Scare tactics promoting meningoccal vaccine - expert

[Guest guest]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3338370a11,00.html

Scare tactics promoting meningoccal vaccine - expert

08 July 2005

An immunisation expert says public health officials have used fear tactics

in the media to promote the meningococcal B vaccination.

Nikki , director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre, said pro and

anti-immunisation camps used fear to promote their viewpoints.

She believed use of fear by public health officials was valid provided it

was honest and appropriate to the issue. The Health Ministry's campaign for

meningococcal B had focused narrowly on the disease and the urgency of the

issue.

" I think it's realistic, working in health we are scared of certain

diseases, " she said.

" I think fear is implicit in a lot of health. Part of health is the fear of

not being healthy and the fear of catching a disease is what would motivate

us to vaccinate. "

In contrast, anti-immunisation groups tended to take a broad approach,

looking at the risk of the vaccine and generalised to " conspiracies " ,

anti-Government and anti-science messages.

Dr , who will speak in Auckland today at a Public Health Association

conference on fear in the print media in the lead up to, and during the

meningococcal B campaign, said some people had chosen not to vaccinate their

children after reading articles in the media.

" There are people who have chosen not to vaccinate, which is fine but there

are people who have chosen that based on misinformation or misunderstood

fear. "

Dr and colleagues' provisional analysis of 2295 articles published in

2004 and the first half of 2005 found about 50 per cent were supportive of

the campaign, 40 per cent were neutral and informative and 10 per cent were

negative.

In some cases a well-balanced story was accompanied by a headline that was

misleading or wrong.

Further analysis would extend to other forms of media and try to establish

whether there was a relationship between what was represented in the media

and immunisation coverage.

Jane O'Hallahan, director of the Meningococcal Immunisation Programme, said

the ministry did not intentionally use fear but some people might fear what

they saw or heard about the disease. Fear was a natural reaction to a

threat.

" Any parent, survivor or health professional who has dealt with

meningococcal disease knows this is a fearsome disease, " Dr O'Hallahan said.