By Jane Luscombe
A world expert in immunisation has been describing the future to New Zealanders, including a vaccine one day against arthritis.
Professor Stanley Plotkin also had plenty to say about parents who don't protect their children against preventable diseases.
Actor Jim Carrey will not be pleased to know there is an explosion of experimental vaccines that will one day become routine. He already thinks there are too many.
But Professor Stanley Plotkin, the man behind the rubella vaccine, is unapologetic.
“I see the future as the expansion of vaccines, particularly to control disease in adolescents and adults”, - diseases like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria and even for conditions like arthritis.
But there is a more pressing issue; getting more children immunised with existing vaccines.
“If you do not vaccinate you are in a sense living off the decisions of other people to vaccinate because they are protecting you and your children.”
Research shows only a handful of parents are actively opposed to vaccinations.
And we are getting better. Two years ago 80 percent of two-year-olds were immunised which has now risen to 90 percent. But to prevent disease outbreaks, a 95 percent uptake is needed.
Paediatrician Dave Graham says doctors are not immunising children for trivial reasons.
“These are things that will kill some children, maim some children, leave children handicapped in the long term.”
That is what Dr Mike Shepherd faces in the children's emergency department at Auckland Hospital.
“Probably one in 1000 children that contracts measles ends up with some lasting complications, the most severe of which is permanent brain damage.”
The doctors say immunisation opponents often do not appreciate the dangers because they have never seen them.
Professor Plotkin says the logic is simple – the risk from the disease is always far higher than the risk of a reaction.
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