Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: Kiren on 11/10/2010 09:30:04
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Kiren asked the Naked Scientists:
Hi, I heard your show last night, on BBC radio 5 and I have to say you were really good!
As your a scientist, I wanted to ask your� personal� opinion about the MMR vaccine.
It's quite a controverisal jab, but do you think babies, and young children should be vaccinated?
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Thankyou! :-)
�
Kiren
What do you think?
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I am old enough to remember many of the diseases that we don't have to worry about now because of vaccination. For MMR, I had measles, mumps, but thankfully not rubella. I got chicken pox and my best friend has walked on crutches for all but the first five years of his life because of polio and several other children that I knew also got this scourge. I now have to take an expensive vaccine to prevent getting shingles which is the very painful recurrence of the chicken pox I had as a child.
Why would anyone not want to avoid these diseases? Further, contributing to the pool of immune children will slow or stop the spread of an epidemic that would affect those who are not vaccinated. I see this as an ethical question. Steve
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MMR is only controversial because of a severely flawed report written by a man who had shares in a company that made a competing vaccine.
There never was any scientific evidence that it caused the problems he said it did.
Obviously, there are risks with any sort of treatment but, as Steve has rightly pointed out, the risks from the diseases are much bigger.
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I completely agree with Steve and BC. I was "vaccinated" naturally against these diseases - the hard way (I had all of them) but I was fortunate to survive.
BC is quite correct in pointing out that the "science" that triggered this so called controversy was, at the least, severely flawed. What may be even worse is that many print and electronic media organizations seized on this simply to sell their products, without any regard for the consequences of their actions. They will claim they were "informing" the public, but as they were ignorant of the facts, they were really misinforming the public.
As a result, a large number of parents have been misled into believing they are putting their children at risk by having them vaccinated when they are exposing them to far greater risks by not having them vaccinated.
It's interesting that the media will get sued if they slander an individual, but they are allowed to slander good science all they want in the interests of "free speech".
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I've been vaccinated for rubella but have no antibodies, I also have had rubella and still i have no antibodies. so vaccination does not suit us all. In fact some have died after being vaccinated. An individual decision should be allowed depending on the type of vax and the purpose.
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I've been vaccinated for rubella but have no antibodies, I also have had rubella and still i have no antibodies. so vaccination does not suit us all. In fact some have died after being vaccinated. An individual decision should be allowed depending on the type of vax and the purpose.
If you had Rubella but not antibodies you would most likely be dead.
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It is important to accept that some people are killed by vaccinations- in just the same way that some are killed by peanuts or bee stings.
But it is also important to say that the risks from vaccination are small compared to the risk if people do not get vaccinated.
Individuals should be permitted to make their own choices; but they should do so on the basis of the real facts not on the basis of misinformation spread by the media in a cynical effort to boost circulation at the cost of other people's health.
An'd I agree with Variola- It's very hard to see how you could have got over rubella without antibodies. If your immune system didn't control it, what did?
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It is important to accept that some people are killed by vaccinations- in just the same way that some are killed by peanuts or bee stings.
But it is also important to say that the risks from vaccination are small compared to the risk if people do not get vaccinated.
Individuals should be permitted to make their own choices; but they should do so on the basis of the real facts not on the basis of misinformation spread by the media in a cynical effort to boost circulation at the cost of other people's health.
An'd I agree with Variola- It's very hard to see how you could have got over rubella without antibodies. If your immune system didn't control it, what did?
Yes I agree with you about vaccination, it should be decided whether to have vaccination with all the correct
information freely available. it should not be forced upon us but it should be a careful decision based on reliable and truthful information.
yes i have had all the childhood illnesses, even though I have been vaccinated against them all prior to having them including measles and rubella.
Because I had had rubella as a very young child and was last immunized against it in my teens I was very surprised to find that I do not have antibodies for this disease today (still). I'm not unique here, finding many people who have had immunization but have no antibodies for the disease still. a mystery but very true.
I have only found one other person who is the same. Has had the disease pulled through but still has no antibodies.
I have found others who have been vaccinated against disease which was only a false sense of immunity, never been tested to confirm the vaccination was effective. only to find at a later stage the vaccination was useless to them.
What controlled it? You tell me, but I am here as proof. this is true.
...........is it possible to be born with antibodies then after vaccination it is counteracted, canceling antibodies?
