Anti-vax war hits parents
A Canterbury man says he has been shut out of his daughter’s life because he wants to get her vaccinated, against the wishes of the girl’s mother.
The couple have an 8-year-old and are estranged after separating in 2016.
The girl’s father said he was happy to go along with his expartner’s anti-vaccination views while they were together. However, he reconsidered his views about vaccination and medicines after the break-up when he learnt his heart had been irreversibly damaged from a deadly genetic heart condition, hypercholesterolemia.
He told his former partner in a text he was going to get their daughter immunised. The girl’s mother responded by text with a threat.
‘‘You will have to start custody proceedings. I will be obstructing your access to [the daughter] while I can’t trust you won’t do this behind my back,’’ it said.
His situation echoes that of a case in Auckland, where a man and woman are fighting in the Family Court about immunising their daughter, who is about to start school. In that case, the father wanted her vaccinated in line with Ministry of Health and World Health Organisation recommendations, and submitted a two-page letter to the court.
In response, the girl’s mother claimed the risks of having an ‘‘adverse’’ reaction to a vaccine ‘‘outweigh’’ the risks of her remaining unimmunised, as she has ‘‘personal and family history’’ of dairy and gluten intolerance, eczema, food and chemical sensitivities, and medication reactions.
She submitted a 33-page affidavit, with a further 150 pages of exhibits to back her case for not immunising their daughter.
The December hearing centred around new evidence the mother sought to include from two American doctors, kidney specialist Dr Alvin Moss and homeopath Dr Toni Bark.
The court found Moss had ‘‘no identifiable experience’’ of the New Zealand immunisation schedule, nor had he seen or assessed the child. As Bark was also not an immunisation expert and had no ‘‘published credibility’’ relating to vaccines, her evidence was also denied.
The Christchurch man said he learned last year that his expartner was taking his daughter to Vietnam and requested she receive the recommended vaccines. This did not happen and when a measles outbreak hit Canterbury in March he again asked that she be immunised.
His ex-partner advised him by email on March 18 that their daughter had not received a vaccination for measles.
‘‘I am under no legal obligation to do so,’’ she wrote. She said the decisions they made while together remained the same, regardless of his new views.
Before a recent trip to China, the man was told his daughter had received immunisation for measles, mumps and rubella.
But when he asked his daughter’s medical practice for her file to check, they turned him down, saying they could not provide the information, citing the mother’s protection order against him. The man said he was at a loss about what to do next as he could not afford to fight the issue in court.
Medical Protection Society medical legal adviser and GP Tim Cookson said parents disagreeing over their children’s medical care was ‘‘a regular enough occurrence’’, particularly when a couple were separated. ‘‘If a mother comes to the GP and wants her child immunised the GP is entitled to go ahead and that is all the consent that is required . . . We don’t need to ring the father. One parent’s permission is enough.
‘‘It would be different if, for example, we know in advance a dad is dead against immunisation and the mother comes in and says, ‘I know my partner doesn’t agree but I want my child immunised’. Then the GP would be unwise to go ahead with that knowledge.’’
Cookson said as a GP, he had come across many parents who were wrongly concerned vaccinations could cause autism, a claim that extensive research had debunked but was still circulating on the internet.
The Auckland matter is still before the courts.
‘‘We don’t need to ring the father. One parent’s permission is enough.’’ Medical Protection Society medical legal adviser and GP Tim Cookson