Family

Mother jailed for not vaccinating her child

The US mum-of-two had agreed with her ex-husband that they would vaccinate their son - then reneged on their deal.
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A mother-of-two from Michigan has been jailed for seven days for not vaccinating her nine-year-old son.

According to the BBC Rebecca Bredow had agreed with her ex-husband when their son was born that they would space out and delay his vaccinations. However, Bredow began reneging on their agreement last year, saying that to immunise her son “goes against my beliefs”.

The couple actually separated in 2008, according to ABC News, but have shared parental custody and the father still wanted the boy vaccinated.

Michigan parents are legally allowed to skip or delay their children’s vaccinations due to personal beliefs, but Bredow fell foul of the law because she reneged on the agreement she had made with her ex-husband.

Bredow was sentenced on Wednesday for contempt of court after flouting a court order last week to have her son vaccinated. Her ex-husband has been awarded temporary primary custody in order to get his son immunised.

Oakland County Court Judge Karen McDonald said that even though Bredow was the child’s primary caregiver, “Dad gets a say.”

Bredow said in court: “I am an educated vaccine-choice mother.”

“I would rather sit behind bars standing up for what I believe in, than giving in to something I strongly don’t believe in.”

Anti-vaccination advocates believe that vaccination exposes children to harm, and could be the cause of autism – despite the fact their claims have been widely debunked by the medical community.

Child immunisation rates in Michigan are among the worst in America, ranking 43rd among the 50 US states, according to Mlive. While the federal government does not legislate child immunisation, it issues recommendations, leaving requirements to states or local school districts.

In comparison, infant immunisation coverage in New Zealand is now consistently between 93 per cent and 94 per cent, according to the Ministry of Health.

Immunisation rates have increased significantly since 2012 when targets were set, and nationally, only four per cent of families decline one or more vaccines for their infants.

Australian of the Year in 2006.

He said, “We make people wear seatbelts because we know how great the cost is in terms of damage to human lives if you don’t, and infectious disease is no different.”

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Immunisation is a topic that certainly raises debate in New Zealand. In June this year Dr Lance O’Sullivan, a Northland medical practitioner who won New Zealander of the Year in 2014, made headlines when he took to the stage to interrupt the screening of an anti-vaccination film, Vaxxed, in Kaitaia.

The film, about the debunked link between vaccines and autism, was directed and co-written by Andrew Wakefield – an author of the retracted 1998 study which wrongly suggested the link.

Although the film mentions the retraction, it doesn’t declare that Wakefield’s medical licence was also revoked, owing to ethics violations and financial conflicts of interest – in the film he is cast as an expert on the topic.

Nikki Turner, the director of New Zealand’s Immunisation Advisory Centre and chair of the World Health Organisation’s committee for measles and rubella elimination, said the film was premised on “scare tactics”.

O’Sullivan said at the screening, “I come here with a lot of anger … and that’s because I am adamantly opposed to this because this position, this idea of anti-immunisation has killed children around the world and actually will continue to kill children … whose parents are put off immunisation because of misinformation – misinformation based on lies, quite frankly.”

He told Stuff, “There is a natural suspicion to the establishment in my opinion in certain sections of our society and these groups are very vulnerable to campaigns of misinformation…

“There are really minimal adverse reactions to immunisations and if you compare this to the significant benefit conveyed to these children there is no doubt we should protect our children in this manner.”

Australian vaccine expert Professor Ian Frazer told media when he visited New Zealand in June that he felt New Zealand should follow Australia’s lead and make vaccinations compulsory for all children. He said immunisation should be treated as a public health issue for the general good of the public.

Professor Ian Frazer invented the HPV vaccine, and was named

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