Teacher’s ‘anti-vaccine crusade’
ONE of Britain’s largest online anti-vaccination movements was set up by a middle- class primary school teacher, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Mother- of- two Anna Watson, 53, set up the controversial Arnica Facebook group and website from her £500,000 home in the affluent London suburb of Kingston-upon-Thames.
The Facebook group now boasts 37,000 members who regularly post spurious pseudo-scientific comments regarding vaccination, often claiming the practice is dangerous.
And yesterday, members railed against the perceived spread of ‘misinformation’ by the government and Public Health England. Mrs Watson, who lives with her businessman husband and children, aged 13 and 15, is a member of the European Forum for Vaccine Vigilance and set up the Facebook page ‘Stop flu vaccines in UK schools’, which has 6,600 members.
Earlier this summer, she sent a leaflet on injuries and disabilities allegedly caused by jabs to more than 100 MPs.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, she said: ‘You can’t talk about certain minority groups in certain ways, but you can say that anti vaccinators have blood on their hands.’
She claims Arnica offers ‘healthy scepticism’ on science, and does not identify with the term ‘anti-vaccine’. Neither does she feel responsible for the choices of parents. ‘I wouldn’t feel guilty if [their children] caught a disease,’ she said. ‘It’s not my decision.’
MMR vaccine rates have dropped in affluent areas such as Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster, figures obtained by the Mail on Sunday showed.