Taking a stand for children

attending the widely discredited film that they were helping to put children’s lives at risk from completely preventable infectious diseases.

The film, which is touring New Zealand, is based on a debunked link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) and autism.

It is directed by the author of the since retracted 1998 study, Andrew Wakefield, that wrongly made the link.

Wakefield’s medical licence has been revoked for ethics violations and financial conflicts of interest.

O’Sullivan was angry and delivered a blunt message to those at the screening that ‘‘your presence here will cause babies to die’’.

Later he said he had first-hand knowledge of the danger of the anti-vaccination movement, including holding a baby struggling for its life with pneumonia, when a vaccination would have prevented it.

Despite the retraction of the study almost 20 years ago, and the wide and deep body of evidence that vaccines are safe, there is a stubborn segment that refuses to believe it.

Those people have been fortified in their belief by the rise of the conspiracy theorists, alternative facts peddlers, and fake news merchants that have flourished with the internet’s growth.

Suspicion of authority is one thing; refusal to believe medical experts with the best interests of children at heart is stupid and dangerous.

Unlike other conspiracies, like the one involving Barack Obama’s birth certificate, the misinformed opposition to vaccines has real life and death consequences.

The life-threatening impact of measles, for example, has faded from collective consciousness, largely because of higher vaccination rates.

But it wasn’t that long ago, in 1991, that seven people died in New Zealand’s last large measles epidemic.

In 2011 measles outbreaks made hundreds ill.

The Ministry of Health website has stories from those who did not immunise their children because of unfounded fears related to the MMR vaccine, and almost paid a terrible price.

We need more people like Lance O’Sullivan to make a stand for knowledge and children’s health.