersal, and
even so, it was removed from all Australian
childhood vaccines.[8]
One of the most infamous controversies
surrounding vaccine safety was Andrew
Wakefield’s retracted 1998 paper that linked
the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR)
vaccine to autism and bowel disease. His study
was severely flawed, involving a sample of only
12 children, and Wakefield was deregistered
and discredited. In comparison, a Danish
retrospective cohort study investigated over
500,000 children who received the MMR vaccine
and proved that there was no association
between the vaccine and autism.[9] Despite
this, many of the general public still believe in
the association between the MMR vaccine and
autism as a consequence of Wakefield’s study.
Vaccine objection in the context of Australian
vaccination policies
As of January 2016, the nationwide legislation
called “No Jab No Pay” has been put into
effect, removing conscientious objection from
exemption criteria to immunisation requirements
for Centrelink childcare payments worth up to
$19,000. A press release by then Prime Minister
Tony Abbott and Health Minister Scott Morrison
stated that “the choice made by families not
to immunise their children is not supported by
public policy or medical research nor should
such action be supported by taxpayers in the
form of child care payments”.[10]
In contrast, public health experts believe that
this policy is may be misplaced in its aims to
reduce conscientious objection to vaccination,
rather than addressing the more prominent
barriers of access to services, logistical
issues, and missed vaccination opportunities.
[11] A policy such as this could also threaten
the validity of a patient’s informed consent,
which is outlined in the Australian Immunisation
Handbook as being “given voluntarily in the
absence of undue pressure, coercion or
manipulation”.[12] This has generated a fresh
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