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I'm no expert in this field, but I think Variola is correct. If you were infected with Rubella and you didn't produce, or already have antibodies, it would have killed you.
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Obviously you are no expert but what exactly are you saying?
Even if you have had a rubella immunisation, or have had rubella infection, there is still a small chance that your body has not made enough antibodies against the rubella virus to protect you. The only way to check whether the immunisation has worked is to have a blood test. This checks for rubella antibodies.
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Rubella-%28German-Measles%29.htm
I'm not the only person to survive rubella.
I was immunised for all childhood diseases but still i got them all.
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Because I had had rubella as a very young child and was last immunized against it in my teens I was very surprised to find that I do not have antibodies for this disease today (still). I'm not unique here, finding many people who have had immunization but have no antibodies for the disease.
What evidence do you have that you no longer have these antibodies?
Any person who survived Rubella must have formed antibodies otherwise they would have not survived - QED. Their bodies will continue to produce them for life.
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As a result, a large number of parents have been misled into believing they are putting their children at risk by having them vaccinated when they are exposing them to far greater risks by not having them vaccinated.
Also, while you might make the argument that since your own child is your dependent so you can make some decisions for them, you're also reducing herd immunity, which prevents outbreaks from occurring. There are some children who, due to allergies or other complications, can't get vaccinated. They rely on herd immunity to prevent themselves from being infected. So by not vaccinating your children, you're putting other people's children at risk.
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Hold on everyone - If Echo was very very young when she had rubella, it's possible that she was carrying antibodies from her mother that fought it off, and so her own immune system didn't learn to recognise it. Of course, this only applies until you're ~6 months old.
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Because I had had rubella as a very young child and was last immunized against it in my teens I was very surprised to find that I do not have antibodies for this disease today (still). I'm not unique here, finding many people who have had immunization but have no antibodies for the disease.
What evidence do you have that you no longer have these antibodies?
Any person who survived Rubella must have formed antibodies otherwise they would have not survived - QED. Their bodies will continue to produce them for life.
Not that this should be used as an argument against vaccines, but aren't there rare instances of people getting the same virus twice? Chicken pox is the usual culprit I hear about: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chickenpox/Pages/Introduction.aspx
Not that this really has anything to do with vaccinations being a good idea or not...
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Obviously you are no expert but what exactly are you saying?
What I said was "If you were infected with Rubella and you didn't produce, or already have antibodies, it would have killed you."
I don't believe you can survive the disease without antibodies. Do you believe otherwise? ( BTW - I did not say you retained those antibodies.)
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is it possible to be born with antibodies then after vaccination it is counteracted, canceling antibodies?
No, making antibodies is a bit like making an impression in cement, once that imprint is there, it is there for life, hence you do not generally get the same disease twice. It is possible that the original infection did not generate enough of an immune response, particularly if the infection is mild, but it would be very unusual for a wild type pathogen not to generate a good immune response. Some vaccines, like Diptheria have to be given more than once in successive shots to ensure a good immune response, but most of the more widely used vaccines are either given multiple times or are good enough to generate a strong response.
How do you know you have no antibodies to these diseases?
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There's certainly a test for rubella immunity, I believe it's quite routine to test women who are trying for/expecting a baby for immunity to rubella (if you're not immune to rubella it's a good plan to get a booster before getting pregnant, if already pregnant a very good plan to try to avoid possible infection...*).
See:
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/1104.aspx?CategoryID=54&SubCategoryID=137
Foetal rubella is Bad News.
Immunity to rubella appears not to be permanent in all cases - the immune system can "forget" about it.
So possibly echo is referring to a negative rubella immunity test (not, I think, the same as "no antibodies", so much as "insufficient antibodies for full protection"). Is that right, echo?
*Such as your own or other people's unvaccinated children.
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Ben V and Rosy are possibly correct. I was very young. I then had the childhood vax, all of them including rubella and the last at 18yrs. then in my late 20's i had immunity test to find "I had no antibodies" was what I was told and was also told it is not rare for this to happen even after you have the disease and pull through.
Possibly the same with measles, mumps, chicken pox, etc I had them all even after being vaxed against them.
Still today i see children who have been vaxed come down with the disease or virus, then pass it onto others who have been vaxed also.
How can this happen?
