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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."
On one hand the measles vaccines should be sufficiently tested by now considering how long we've had them. On the other hand it's very dangerous to pretend that all vaccines are equally safe and well tested.
When you say we can't trust any vaccines, that's not a sound professional opinion. However, when you jump into attacking people who don't want to get Gardasil (which is far less safe than most vaccines) or Anthrax (many military veterans have had serious problems with it) because we can trust the Polio and MMR vaccines you're even worse than the anti-vaxxers. Know why? Because all it takes to disprove an anti-vaxxer is show the real harm that the core vaccines that are battle-tested prevent. Some science popularizing elitist wingnut who borrows from the legitimacy of those vaccines to hound people who don't accept that vaccines as a category are safe (because no medicine as a category, is categorically safe) is directly tying the reputation of proven medicine to unproven medicine.
The serious injustice is what is done to those that seek a licensed medical practitioner only to receive advise that goes against medical ethics and science. To get their licenses they went through training and education, they have chosen to ignore that education so I don't believe permanent cancelation/suspension is an injustice, they are risking the lives of people who have come to them for help and advise and are therefore in breach of the basic tenets of their profession and hence should be stripped of any qualifications that allow them to practise that profession..
Speaking as someone who suffered very mild brain damage as a consequence of contracting the measles as a child before I was due to be vaccinated can I suggest that these people should be jailed! I was very very lucky I only lost the hearing in one ear and have slight manual dexterity issues. These people are causing very real harm!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Medical professionals have a professional duty to state medical facts. If they refuse, they can and should be placed in a different career path.
An accountant or lawyer promoting a Sovereign Citizen view of the relationship between client and state would be struck off. A Bridge Engineer who rejects Newtonian (or better) mechanics would be struck off.
This isn't like banning a doctor from discussing gun safety because you lobbyists are worried it might lead to a decrease in household gun ownership. This is about nurses being required not to mislead people about medicine, abusing their positions as respected medical professionals to sow misinformation. It's not a freedom of speech issue, it's a professionalism issue, and critically it's a life and death issue.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
There is a good thing coming from all the people on gluten free diets that don't need to be. Their demand for gluten free has increased the supply and labeling of gluten free items for those who do suffer. Probably brought the prices down somewhat as well.