Slashdot Mirror
Nurses In Australia Face Punishment For Promoting Anti-Vaccination Messages Via Social Media (medicalxpress.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Medical Express reports that nurses and midwives promoting anti-vaccination messages in Australia could face punishment including being slapped with a caution and having their ability to practice medicine restricted. Serious cases could be referred to an industry tribunal, where practitioners could face harsher penalties such as having their registration suspended or cancelled. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia released the vaccination standards in response to what it described as a small number of nurses and midwives promoting anti-vaccination via social media. The statement also urges members of the public to report nurses or midwives promoting anti-vaccination. Promoting false, misleading or deceptive information is an offense under national law and is prosecutable by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. "The board will consider whether the nurse or midwife has breached their professional obligations and will treat these matters seriously," the statement said. However Dr. Hannah Dahlen, a professor of midwifery at the University of Western Sydney and the spokeswoman for the Australian College of Midwives, worries the crackdown may push people with anti-vaccination views further underground. "The worry is the confirmation bias that can occur, because people might say: 'There you go, this is proof that you can't even have an alternative opinion.' It might in fact just give people more fuel for their belief systems."
Good.
Implement this in more countries please.
There was actual harm done because of the sticky stupid of antivaccine activists, so of course their Board will purge in response. People who make themselves allies of the first Horseman of the Apocalypse (Pestilence/plague) do not belong in the healthcare business.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
WTF is the point of spending years training to become a nurse / midwife if they just decide to ignore evidence of the efficacy of vaccination and promote woo? Anyone pushing antivax nonsense should be barred from practicing as a nurse or midwife. It should be that simple.
If what they are promoting goes against the evidence and leads to harming patient then they should be barred.
Having an opinion is one thing. Holding a position on a verifiable matter, that leads to putting patients at increase risk is at odds with the goal of your profession is a completely different matter.
They want to push some thoroughly debunked agenda? feel free but don't pretend you're a medical professional
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
To quote Isaac Asimov who put it more eloquently than I can: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
So confident in your opinion that you can't "risk" someone having a different opinion? Are you afraid you might not be able to defend your position against them? Because that is the main reason for censorship.
Look up SV40 polio vaccine from years ago. They bring that up and suddenly your viewpoint begins to crack. There are other more recent ones that have had problems as well, but you don't think people have the right to discuss them because you are anti-science and can't defend your position. Funny thing being that vaccines with issues are very rare, you can't stand letting anyone know about them and promote censorship to keep it hidden.
I'm actually getting sick of these anti-science whackos like you that think scientific discussion should only be what YOU approve. If you can't defend your position with scientific proof, you don't have a valid scientific position and are a fraud depending on censorship and name calling instead.
If you were just HONEST, you would be far more convincing, and convincing people vaccines are good SHOULD be easy. Because you resort to censorship and name calling first, it appears you have something to hide and all you will get is anti-vaxxers yelling SV40 (which hasn't been a problem for decades) and causing more people to look up problems and causing more anti-vaxxers because in reality they disagree with your censorship and it has nothing to do with vaccines.
We have this idea in free society that people are entitled to their own opinions and the government should not force people to believe one thing or another. And it’s not like we lack precedents where totalitarian governments actively suppress ideas that might disrupt their regime. So we do need to keep in mind that indvidual people should be free to be wrong and be assholes. That kid in the gorilla costume at Tennessee State was an asshole, but should he be brought up on criminial charges? We need to ensure that “assholes” are not summarily suppressed. Richard Dawkins acts like an asshole but he’s still right about evolution.
Now, when it comes to these nurses, the situation is entirely different. They are entitled to their *personal* opinion. But this is a matter of professional activity. In their capacities as nurses (even on their own time), they represent their employers. As a CS professor, I could be dismissed for a wide range of inappropriate behaviors in my “personal life,” including hooking up with an undergrad and making offensive and racist statements on social media. I can maintain my right to express an opinion, and my employer can exercise their right to not be associated with someone who does not represent their core values. (Although, I will say that I’ve heard that BYU won’t grant tenure to anyone who they see as not sufficiently “Mormon,” and I think that’s reprehensible, so there is some room for debate on this, which is why we have courts.)
There’s also not much room on this subject for “personal opinion.” Science doesn’t have answers for everything, but all attempts to show a solid link between vaccines and autism have failed, and those attempts have been numerous. This isn’t based on a single publication with no replication studies. This topic has been beaten to death. It be shown that their statements are factually wrong. They are also not researchers in this area. If they were, then they would be in a position to conduct further studies to see if they could prove a link. Instead, they are just talking out their arses.
Even more important, they are putting people in danger. And that’s what this is all about. The benefits of vaccines are not in dispute, and the risks are minimal and nebulous. When your scientific illiteracy puts people in danger, you need to be stopped.
Are you or have you ever been an anti-vaxxer? If yes, you are blacklisted.
Sounds like you think resorting to McCarthism is ok as long as you agree with the reasons for it.
Its "McCarthyism", and such an interesting term since the head of the anti-vaxxer movement is one Jenny McCarthy, a woman who isn't a doctor, and her main claim to fame is that she has photos taken of her while not wearing clothing.
You mistake politics for science. "McCarthyism" was a modern day witch hunt, using early cold-war paranoia about communism to advance a political carreer. It destryed the lives of a number of people, including it's perpetrator.
Anti-vaxxing is an unscientific plan to take advantage of the emotional aspects of children with disabilities by blaming it on an unrelated activity. Oddly enough, it ignores that unvaccinated children sometimes die as a result of its adherents.
It isn't politics - its science.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.