Its not people who are not vaccinated but people who are vaccinated getting the very same disease they would expect to be immune to.
In this country if your not vaccinated you cant attend school.
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Ben V and Rosy are possibly correct. I was very young. I then had the childhood vax, all of them including rubella and the last at 18yrs. then in my late 20's i had immunity test to find "I had no antibodies" was what I was told and was also told it is not rare for this to happen even after you have the disease and pull through.
Possibly the same with measles, mumps, chicken pox, etc I had them all even after being vaxed against them.
Still today i see children who have been vaxed come down with the disease or virus, then pass it onto others who have been vaxed also.
How can this happen?
Its not people who are not vaccinated but people who are vaccinated getting the very same disease they would expect to be immune to.
In this country if your not vaccinated you cant attend school.
It sounds like you have a very unusual immmune system - one that responds to a pathogen but doesn't "learn" about it. This would mean that every time you get an illness, it will be as bad as the first time. Are you prone to colds and flu? It also would mean you have no protection against infection. Could this be a T-cell problem?
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The immune system is very complicated. It consist of several overlapping systems and its responses to disease can be quite variable in different individuals. Chicken Pox is a good vaccination example. I just did some checking and this vaccine fails 10% to 30% of the time depending on the batch and country where it is used. Even so, only 5% of the failures get a serious case, so there is partial immunity. Some children loose their immunity in a few years while in 90% immunization to Chicken Pox lasts for more than 20 years. All children who can tolerate it should be immunized to protect them and improve herd immunity. Steve
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I may be mistaken, but I thought that the reason you don't get chicken pox twice was that you never got rid of it.
The virus, so I understand, goes into hiding in the nerve cells.
That's why, when the immune system is impaired for some reason, it can flare up again as shingles and why shingles only affects a definite area of the skin- it's the area fed from the nerve(s) that the virus is hiding in.
If you didn't have the antibodies then it wouldn't be kept in hiding this way. You would get full blown chicken pox again.
I also though that the other pox viruses acted similarly- you didn't get them twice because you never got rid of them the first time.
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Immunity to rubella appears not to be permanent in all cases - the immune system can "forget" about it.
How?? There is a vast difference between low IgG levels for Rubella, and having no immunity to it at all.
[quote author=BenV
It sounds like you have a very unusual immmune system - one that responds to a pathogen but doesn't "learn" about it. This would mean that every time you get an illness, it will be as bad as the first time. Are you prone to colds and flu? It also would mean you have no protection against infection. Could this be a T-cell problem?
[/quote]
If that was the case then Echo would get the same disease every time there was contact, we are infected with the Rubella virus, and others countless times but we are not aware of it because our immune system dispatches it. I think, if Echo did have such an unusual immune system, there would be significantly more illness and this would be a red flag to the healthcare.
Plasma B cell lineage usually circulates in the body for a long time, but depending on the virus, boosters are used to 'fine tune' the immune response to the particular virus and to strengthen it.
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I may be mistaken, but I thought that the reason you don't get chicken pox twice was that you never got rid of it.
The virus, so I understand, goes into hiding in the nerve cells.
That's why, when the immune system is impaired for some reason, it can flare up again as shingles and why shingles only affects a definite area of the skin- it's the area fed from the nerve(s) that the virus is hiding in.
If you didn't have the antibodies then it wouldn't be kept in hiding this way. You would get full blown chicken pox again.
I also though that the other pox viruses acted similarly- you didn't get them twice because you never got rid of them the first time.
Yup the virus enters a latency phase, and likes to hide in around the T4 area of the spine, the immune system represses it and keeps it latent, but sometimes a weaker immune system allows the virus to grown and multiply, hence often shingles starts on the back or trunk.
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It sounds like you have a very unusual immune system - one that responds to a pathogen but doesn't "learn" about it. This would mean that every time you get an illness, it will be as bad as the first time. Are you prone to colds and flu? It also would mean you have no protection against infection. Could this be a T-cell problem?
I suffered badly as a child. I'm a fighter. since changing lifestyle, eating right etc.
I have not had a cold for over 5 years (that might be bad!) I don't immunize for colds.
No Diseases, very good health now. - thank you
These vaccines are created with good intentions but also money/profit is concerned so there has to be some doubt in everyones mind. No vaccine will give you permanent immunity. Not all vaccines are damaging to everyone. Not all people will die from the virus.
