Page 2534 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 1993
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MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (3.46): Rather than repeat some of the excellent statistics that have already been given today, I will pick up some of the comments that Ms Szuty has made. I do not think any of us who have spoken today doubt that immunisation has prevented more illness and saved more lives than any other medical technology or medical invention this century. It is also amazingly cost effective. Ms Szuty raised the point of her son who has allergies and therefore could not be immunised for whooping cough. The only basis upon which children like Ms Szuty's son can be protected is if everybody who can be immunised is immunised. The aim of mass immunisation programs is to have everybody who enters school immunised, except those children who cannot be, for whatever reason, and the only way that those children can be protected is by achieving what the National Health and Medical Research Council claim is appropriate, and that is an immunisation rate by 1996 - that is the aim - of some 95 per cent at school age. Then children like Ms Szuty's son will not get whooping cough, although he is a bit older now. That is really what we are all aiming at.
It is interesting to note that, in terms of deaths from preventable childhood diseases, in the 10-year period from 1926 to 1935 in Australia 4,073 Australians died from diphtheria, 2,800 from whooping cough, 879 from tetanus, 430 from polio and 1,102 from measles. That was in a population of 6.6 million. That is a huge number of people. In the 10-year period from 1976 to 1985 the figures were as follows: From diphtheria two, whooping cough 14, tetanus 31, polio two, and measles 62. That was in a population of 14.9 million. Anybody who argues that we should move away from mass immunisation should look at those figures, should look at the huge number of lives that have been saved in this country. Unfortunately, although those figures sound particularly compelling, during 1991 there were 2,352 reported cases of diseases that could have been prevented by childhood immunisation.
The ACT has had a particularly good record in immunisation; there is no doubt about that. But it is still tragic to find parents coming to my pharmacy, going to many doctors' surgeries, to our health centres and so on, who really feel that they are between a rock and a hard place on this particular subject. Because of people like Mr Stevenson and his colleagues, they have been placed in a position where they do not really know which way to turn. When they read some of the articles that Mr Stevenson's colleagues publish in various journals they are exceedingly concerned that one of their children will be the one in 100,000, I think it is, who reacts badly to immunisation - children who end up brain damaged, with neurological disorders, but, by the way, not SIDS; I do not think there has been any medical - - -
Mr Connolly: Yes, that was extremely irresponsible.
MRS CARNELL: It was extremely irresponsible. Certainly, there have been links with auto-immune diseases, possibly asthma, and other allergic conditions; but, again, this has happened in so few cases that the risks of immunisation are far outweighed by the positives in making sure that your child gets through those childhood years in one piece. But for those parents who, after reading some of those exceedingly unfortunate articles, present at a doctor's surgery or the health centre, not knowing just how their child is going to come out the other end, it is an exceedingly difficult decision. Therefore I agree with Ms Szuty that proper information has to be brought forward, and that information has to be well balanced. It has to indicate just what we are talking about here.
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