The number of Australian children with conscientious objections recorded on the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register has grown dramatically since 1999, rising from 0.23% of the childhood population to 1.49%. In number, it has grown from 4,271 to 32,410.
The rise in the number of parents lodging conscientious objections to immunisation has triggered a campaign by the AMA to exclude non-immunised children from childcare centres. The Federal Government is also planning to amend legislation replacing the term 'conscientious objector' with 'vaccine refuser'.
Parents are able to lodge a conscientious objection to their child's immunisation on the grounds of, "personal, philosophical, religious or medical belief". The process for registering a conscientious objection involves the completion of a simple one page form.
The rapid rise in the number of conscientious objections follows the recent publication of a report by the National Health Performance Authority that revealed almost 77,000 Australian children are not fully immunised and that 32 communities are at risk of an outbreak.
While the report found that 91.5% of Australian children are fully immunised for their age, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends immunisation rates of greater than 93–95% for all regions within a country to ensure measles elimination.
The report found that only 5 of 61 Australian catchment areas had immunisation rates for five-year olds at or above the level recommended by the WHO.
In response to the release of the report, AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, heavily criticised groups actively opposed to immunisation, accusing them of spreading misinformation and putting the community at risk.
"Well they are putting the community in danger. Let's be frank. The science is in. It protects our children. The balance of risk versus benefit is heavily weighted towards the benefit. So we should stop the spreading of misinformation.
"There should be some sanction for spreading misinformation. They should be ashamed of themselves," said Dr Hambleton.
Dr Hambleton has also said that the AMA supports excluding non-immunised children from childcare centres to address what he has described as some parents "free-riding".
"Sadly we will see a death. The free-riders will actually cause a disease to occur in vaccinated children whose parents did the responsible thing."
"We need to lift the barriers, we need people to make an active decision to immunise because we have a responsibility to our children to protect them, and a responsibility to the community to contribute to herd immunity," said Dr Hambleton.
