While President Donald Trump continues to voice his opposition to vaccines, Australia has been doing everything in its power to make sure as many kids are vaccinated as possible.
As The Washington Post explains, panic over the possible side effects of vaccinations began in 1994 after a group called the Australian Vaccination Network — later forced to rename itself to the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network —spread fear nationwide by singing the praises of a paper that has since been discredited, which linked the MMR vaccine to autism.
Over the years following, the percentage of children who'd been fully immunized steadily decreased, dropping as low as 73.6 percent in 1999. The government then "launched an aggressive education campaign" in response, which gradually brought the immunization rate back up to 92.2 percent by 2015. However, that percentage still wasn't high enough to prevent the potential spread of diseases once considered eliminated in Australia — so the country decided to take things to the next level.
In 2015, they launched the "No Jab No Pay" campaign, which essentially required parents to fully vaccinate their children, or else they would not receive their customary $11,500 child-care welfare credit.
“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,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Social Services Minister Scott Morrison said in a joint statement.
But while the new requirement received considerable pushback from parents who are opposed to vaccinations, The Washington Post adds that it's already proven quite successful, with 200,000 more children registered as fully immunized over the last year.
“I am delighted to see an increase in parents who are having their children immunized. We are doing all that we can to encourage parents to immunize their children,” Health Minister Greg Hunt told The Courier Mail. "This data shows the policy is working."
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