Australia To Cut Welfare Payments For Anti-Vaxxers | IFLScience

Australia To Cut Welfare Payments For Anti-Vaxxers | IFLScience: "The Australian government will tighten the rules requiring children to be vaccinated in order for parents to receive welfare payments and childcare subsidies.

Current Australia law states that children must be vaccinated if their parents are to get the Family Tax Benefit A and rebates for childcare costs. However, exemptions are allowed under three circumstances: medical grounds that make a child at increased risk of unusual reaction, religious opposition or other “personal objections.”

The new rules would remove the last option, while still allowing exceptions on religious and medical grounds. The proposal has the support of the Labor opposition, guaranteeing it passage through both houses of parliament.

As in other developed countries, Australia has experienced outbreaks of diseases such as measles and whooping cough that were once controlled or eliminated entirely as a result of increasing numbers of parents choosing not to vaccinate their children.

"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 childcare payments,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Social Services Minister Scott Morrison said in a joint statement."



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