Julia Lowe, Suffolk Park
I am a mother, a grandmother and physician.
I have had measles and seen all of the complications including the rarest and cruelest: the four in 100,000 chance of subacute pansclerosing encephalitis, which slowly destroys a child’s brain seven to 10 years after they have apparently fully recovered from measles.
Vaccination is a matter of choice informed by facts. Some of the participants in this debate have misunderstood what the ‘herd’ is in respect to herd immunity.
It does not just relate to Byron but the whole of Australia.
In that respect it is not the two million visitors to Byron who are a risk to us, it is us who are a risk for them.
Take the example of measles immunisation. On average nationally the protection rate is 93 per cent.
In postcode 2481 it is 73 per cent of five-year-olds.
One in 10 children who get measles will get ear infections, which may lead to permanent hearing impairment, 1 in 20 pneumonia (the major cause of death from measles) and 1 in 1,000 encephalitis (brain swelling), which can lead to convulsions, deafness and intellectual impairment.
Is this the lasting memory we want to give our visitors?
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