I would suggest to anyone/everyone to investigate the vaccine and speak with your doctor prior to vaccination. Vaccines are not pure and can often contain animal virus, pig virus, bird virus and now some talk about cancer cells included in vaccines. You should know as much info prior to vaccination and have a good doctor who can advise correctly.
I'm not trying to scare or deter people from vaccination just to be aware. Vaccines do not agree with everyone and just because you are vaccinated doesn't mean you have the antibodies.
Over 200 new vaccines in the pipeline, vaccination should be voluntary.
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I would suggest to anyone/everyone to investigate the vaccine and speak with your doctor prior to vaccination. Vaccines are not pure and can often contain animal virus, pig virus, bird virus and now some talk about cancer cells included in vaccines. You should know as much info prior to vaccination and have a good doctor who can advise correctly.
I'm not trying to scare or deter people from vaccination just to be aware. Vaccines do not agree with everyone and just because you are vaccinated doesn't mean you have the antibodies.
What absolute claptrap. I take up your point of not trying to scare or deter people, I think that is EXACTLY what you are doing.
Vaccine contains the viruses they are vaccinating against, they are under strict control and supervisions, more so now than ever with the advent of HIV.
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I would suggest to anyone/everyone to investigate the vaccine and speak with your doctor prior to vaccination. Vaccines are not pure and can often contain animal virus, pig virus, bird virus and now some talk about cancer cells included in vaccines. You should know as much info prior to vaccination and have a good doctor who can advise correctly.
I'm not trying to scare or deter people from vaccination just to be aware. Vaccines do not agree with everyone and just because you are vaccinated doesn't mean you have the antibodies.
Over 200 new vaccines in the pipeline, vaccination should be voluntary.
This is very dangerous and irresponsible stuff to be posting on a science forum. You are right, people should be informed before they do anything - but if someone comes here for that information they are likely to be scared off by your opinions, before they have chance to consider the facts.
Please provide evidence for each one of those statements or remove them from the forum immediately. Please consider this to be a request from the moderators.
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Ben,
Couldn't agree more.
Medicine, like any other science is not, and never will be perfect, but it is still science. I'm absolutely certain I would have died long ago if it was not for the hard work of many oncologists and experts in the field of radiation.
On the other hand, mumbo-jumbo is not, and never will be science. Anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. Scientific evidence requires an enormous amount of hard work. Anecdotal evidence can be obtained by doing almost nothing, which may have a strong connection to its value.
Let's suppose for a moment that we were able to unwind all the beneficial effects that science has had on the human population in say, the last 200 years. What would the human population be now?
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The bad consequences of following bad information are probably more obvious in medicine than in any other branch of science.
But I think we should take Echochartruse to task for misrepresenting things in any field of science.
Frankly I don't understand why we are still letting him continue to peddle this rubbish.
He has made equally inaccurate claims in other threads. He seldom engages in real discussion- in that he never replies to direct questions or accepts that he was simply wrong.
Why do we let him continue to dilute the science on this site?
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I may have posted this on here before, but it seems apt, and I like it [:)]
History of Medicine
2000 BC-Here,eat this root.
1000 BC-That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 AD-That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1920 AD-That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1945 AD-That pill is ineffective. Here, take this penicillin.
1955 AD-Oops...the bugs mutated. Here, take this tetracycline.
1960-1999 AD- Thirty-nine more “oops”......Here take this more powerful antibiotic.
2000 AD-The bugs have won. Here, eat this root.
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Variola - love that history. Very true and scarily, as time goes by, the people who remember medicine and society before anti-biotics such as penicillin are dying of old age and the first-person recollections of friends and family dying of tuberculosis etc will be lost. I was with my elderly aunt when a mutual friend (of the crystal healing / "here,eat this root" brigade) opined that TB was quite manageable without antibiotics and that their use only made it worse - well my aunt lost her father, her best friend and nearly her husband to TB; you can imagine what her reaction was! We must remember that before the vaccines (that so many are so quick to criticise) that smallpox, diphtheria, and polio were commonplace, and before pharmaceutical drugs TB and other infections had double digit mortality rates.
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Thanks-the original author is anon, but I believe it appeared in a publication by the WHO some years ago. I am currently working on modelling antibiotic resistance evolution in bacteria, and the conversations on here reminded me of it.
