Whilst we can blame the impact of the global anti-vaccination movement, an increase in vaccine hesitancy that arose and has persisted during and since the COVID-19 pandemic, and even some RFK Jr. flotsam misleading the gullible, when it comes to measles, Australia and Australians must be especially vigilant in managing the risk of infection overseas.
I’m not a doctor nor hold any position allowing me to claim I can advise you, beyond what I read, on any infectious disease. Indeed I would recommend speaking first with a qualified doctor about the topic. Measles is highly contagious and spread via respiratory droplets (aerosols). Non-specific symptoms such as fever, rash, nasal discharge and cough are common. Nonetheless measles has a reasonably high rate of complication leading to hospitalisation or death.
The role of measles infection in causing immune amnesia | 2 | is remarkably disconcerting. I’d urge any reader to invest even modest time to understand this phenomena, and ensure oneself and loved ones are immunised against this virus. Remember, there is no cure. Quaint stories from anti-vaxxers of them all having it as a child and growing up with no ill effects are possible only because they refer to pre-vaccine years and choose to forget the friends who never returned to school, became blind or sustained brain damage.
Today (31st March 2026) saw the Australian Centre for Disease Control (ACDC) publish a firm reminder that if you’re travelling OS, adding a measles jab to your pre-travel preparations is more than wise. Even if you’re sure you have been vaccinated in the past, if you can’t confirm this with records, consider yourself un- or under- vaccinated. Adolescents or adults born during or after 1966 are recommended to receive two measles containing vaccines at least 4 weeks apart [Source]. It’s also quite safe and more than sensible to top up your MMR, particularly if you’re an adult, and decades have elapsed since your initial MMR. First let’s consider this sub-heading from ACDC News.
A new report confirms that almost all cases of measles in Australia are either acquired overseas or related to an overseas acquired case – especially around school holidays. Don’t bring measles home from holidays – add vaccination to your travel plan.
3D illustration showing virus particles interacting with cells
In fact the report | PDF | scrutinising the decade to 2024, reveals the years of highest infection were 2014 (339) and 2019 (284). There were 1,095 cases of infection reported during that decade. Almost all cases had either been acquired overseas or from someone who had brought measles back to Australia from overseas, states the ACDC news piece.
Further breakdown of figures tell us that when it comes to vaccination status, that 47% were unvaccinated, 30% had an unknown vaccination status, whilst 14% were under-vaccinated (being one dose). This final figure reinforces the importance of completing a vaccine schedule as well as confirming the impact of even insufficient antigen stimulus delivered via vaccine. The smallest number of infections were seen in subjects who had received only one of the two required measles shots. Measles infection was most common in those who had travelled OS – particularly to countries where measles was common. 57% of total notifications were in people aged 20 to 49 years.
2025 and 2026 data confirm a striking increase in measles infection. The total for 2025 was 181 cases. Currently we’re 25% of the way through 2026 with data showing 85 cases. This puts us on track for a 2026 total of 340 measles cases. The report also noted the drop in childhood measles vaccination from 94% in 2020 to 91% in 2024. Rather than look at this as a drop of only 3%, we must remain aware that measles herd immunity is impacted negatively when immunisation drops below 95%. So in reality, the reduction in immunisation has been steadily placing us all at greater risk since 2020.
Indeed certain groups are at higher risk of harm from insufficient herd immunity, including:
The immunocompromised
Those unable to be vaccinated for short or long term
Children too young to be vaccinated
The pregnant
Clearly, it’s important to plan some weeks ahead of travel as the two MMR (or measles) shots need to be given at least four weeks apart. Even if urgency applies, a gap of two weeks is insufficient to promote an adequate immune response. If an infant under 12 months needs to be considered for OS travel and/or an MMR course please see a paediatrician or your General Practitioner. On that topic, this NCIRS FAQ page is an excellent resource. It includes:
Infants travelling overseas can receive an early dose of measles-containing vaccine from 6 months of age, following an individual risk assessment, in addition to the routine doses given from 12 months of age.
Global outbreaks have been on the rise for some time. Australia has been keeping pace as best it can. Each state and of course the country as a whole is seeking to promote vaccine uptake and keep a close eye on the impact of outbreaks. There is only one solution and that is an increase in immunisation across the nation.
References below are from different states, news items and excellent US herd immunity/outbreak simulators.
