A percentage breakdown of childhood vaccinations by postcode reveals a somewhat surprising trend on the northern rivers.
Australian comparison site finder.com has analysed data from National Health Performance Authority and found that towns on the NSW north coast have some of the lowest rates of immunisation in the state.
Yet, not all the areas of low vaccinations are the hippy enclaves. They include some of the most prosperous towns in the region.
According to the site, 53.33 per cent of five-year-olds in the 2482 postcode (including Mullumbimby, Main Arm and Durrumbul) were unvaccinated.
And in Byron Bay (postcode 2481) the percentage was 38.93 per cent.
In postcode 2483, which includes Ocean Shores, Brunswick Heads and the Pocket, the figure dropped to a little less than a third (32.81 per cent).
In Bangalow (postcode 2479), home town of the Vaccination Sceptics Network’s founding president Meryl Dorey, the total percentage of unvaccinated children remains a remarkably high 31.08 per cent.
Also included in the 2479 postcode are the hinterland villages of Coorabell, Fernleigh and Newrybar.
Evidently the more well-heeled sceptics are equally immune to the commonwealth government’s ‘no jab, no pay’ legislation, which came into effect 1 January, aiming to increase childhood immunisation rates by withholding government benefits to parents who don’t vaccinate their children.
Jessie Hassan, money and health expert at finder.com.au, says it is of course up to parents whether they immunise their child or not ‘but most vaccinations are government funded for kids under a certain age and can prevent a huge range of potentially deadly illnesses such as whooping cough.’
‘When kids start school they are likely to come into contact with a large number of children and germs for the first time, which can not only be potentially harmful to their health but also costly,’ Ms Hassan said.
‘Before your child starts school it’s a good idea check their health records to make sure their immunisations are all up to date,’ she added.
If the rhetoric of the anti vaxxers is correct then it will not be long before we can measure lower rates of autism in this group of postcodes. If
I think the author of this article started getting confused about whether the figures are ‘vaccinated’ or ‘unvaccinated’. The table says that 31% of Bangalow are ‘not immunised’ vs 53% of Mullum ‘not immunised’. Try again 🙂
This is unsurprising. The lack of respect for well grounded analyses is not restricted to “hippies” but is found among a significant minority in the Northern Rivers, and also in Southern QLD where it has spawned One Nation and the League of Rights. Different “beliefs”; the same overruling of peer reviewed analyses by beliefs that are so easily supported these days by cutting and pasting from web sites from the home of belief-based nonsense, the US.
Thanks to all those parents not vaccinating their children. Good to see you care about people who have their immune systems suppressed from medical conditions and treatments. Thanks a lot!
As most of the diseases are in the fully vaccinated, according to the head Immunologist at Westmead Children’s hospital, Rod, your post is irrelevant. Beside that, since when is it another person or child’s ‘job’ to assist with the health of others? The whole ‘for the good of the community’ argument is not different than when primitive tribes took a virgin to the edge of a cliff and pushed her in to appease the Gods. It was all fear based religion, just like vaccination.
A study conducted by Poland’s Medical University of Bialystok in 2012 has confirmed what many scientists have been debating for a while now. The Department of Paediatric Rehabilitation studied vaccination patterns in Poland with those in other countries to show that vaccines actually impair the human immunity development process. – See more at: http://www.australiannationalreview.com/studies-show-vaccines-impair-immunity-aid/#sthash.XFg7I1hA.rWRBYmY6.dpuf
Oh no! But what about herd immunity? From what the incapable-of-wrongdoing-yet-consistently-shown-otherwise white coats tell us about herd immunity, those areas should be incredibly disease ridden, every second child should be contracting whooping cough and dying, old people should be falling dead like leaves in Autumn from the deadly dreaded Rotavirus. What’s going on here? Why aren’t they all dead? No questioning anything. The science is settled. Without herd immunity we are all doomed!
‘When kids start school they are likely to come into contact with a large number of children and germs for the first time, which can not only be potentially harmful to their health but also costly,’ Ms Hassan said.”
OH NO! GERMS! This isn’t 1980 guys. Germs are necessary for children to develop their immune systems, they are not evil. Get that into your thick skulls.
A while back, the pro-vaccine lobby pointed out that in big cities, the suburbs with the lowest rate of vaccination were the most affluent, and by inference, also the best educated. The best outcome for the pro-vaccine lobby would have been to keep this discovery quiet, but instead it was splashed over the media.
What is the view of a Chief Scientific Officer at the UK Department of Health on the MMR vaccine? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-376203/Former-science-chief-MMR-fears-coming-true.html
I read this Richard. This UK CSO said the same thing as me:”If”
In my post above I noted that the discussion on vaccination as being akin to the nonsense put out by people supporting groups that play on like One Nation. Their pronouncements on matters like for example Islam do not appear to based on any serious peer reviewed work on that religion and it role in modern society – just the rehashing of readily available web-based material that supports the writers view. In fora concerning Hanson and Islam and such “issues” I like to ask the anti-Islamic writers not what the Koran says – although in reality I suspect they have only read a translation – but why they are discussing the issue. Why do people in rural SE QLD so vex themselves with such an arcane issue and why do they come their prejudiced views. I read the debate above on this matter and little changes my view in respect of this issue. Whether or not to vaccinate your ids is a medical and in particular an epidemiological issue. I worked with quite a numbers of epidemiologists over my career in overseas development, They are typically medical doctors who have done years of postgraduate study and training, before embarking on careers in what is quite a specialized contrary discipline that reaches beyond pure medical science into anthropology and sociology. Most parents are not epidemiologists so if they do not simply follow the readily available advice of public health authorities they discuss the matter with their GP. Our GPs aren’t epidemiologists either but we would expect they have some familiarity with the issues. So when I read the discussion above and elsewhere, I am in constant amazement that some people, who appear not to be qualified epidemiologists ,believe they have developed their knowledge not just of vaccination issues but of the broader questions and approaches of the discipline, such as to be able to make a considered and useful contribution to this debates. I am left though with a niggling doubt that the parent who simply talks to their GP – and not a GP chosen to accord with their views – might not have the same knowledge as some of the contributors, but they might have a little more wisdom.