Another article on vaccination and the implications of health scares
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/11/vaccination-fears-developing-world-deaths
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I'm not trying to scare mungar I just want people to be aware.............
Contamination Pig Virus DNA found in Vaccine
http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/April-2010/Vaccine-Contamination-Pig-Virus-DNA-Found-in-Rota.aspx
Millions given infected polio vaccine
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/22/1098316861644.html
you say I posted dangerous and irresponsible post but if science doesn't provide information, or keep mistakes hidden and not let people know so they can make an informed decision, isn't that being irresponsible?
obviously from your reply to my post i have said something to upset you. Might it be better if i just say 'all people no matter what the vaccine, no matter what the individuals personal health history is, just get vaccinated!' would please you. By posting these links may intrench adverse decision making rather than just mentioning and making people aware of it.
I'm not going to post the long list of links here, I'm sure if people are concerned they will ask their doctors or investigate themselves before making their decision and taking the vaccination.
I would not advise people to come here with the intention to make an informed decision about vaccination. Each vaccination has to be treated individually. I would advise each person to seek personal medical advice from a trained, qualified, experienced, knowledgeable and good medical practitioner who has a scientific background, is willing to communicate, who is aware of all the risks associated and their personal medical history before making a decision.
which I believe I have already said in shorter terms here in my previous post.
I would suggest to anyone/everyone to investigate the vaccine and speak with your doctor prior to vaccination. Vaccines are not pure and can often contain animal virus, pig virus, bird virus and now some talk about cancer cells included in vaccines. You should know as much info prior to vaccination and have a good doctor who can advise correctly.
I'm not trying to scare or deter people from vaccination just to be aware. Vaccines do not agree with everyone and just because you are vaccinated doesn't mean you have the antibodies.
Over 200 new vaccines in the pipeline, vaccination should be voluntary.
This is very dangerous and irresponsible stuff to be posting on a science forum. You are right, people should be informed before they do anything - but if someone comes here for that information they are likely to be scared off by your opinions, before they have chance to consider the facts.
Please provide evidence for each one of those statements or remove them from the forum immediately. Please consider this to be a request from the moderators.
All I am saying is that not all vaccinations are good/bad for everyone. Individual assessment has to be done. It is fact some have died due to vaccination, some have no antibodies after vaccination, some have had very bad effects. Please prove me wrong if you disagree.
To make vaccination compulsory is delivering some (possibly a very small minority) a death sentence, not having vaccination will deliver some a death sentence. Please prove me wrong. You just need to be aware, these vaccinations are designed for the good of humanity without individual assessment being made. individuals need to seek individual advice
Vaccination should not be compulsory. We are individuals not a herd of cattle.
childhood vaccinations last an average of 10 years. Adults require immunising against some childhood diseases throughout their lives. Whooping couch is one. If you have a child or come in contact with children you may like to consider getting up to date with vaccinations.http://www.answers.com/topic/whooping-cough.
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Echo - your arrant disregard for actual science and basing all your argument on your beliefs (backed up by spurious quotes from websites that have a huge vested interest) can be ignored in a discussion about epigenetics and tasmanian devils - but those seeking information on vaccines might come across this site/discussion. Read a book on smallpox, on diphtheria, on polio; talk to a physician about how devastating rubella in pregnancy can be, or the effects of mumps on teenage boys; and get to grips with some academic reading. We all realise it is simple to back up any argument whatsoever by quotes from google. In a matter within which many people will be seeking information (many of whom are worried because of the fallacious anti-mmr campaign) I behoves us not to write without understanding and knowledge.
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"I'm not trying to scare mungar I just want people to be aware"
So you say things like " Vaccines are not pure and can often contain animal virus, pig virus, bird virus and now some talk about cancer cells included in vaccines. "
but when called on to justify it the best you can do is things like;
"Contamination Pig Virus DNA found in Vaccine"
Exactly- DNA, not the virus as you first claimed.
"Millions given infected polio vaccine"
True, but some years before I was born. Things have changed since then so it's only relevant on a history forum, not a scientific one.
How is that sort of misinformation and exaggeration anything but scaremongering?