Back on 7 December, The Skeptic Zone and Why Smart Women podcasts blended to present a unique live episode at The Occidental Hotel in Sydney. Billed as the Why Smart Women Zone Podcast the show featured Why Smart Women host Annie McCubbin with Sue Ieraci, Kate Thomas, Jessica Singer and Richard Saunders. Lara Benham was the MC. Video of the event is available here.
Question-time revealed irony, as the first questioner could benefit from subscribing to Annie’s Why Smart Women podcast. An anti-vaxxer, she seemed to have a plan to accuse, mock, embarrass or verbally pummel skeptics (those who pursue evidence and the scientific method in reaching conclusions), for not actually being “sceptical” (those choosing doubt, cynicism or evidence denial for the sake of it). Where one genuinely believes medical research is flawed, harm has been ignored or “they” stand to benefit, the latter is not uncommon. You can catch that “question” at the end of the video here (although the person is off camera) or listen to the audio embedded below:
In fact thirteen years ago I wrote Skepgoating: why anti vaxxers need to devalue skepticism. The notion of belittling skeptics this way, peaked for a time with all the lethality of wet cabbage. Ordered to change their misleading name, in February 2014 the Australian Vaccination Network initially chose the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network, before swapping “skeptics” for “risks”. Occasional tirades of what “real sceptics” should be were rare until COVID-19 had its inevitable effect on the spread of misinformation. Failure to grasp the history of mRNA technology and research, blended with the failure to appreciate the volume of money and talent devoted to combat a dangerous global pandemic.
In 2021 Vaxxed producer and CEO of the Informed Consent Action Network, US anti-vax profiteer Del Bigtree boasted that for the vaccine disinformation machine, the pandemic was “a dream come true”. He was right. That lingering confusion was massaged and still remains. I’m not just assuming the antivax attendee at the Occidental believes unverified doubt, cynicism or evidence denial is the correct mindset. When pushed for her question, she loudly confessed:
Why are you so self-satisfied?
Why do you call other people “cookers”?
Why do you de-platform people? This is not science.
You are a shame on skepticism.
You’re not real skeptics!
I won’t be called a “cooker” by people like you.
You’re a bloody disgrace to skepticism.
Did you ever read RFK’s book?
She actually opened her tirade, seeming to be outraged that skeptics supported the evolving critical approach in mainstream media. When pressed, her question was basically, “In future are you going to continue to crush out the other side and never examine your assumptions? Did you ever examine your assumptions? Did you ever read RFK’s book?”. (Citing RFK evoked laughter and applause). Nonetheless, this was more accusation than question and her queries demonstrated absolutely no understanding of skepticism. She also accused the panel of being “self satisfied” that media outlets had suppressed disinformation, and alleged people had been injured and died because of such “silencing”, by the media.
Of course, here again I must stress of the 14 deaths causally linked to COVID-19 vaccines in Australia only one is linked to the mRNA vaccine. The rest are related to Astra Zeneca. The evidence is not on her side. Period. Perhaps nothing confirmed this greater than her demand, “Did you ever read RFK’s book?”. Titled The Real Anthony Fauci the book champions conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic, promotes HIV/AIDS denialism and contends Fauci abused power for 30 years. Science Based Medicine labelled it a “conspiracy theory extravaganza”. Little wonder then, that our questioner seemed to argue that real science involved, not facts, experiments or scientific consensus, but questioning of assumptions, and basing evidence on opinions.
There are a number of specific claims in the tirade one needs to address and I’d like to do so, away from the noise of her Gish gallop. This woman claimed to once work for the Daily Mail and wrongly claimed an editor had urged reporters to make anti-vaxxers “sound crazy”, and that this was caught on video. A leaked video has been uncovered on the data-mining disinformation site, Natural News, which is really all one need know about whether the editor did the right thing. This was July 2021 when the vaccines were indeed saving lives and badly needed. Antivax rhetoric was then dangerous conspiratorial nonsense, pushed by trolls filling comment sections of news publications.
The woman said she herself also once thought anti-vaxxers were “crazy”. In fact, in the video the editor described them as “intelligent, otherwise well-educated people”. He added, “If we’re doing something that’s airing anti-vax views make sure that we’re also dismissing them… (‘is that the right way to put it?’ he asks someone off camera)… make sure we’re rubbishing their ridiculous claims”. I completely condone his advice. He criticises the anti-vax claims but not the person making those claims. He never suggested a journalist should make anyone “sound crazy”.
