Skeptics Lecture: Life, death, and the anti-vaccination cult

Speaker: Dr (Ian) Pete Griffith

Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: Lecture theatre, Innovations Building, Eggleston Rd, ANU

The what, where, when, and how of the anti-vaccination movement is quite easily established: the why is a different matter. This talk will explore the background to this movement, and attempt to explain why it exists. The author is of the view that hard-wiring of the brain to maintain the gene-pool (and avoid disease and death) is the basis - at least in the ill-informed - for delusional fears about vaccination. Sadly these fears have been exploited by certain individuals, perhaps for financial gain: otherwise, if educated, these people are in denial. All involved in this movement do not accept (or choose to ignore) that they are safe only if other members of society actually are vaccinated. The lack of understanding of the risks involved in - and/or refusal to acknowledge the importance of - universal vaccination (or the lack thereof) in public health programmes is a feature of this movement. How governments react to this challenge will be discussed.

Pete graduated with a BA in Biochemistry from Oxford and has a PhD in Microbiology from the ANU. He worked on vaccines in the pharmaceutical industry for a while before joining the Victorian College of Pharmacy as lecturer in microbiology and immunology in 1975. He resigned as Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Microbiology in 1999, moving to a position in the Commonwealth Department of Health in Canberra where for a while he edited a journal, Communicable Diseases Intelligence, and was then Secretary to the Pandemic Influenza Planning Committee before retiring in 2001. He is actively involved in adult education in Canberra, and from 2002 - 2005 was President of Canberra Skeptics Incorporated.

No need to book but please note that theatre holds 106. Dinner will follow lecture. Any questions please contact [masked]