You also ask "you say I posted dangerous and irresponsible post but if science doesn't provide information, or keep mistakes hidden and not let people know so they can make an informed decision, isn't that being irresponsible? "
well, what, apart from science, brought that information out anyway and if they are hiding their mistakes how come you can post a link to them?
Don't you realise that you just look silly doing that?
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Echo - your arrant disregard for actual science and basing all your argument on your beliefs (backed up by spurious quotes from websites that have a huge vested interest)
Actually it is based on scientific fact, I would not have it any other way. Supported by my links from ABC Science, Sydney Morning Herald and National Vaccine information Centre, Drug Discovery World
Imatfaal, What ‘vested interest’ do you refer to that ABC Science, Sydney Morning Herald and National Vaccine information Centre, Drug Discovery World , have ?
please answer.
In 1960, SV40 was found in monkeys and soon after was detected in injected polio vaccines. In 1963, it was supposed to have been eliminated from all new vaccines worldwide.
It was only in 1981 that the danger was eliminated, when the Soviet Union switched to a vaccine free of SV40 that the World Health Organization provided.
This meant that for nearly 20 years after SV40 was supposed to have been eliminated, the Soviet Union continued to export potentially infected vaccines.
Between 10 and 30 million Americans may have received a contaminated dose of polio vaccine, but the number in other countries is unknown.
It relates to the injectable form of the vaccine, rather than the oral form that is generally used to vaccinate children in Australia today.
Ten years ago, Carbone was the first scientist to publish evidence of a suspected link between SV40 and a deadly form of lung cancer called mesothelioma.
Published Thursday 8th July 2004. http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1149271.htm
It took almost a generation for this ‘scientific history’ to be published.
"Contamination Pig Virus DNA found in Vaccine"
Exactly- DNA, not the virus as you first claimed.
"Millions given infected polio vaccine"
True, but some years before I was born. Things have changed since then so it's only relevant on a history forum, not a scientific one.
How is that sort of misinformation and exaggeration anything but scaremongering?
You also ask "you say I posted dangerous and irresponsible post but if science doesn't provide information, or keep mistakes hidden and not let people know so they can make an informed decision, isn't that being irresponsible? "
well, what, apart from science, brought that information out anyway and if they are hiding their mistakes how come you can post a link to them?
Don't you realise that you just look silly doing that?
Are you saying because the immunisation incident happened in the 60’s wasn’t fixed or reported until the 80’s that it has nothing to do with science?
Please explain why you think it should be in a history forum not a science forum.
"Vaccines are considered one of the greatest achievements of biomedical science and public health," the authors write. "However, during the last few decades an increasingly vocal anti-vaccination movement has challenged the safety and effectiveness of the recommended vaccines."
published by ABC Science Thursday 27th June 2002
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"It was only in 1981 that the danger was eliminated, when the Soviet Union switched to a vaccine free of SV40 that the World Health Organization provided. "
The fall of the soviet union is a matter of history. The fact that, up till then, they were using an old, unsafe virus just tells you that they were shits.
It was, of course, science that found the virus and science that worked to eliminate it from the virus stocks.
The fact that political dogma got in the way is not science's fault.
"However, during the last few decades an increasingly vocal anti-vaccination movement has challenged the safety and effectiveness of the recommended vaccines."
Most noted among these is some bloke who had a patent on one of the alternative vaccines who didn't mention this when he started the MMR tragedy
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Echo
So far you have used the following sources. None of these are a scientific publication in any sense. I have followed your other arguments on these boards - and if anything those are based on even worse sources. The NVIC relies on scare stories and feeding public uncertainty for its very existence. Newspapers and TV stations rely on sensationalism to attract attention. You are either being naive or you are so set in your ways that discussion is pointless. Even a quick read of wikipedia would improve your grasp of the essentials.
I am not going to continue this waste of my time by trying to persuade you of something, when it is quite clear that you have no intention whatsoever of seeing another point of view - let alone changing yours.
http://www.patient.co.uk/
The Patient
- a non-peer reviewed non-scientific online newspaper
http://www.nvic.org/
The National Vaccine Information Centre
- a group that claims to be independent but looks and feels like a anti-vaccine lobby group
http://www.smh.com.au/
The Sydney Morning Herald
- a simple newspaper
http://www.answers.com/
Answers.com
- a wiki/aggregation internet resource
http://www.abc.net.au/
Australian Broadcasting Co
- a television service