Professor Peter McIntyre, one of the architects of Australia’s immunisation schedule, made quite a few admissions of problems with vaccines and our Australian vaccination laws in May last year (2017).

As Director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, he was interviewed for the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) podcast series [UPDATE – he retired from this position in July 2018]. Find the podcast here:
MJA Podcasts 2017 Episode 24: Vaccination rates and incentives, with Prof Peter McIntyre

I could not get the interview to play in my browser, but I downloaded it via the download link and it played fine on my computer. It is also available on YouTube here:
Confessions of a Vaccine Salesman

Pertussis (whooping cough) and the media

Early in the interview, McIntyre attributes the initial drive for the No Jab No Pay law to a report that linked vaccination rates to postcodes, which showed that certain areas had low rates. He says this coincided with concern about the death of an infant from pertussis (whooping cough), and that pertussis occurrence and the death were not necessarily related to vaccination rates, but a relationship was made in the media messaging at the time:

that really spurred a lot of media coverage around areas, particularly, I guess areas that might be considered a bit more affluent or trendy in cities, where these rates were said to be low and potentially a problem. And that sort of coincided, I guess, with all the concern about pertussis and pertussis deaths from a young infant, and the two are not necessarily related, but they sort of got related in the media messaging around all of this.

In other words, the fear about the unvaccinated spreading pertussis was the result of hype by the media and not based on facts, according to McIntyre. [Read more…]