Act to stop the fake news turning parents into ‘vaccination deniers’
A nurse vaccinates a child. Social media has become “a breeding ground for negative messaging around vaccination.” PHOTO | ERIC FEFERBERG | AFP
What you need to know:
Fake news dissuading increasing numbers of parents from presenting their children for preventive vaccination.
Last January, the Royal Society for Public Health warned that social media was spreading “misleading and dangerous information” about vaccines.
It had become “a breeding ground for negative messaging around vaccination.
If you saw your child about to step in front of a speeding car, you would rush to pull the kid back, wouldn’t you? Yet some foolish parents are doing the opposite, putting their children’s lives at risk, when it comes to matters of health. They are what doctors call “vaccination deniers”, mums who believe fake messages online which claim vaccines are dangerous or have bad side effects.
GETTING TRACTION
Mr Simon Stevens, head of the National Health Service in England, said last week that there had been a steady decline over the last five years in the uptake of the vaccine aimed to combat measles, a highly infectious viral illness.
Speaking at a health summit held by the Nuffield Trust think tank, the NHS chief said the low uptake of the MMR vaccine among five-year-olds in England (87.5 pc against a target set by the World Health Organisation of 95 pc) posed “a real problem.”
Unvaccinated children are at the highest risk of measles and its complications, including death.
Although two to three million lives are saved per year worldwide by vaccination, the “fake news” movement was dissuading increasing numbers of parents from presenting their children for preventive vaccination, he said.
“The vaccination deniers are actually getting some traction.”
SCEPTICAL MOTHER
Mr Stevens said parents at his daughter’s primary school had expressed concern about vaccines and he read a message from a sceptical mother. It said, “My kids aren’t vulnerable and I think loading up on vaccines blocks their systems from fighting disease as it should do.”
The NHS chief said more should be done to challenge untruths about vaccines which affected the views of such mothers. Nine out of 10 parents support vaccination, he said, and “we have the responsibility for the nine out of 10 to really explain it’s not just of interest for your own children but herd immunity for other children as well.”
Last January, the Royal Society for Public Health warned that social media was spreading “misleading and dangerous information” about vaccines. It had become “a breeding ground for negative messaging around vaccination.”
Experts called for more to be done to challenge untruths about possible side effects of vaccines and for the social media giants to clamp down on fake news.
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Talking about children’s health, a primary school in Manchester is taking direct action to protect against air pollution and road dangers.
Dressed in yellow, high-visibility jackets, pupils are patrolling the streets and handing out imitation parking tickets to parents who leave their engines running or park on yellow lines.
The campaign started after the head teacher noticed an increase in the number of children with asthma, which he fears could be the result of atmospheric pollution near the school.
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Everyone agrees it is good and right that pensioners receive state benefits if they are disabled. The drawback is that the system requires regular reviews, annually or every few years.
The result of the assessment determines the payments people receive to cope with the extra costs of living with a disability, such as mobility aids or adaptations in the house.
Not for much longer.
The Work and Pensions Secretary, Amber Rudd, announced that from this spring, repeat assessments will not be required for some 270,000 recipients.
“Disabled pensioners have paid into our system for their whole lives and deserve the full support of the state when they need it most,” she said.
In future, elderly men and women may be able to fill in a form rather than see an assessor in person.
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The latest trick by the criminal fraternity? Using vacuum cleaners to suck coins out of parking meters. Councillors in the rich London borough of Kensington and Chelsea say £120,000 has been stolen in this way in the past year.
Said a spokesman, “We have gangs stalking the streets and smashing their way into machines to suck out the cash.”
Drivers are urged to pay by app or by phone.
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In Britain, workmen who do an incompetent job on your house are known as “cowboy builders". Hence the ad seen on the side of a work van: “You’ve tried the cowboys, now get the Indians – Singh Brothers, Builders.”
Other oddities spotted recently:
From a letter to a newspaper: “My phone alarm woke me up to remind me to take tablets to help me to sleep.”
Outside a bar: “Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is and we’ll find it ourselves.”
On a plumber’s van: “We repair what your husband fixed.”
An exchange between husband and wife: “I should have married the devil, he would have been a better husband than you.” “They would have arrested you – marriage between relatives is illegal.”