More so as an aside, on 19 December 2011, myself and reasonablehank had seperate complaints upheld against the ABC by ABC Audience & Consumer Affairs, for allowing Meryl Dorey to twice mislead radio audiences about the pertussis vaccine. Suffice it to say there are consequences for not educating your journalists about anti-vaccine disinformation. This editor clearly did the right thing.
She then challenges the panel about not questioning their “own assumptions”. This is absurd, as to a person, the panelists base their conclusions on research and evidence. Assumptions are not entered into. In the same breath she claims such assumptions led to injuries and deaths due to “mRNA and DNA genetic-based vaccines”. This last bit is a word salad that suggests she’s recently been reading up on the false claims that mRNA vaccines are polluted with residual DNA. On the other hand actual gene-based vaccines deliver instructions into the cell to promote synthesis of antigens. I looked at related myths such as “turbo cancer” caused by mRNA vaccines polluted with DNA residue in this post, last March.
Shortly after, she calls mRNA COVID-19 vaccines “repurposed genetic therapies”. Such therapies do target disease conditions caused by problems in human DNA. Think cystic fibrosis, haemophilia. Distorting this therapy is popular in anti-vax circles and is a refinement of the initial myth that mRNA vaccines enter the cell nucleus and damage DNA: itself an example of outright evidence denial. A comprehensive statement from the Australian Government’s Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) published on 26 June 2024. Former Senator Gerard Rennick led many disinformation campaigns on the topic, leading to the OGTR publishing the unambiguously titled, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not gene therapies below:
Of course we also heard that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine “was tested for 2.5 months and is a medical product like any other”. Just as mRNA vaccines are not “repurposed” in the derogatory sense this woman intended, mRNA technology for vaccines actually began in the 1970s. Mice were jabbed with mRNA influenza vaccines in the 1990s and humans took part in mRNA rabies studies in 2013. As nanotechnology developed, the idea of using lipid nanoparticles to carry mRNA and its vital information into cells, was researched, developed and eventually used with an Ebola vaccine on guinea pigs in 2017. Here, Return on Investment had an impact on development, as Ebola affects only a few African countries and yields minimal cases in the USA. Then COVID hit and changed the commercial reality for mRNA vaccines. I recommend this page from John Hopkins to learn more about mRNA vaccine development.
Whilst it may sound catchy to refer to “2.5 months” as an insufficient timeframe to develop a vaccine, this ignores that vaccine development takes time, money and research. When the COVID pandemic hit, global investment was enormous and nations worked in partnership, pulling knowledge and experts together as never before. The genetic sequence of COVID-19 was discovered and within two months human testing began under extremely strict regulation, increasing the time for approval. Emergency authorisation required a minimum of 2 months follow up data. Development further demanded that subjects were monitored for 2.5 months after the second dose. Then came Phase III trials, involving “tens of thousands” of subjects and it is these trials that focus on safety and efficacy. In Australia, the TGA were doubly pedantic when it came to checking the trial data it was presented with. So no. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine did not take 2.5 months to develop, but rather decades of research topped off with a global effort. Safety monitoring continues today.
Moving on, let me assure you medical products are all vastly different, and not as the woman alleged at one point “like a car or a bus”. Indeed Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) have a rigid risk-based assessment and rating system for regulated medical products (therapeutic goods), focusing on potential for harm. More so, is a vaccine like a pain killer or is a pain killer like a pace maker (a medical device), or the pace maker like a bilary shunt and is that shunt a product like a titanium hip and the hip like a chemotherapy drug, a vasodilator or an external fixateur? The terms “product” and “medical product” are poles apart.
In that the vaccine did what it was supposed to do within the predicted risk-benefit ratio, even including unforeseen side effects, it is an effective medical product, still saving lives. Clearly, her use of “product” (and “car” and “bus”) was attempting to disparage mRNA vaccines, but in my mind this didn’t advance her argument. Rather it underscored her ignorance and reflects the pitfalls of “doing your own research”. More ignorance was highlighted by her bias in accusing skeptics of being “the magical thinkers”, suggesting skeptics think “nothing can be wrong with [the mRNA vaccine] because it’s got the magical word vaccine.”
