Vaccines are safe and anti-vax parents are punishing their own kids, say doctors and grieving parents

Furious medical experts and parents have smashed the ABC’s 7.30 program for claiming No Jab No Play is excluding some children from early childhood education.

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Furious medical experts and parents have smashed the ABC’s 7.30 program for claiming No Jab No Play is excluding some children from early childhood education.

Instead of leaving anti-vax parents “secluded” from ­society, the NJNP policy is ­directly responsible for saving lives and boosting falling ­immun­isation rates, experts said — adding vaccination is safe for children and parents have no reason to fear it.

Meanwhile, parents such as Catherine and Greg Hughes, the parents of Riley Hughes — who died of whooping cough at just four weeks of age in 2015 — said they knew how it felt for their son to be excluded.

Jessica Gluyas is furious anti-vaxxers potentially put her children Estelle and Evan at risk.

“We do know how that feels. Because you know who won’t be able to attend kindy next year? Riley,” they said in a statement.

On Tuesday’s ABC 7.30, mother Katharina Gorka claimed her youngest was a victim of the policy because she has a “set opinion on vaccinations and that’s not going to change”.

“It makes me feel like we’re a bit secluded from society,” Ms Gorka told the 7.30 program.

Mullumbimby mother Jessica Gluyas was furious.

Only 50 per cent of five-year-olds are vaccinated in her town. “I think my kids are at a disadvantage in my community — your child might miss out on early education but my child could catch whooping cough and die,” she said.

“I think No Jab No Play is the best the government can do to encourage parents not to follow the (anti-vax) trend.”

The grieving parents of Dana McCaffery, who died from whooping cough in 2009, also said NJNP was the catalyst for change.

Toni McCaffery maintains her newborn picked up whooping cough when she dropped her older children at a day care centre that had an outbreak.

“Nothing has worked in the past to increase vaccination rates, whereas NJNP is steadily increasing rates,” Mrs McCaffery said.

7.30’s story suggested child care centres in northern NSW were facing closure due to unvaccinated children being ineligible but a check of child care vacancies in northern NSW showed four centres in Mullumbimby were full and the fifth, the Mullumbimby Community preschool, had vacancies only on a Thursday and Friday. Nearby Byron Bay had no vacancies at its five preschools or day care centres.

Roxanne Elliot from the Care For Kids website, which maps child care vacancies Australia-wide, said the policy has had no negative effects anywhere else.

“Waitlists are still very strong, some services are experiencing vacancies but only due to oversupply, but there is no correlation to this and No Jab No Play,” she said.

Dr Andrew McDonald, a Campbelltown paediatrician and former NSW shadow health minister, said while he was initially hesitant about NJNP, he had seen it work “like magic” in Western Sydney.

Australian Medical Association President Dr Tony Bartone said NJNP had worked where other measures had failed.

“We would have preferred education and incentives rather than the big stick but all other measures had not worked and, when misinformed parents are putting other children at risk, measures need to be taken,” he said.

Originally published as Vaccines are safe and anti-vax parents are punishing their own kids, say doctors and grieving parents