Regular childhood vaccines are causing an increase in chronic illnesses in New Zealand, social media posts claim.
This is false. Experts told AAP FactCheck there’s no evidence that childhood vaccines cause or aggravate chronic diseases; they do the opposite.
The claim appears in a Facebook post urging people to reject the NZ government’s childhood vaccination program if they “want healthy kids”.
“Why are 90% of New Zealanders suffering more from chronic illnesses? Because 90% of them are fully vaccinated ‘against’ childhood diseases,” the post said.
NZ’s health department reported that 77.8 per cent of children who turned two in the first three months of 2024 were fully vaccinated.
One in four New Zealanders lived with multiple chronic health conditions in 2022, it also reported.
Experts told AAP FactCheck there’s no evidence childhood vaccines cause more chronic illnesses.
US Center for Disease Control has listed risk factors causing chronic diseases such as smoking, poor nutrition, increased alcohol use and poor air quality, but not vaccines.
Janine Paynter, an epidemiologist and senior research fellow at the University of Auckland, said jabs haven’t caused a rise in diseases globally.
“Vaccines are not even close to the ballpark as a cause and, in fact, help protect people with chronic diseases from developing more severe infectious disease,” she told AAP FactCheck.
Dr Paynter said no studies had found a link between certain vaccines and certain diseases, such as childhood jabs and diabetes.
“Of the many professionally conducted, robust studies to date there are no associations between vaccines and chronic disease,” she said.
Professor Graham Le Gros, an immunologist and Director of the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, said vaccines made to current regulatory standards hadn’t been linked to chronic diseases.
“All the evidence points to the opposite – that chronic diseases are significantly reduced by childhood vaccinations,” he said.
Professor Le Gros said vaccines have significantly reduced the burden of many diseases, including whooping cough, measles, rubella and polio.
Associate Professor Helen Petousis-Harris, a vaccinologist at the University of Auckland, said jabs don’t aggravate or cause any diseases.
She said they protected people against long-term illnesses or aggravating existing conditions.
“This is the very reason why people with chronic medical conditions are often funded for additional vaccines,” Prof Petousis-Harris told AAP FactCheck.
Claims about childhood vaccines and illnesses have previously been debunked by Health Feedback, FactCheck.org and AFP FactCheck.
The Verdict
False – the claim is inaccurate.
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