At one point the woman promoted emeritus professor Robert Clancy, referring to his book on the subject. In fact he was the primary editor and contributor. Other contributors are anti-vaxxers Maryanne Demasai and John Campbell. Demasai’s work has long attracted criticism, including her 2016 suspension following an internal review into Catalyst at ABC. More recently she targets mRNA vaccines linking them to the myth of “turbo cancer”. Clancy earned himself ample criticism during the pandemic for promoting hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. He was championed by Craig Kelly and targeted mRNA vaccines as “genetic treatment”. Newcastle University distanced itself from Clancy, and the vice-chancellor stressed Clancy was not “a subject matter expert on COVID-19”.
The woman’s appeal to authority was embellished when she boasted she had walked up Machu Picchu with Richard Dawkins. Yet there’s no evidence Dawkins ever made such a trek. I can’t reject her claim that she “corresponded with Rob T. Carroll of The Skeptics Dictionary in the 90s”. Rather, these events don’t constitute evidence for her argument. Or even, as she contended, protect her from being labelled a “cooker”.
Finally, and most offensively, was the accusation “[Skeptics] are the reason my neighbour’s kid can’t play sport because he’s got a damaged heart. Your attitude got into the newsrooms and we dismissed everything…”. As Richard Saunders later notes on the podcast, skeptics have no such influence over mainstream media. Yet the assumption by the anti-vaccine pressure groups that conspiracies are being suppressed by those who seek evidence, is their go-to blame tactic. This warped thinking is what maintains conspiracy theories. The reality is that myocarditis from COVID-19 infection is consistently rated as far more likely and severe than from the vaccine.
So finally, finally, we may conclude with an answer as to why this woman felt she was being referred to as a cooker. They have worked very hard to become such, and cooker conduct was on loud display during the above tirade.
Those of you lucky enough to attend Skepticon in Melbourne early last month will remember Dave Farina presenting his talk The Birth of the Science Communicator, from the USA.
He recently joined up with Dr. Dan Wilson of Debunk The Funk to take on two full time anti-vaccine grifters, Steve Kirsch and Pierre Kory. You can check out Dave’s take on how things went by dropping in on his video explanation here. Regrettably the debate turned out a predictable mess as the audience was loaded with anti-vax trolls and the conduct of the notably loathsome Kory and Kirby, meant the full schedule of discussion points wasn’t even met.
This would be because Kory, who in August last year, lost his medical licence for promoting, and wildly profiting from pushing ivermectin during COVID, spat the dummy and walked out. Aw Gosh. Anyway, there’s Gish-galloping from the anti-vax chaps and heckling from their supporters. Dave and Dan do an excellent job handling the horrific misinformation that we’re now seeing in our post COVID-19 pandemic world. I’m not surprised things went astray, as I learnt in Australia that anti-vaxxers deserve not a molecule of oxygen.
Still, perhaps given the state of anti-science rhetoric and the steady rumble of runaway grift trains, then documenting their demonstrably deceptive tactics is a pursuit with rewards we’re yet to fully appreciate. This is an almost two hour gig which is perfect for either bingeing or letting play whilst you do the housework or head out for a walk.
You can watch the same event without Dave’s commentary, at The greatest vaccine debate in historyhere at Pangburn. Apologies that neither video appears to permit embedding.
The fact that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not contaminated with excessive or dangerous levels of residual DNA should not really have to be addressed. Nonetheless, doing so often comes up in arguments to debunk what is becoming a persistent trope of the anti-vaccine lobby.
In November last year I looked at an excellent report from Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), which plainly called the claim, misinformation. In March this year refuting the myth of “Turbo Cancer”, I went through a bunch of already well debunked attempts to justify the existence of this non-existent cancer. DNA contamination of COVID mRNA vaccines took up a few paragraphs.
The popularity of residual DNA contamination as a cause of invented harms favoured by anti-vaccine fear mongers shouldn’t surprise us. We received easy to understand information from health authorities well before the COVID vaccine rollout, that mRNA in vaccines never penetrates the cell nucleus and thus, DNA would remain untouched. Yet that very notion was targeted early and often by contrarians. Then came the flawed science with flawed methodology, that still remains unpublished. Remember the testing of vials that arrived anonymously in the mail without cold packs? Don’t forget mRNA vaccines require storage at about -20ºC. Then came sleight of hand by Kevin McKernan et al, using Qubit Fluorometric Quantification (fluorometry) in an unwarranted addition to the original testing regime of Quantitative PCR (qPCR). qPCR indicated DNA below FDA guidelines. Fluorometry significantly and inaccurately inflates results because it measures mRNA when calculating total DNA levels.
