Vaccines & Viruses: Australia gets tough on vaccine objectors

No jab, no pay. Under a new policy announced Sunday, Australian families on welfare could see their benefits cut by up to $11,000 if they refuse vaccines for their children. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said beginning in 2016 parents who receive welfare benefits will no longer be able to claim a “conscientious objection” to child vaccine requirements. They can still claim a medical or religious exemption—but only if the religious group they belong to has formally registered an objection to immunizations with the government. “The choice made by families not to immunize their children is not supported by public policy or medical research nor should such action be supported by taxpayers in the form of child care payments,” Abbott said in a joint statement with a healthcare official. The number of parents declining vaccines for their children has increased nearly tenfold in Australia since 1999. News of the new policy sparked a petition that had surpassed 10,000 signatures by Monday.

California protests. In response to the Disneyland measles outbreak, lawmakers in the Golden State are considering a bill that would make California the third state to ban religious vaccine exemptions for school children, behind West Virginia and Mississippi. California is host to multiple communities with high vaccine exemption rates, and hundreds of unhappy parents have staged considerable pushback to the legislative effort. Senate Education Committee chair, Sen. Carol Liu, said the vaccine bill had provoked more calls to her office this year than any other issue, including police shootings, immigration, and assisted suicide. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (the nephew of the former president) has become a de facto spokesman for the opposition: At a Sacramento showing last week of Trace Amounts, a film about vaccines and mercury, Kennedy called vaccine injuries “a holocaust” in the United States.

In North Carolina. A similar bill that would have ended religious exemptions has died after parents protested.

Teacher vaccines? Amid the push for tighter vaccine rules for California students, Stanford University’s Peninsula Press points out one person in the classroom who is exempt from the law: the teacher. And since some teachers are older, it can be hard to verify their vaccination history.

From family court. In an unusual legal dispute, an Ontario judge ordered a 10-year-old girl to receive a measles, mumps, and rubella shot before taking a trip to Germany. The girl’s parents, who are separated, disagreed over whether their daughter should be vaccinated. (The mother was against it, the father for it.)

Ankle monitor. A plastic ankle band is helping increase vaccine completion rates for babies in Pakistan. Issued to newborns, the band changes color over time, reminding parents to return to the doctor for follow-up shots after six, 10, and 14 weeks.

Remembering. Sunday was the 60th anniversary of the announcement of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine. In this Q&A, a historian and a medical professor reflect on polio’s devastation and the gratitude American parents felt for the vaccine in 1955.