Science is Driving Choice in Vaccination

By Judy Wilyman

As the Australian Government expresses its anger over Indonesia executing two Australian drug smugglers, it is implementing a policy that will remove the free and informed consent for Australians to choose a medical intervention in healthy people: vaccination. This policy will remove our right to choose freely what we put into our own bodies, a fundamental human right that is protected in all International Bills of Human Rights. Yet this is not being discussed in the mainstream Australian media even though the risks of vaccines and valid consent (2.1.3) are required from Australian consumers before a vaccine is administered.

There is no question that the ingredients of vaccines are unsafe yet in 2012 the Australian government added 3 new vaccines to the infant schedule and linked ‘fully vaccinating’ a child to $2,100 in welfare benefits. A doctor’s signature was required to refuse any of the 11 vaccines required before 1 year of age. This policy reverses the principle of informed consent by requiring a doctor’s signature for parents to refuse a vaccine, instead of patient’s consent to accept vaccines. The government’s policies have been accepted with hardly any presentation of the risks of vaccines in the media. In Australia, Murdoch owns 70% of the major newspapers and by selecting the information for debate, the issues can be framed to present the desired outcomes.

In addition, many prominent community members and politicians have recently been reported professing their faith in vaccines in the media to promote the government’s policies. Other strategies for promoting these beliefs (without evidence) include school curriculums and now popular cartoon or puppet characters.

If the science is supporting the government’s policy of using unlimited vaccines in developing infants, then educated people would be choosing to vaccinate, but many of them are not. Many educated parents are not vaccinating because they have investigated vaccines and discovered that the government’s policy is based on pharmaceutically funded studies designed by government advisory boards riddled with perceived conflicts of interests.

Many Australians would like an open debate on the government’s vaccination policies which breach our right to bodily integrity. On 14 April 2015 I received a letter from the Australian Human Rights Commissioner for Individual Freedoms, Tim Wilson, stating that he was not employed to protect our rights in government vaccination policies. So what ‘individual freedoms’ is our new Commissioner of Human Rights (appointed December 2013) paid to protect? Here is my response to the HRC that clearly states that the government has not done the scientific studies that would disprove the causal link between vaccines and the significant increase in chronic illness that is occurring in Australian children – including autism.

In the interests of public health, please stand up for our right to free and informed consent for all medical procedures, and our right to bodily integrity, by signing this petition.

Judy Wilyman has a Bachelor of Science degree and has practised as a science teacher for 20 years. to read her entire biography, please click here. You can find more of her writing at Vaccination Decisions: Know Your Vaccines and you can subscribe to her informative newsletter HERE.