In fact there’s a few elements to understanding why DNA in mRNA vaccines is a non-event. That’s why I recommend watching Dr. Dan Wilson of Debunk the Funk on YouTube. Dan’s been flattening bogus bumps in the anti-vaccine world for quite a while now. His video on 2 July called Update on DNA contamination is one of a few he’s done tackling this particular myth. Interestingly, what recently caught my eye was Dan’s praise for the TGA report on misinformation about excessive DNA in mRNA vaccines.
Dan wrote to the TGA to check how they determine COVID DNA in their samples, as there are various ways to do this (see video 7:15). It turns out the TGA used the method that “most over-estimates the amount of DNA that could possibly be in that vial”. This still yielded “zero batches that exceeded the limit of residual DNA”.
So again, what this tells us is that DNA contamination of mRNA vaccines is a total furphy and they remain completely safe. Still, I sincerely recommend spending 10 minutes checking out Dan’s video, and having a look through his others for sound information to educate yourself about persistent and evolving anti-vaccine disinformation and misinformation.
In 2015 a long standing Australian anti-vaccination activist and lobbyist, Judith Wilyman, was awarded a PhD by the University of Wollongong. Titled A Critical Analysis of The Australian Government’s Rationale for its Vaccination Policy, the work attracted exceptional criticism. I’d like to consider the veracity of certain arguments raised in defence of Wilyman’s work, noting they have arisen from one source and are themselves extensive. [Jump to Conspiracy Theory Attribution].
Antithesis
From across the globe and from multiple sources, criticism flowed readily for Wilyman’s publication. For this author, there was one thing other than the content that also rankled. The fact that it was a collection of biased references arranged to attack the integrity of one of Australia’s most effective public health initiatives. Quite striking, for a work that emerged from an academic institution, is the absence of any original research conducted by the author. As the author uses the term “thesis” we had best examine this. The Oxford dictionary offers two distinctions, with the following describing “a doctoral thesis”:
a long essay or dissertation involving personal research, written by a candidate for a university degree
This may of course seem petty unless you’ve taken time to examine this work. Nonetheless for the sake of clarity I too shall yield and refer to this diversion from genuine analysis of Australian vaccination policy, as a thesis. It is clear however, that there is no research, methodology, study, data collection or justified hypothesis. There is only a literature review and a biased one at that. Australian emergency physician Kristin Boyle describes the work as, “the inevitable product of someone with an ideology based agenda”. Genuine literature reviews that seek to examine varying or different arguments, are valuable items of research. They collate and examine related works, and in judging the strengths or weaknesses of each, offer a contention, or indeed a novel conclusion. This didn’t happen in the Wilyman literature review. Still, Judith Wilyman falsely poses herself as “an expert witness” in a family court case, a “specialist in government vaccination policies” (federal politics), and has significantly elevated her importance to the fields of vaccinology and public health.
The reality is Wilyman barely scraped in. One of her two examiners suggested the thesis was unworthy of PhD status and better suited to a Master’s degree. They observed concerns about a lack of engagement with existing literature and “the lack of an appropriate theoretical framework”. Wilyman they argued, had conducted no original research nor contributed to the knowledge of the subject. This conflict was resolved by the rare event of appointing a third examiner. Australian Skeptics Inc. report (archived):
That third examiner, also unnamed, judged that, while the thesis as assessed showed Wilyman conducted original research, it did not make a significant contribution to knowledge of the subject, had no indication of a broad understanding of the discipline within which the work was conducted, and that it was not suitable for publication.
They recommended that the thesis be resubmitted, and gave “extensive and detailed comments on areas that need to be improved”, sharing the same concerns as the earlier critical examiner.
This revised version was consulted by only one examiner; the third individual who had requested the significant changes. The original “earlier critical examiner” was not asked for an opinion. The examiner who had accepted the original, doubly-rejected thesis, was considered a certainty for the improved version. Thus, a year later than she planned, Wilyman had her PhD.
In the excellent article, PhD thesis opposing immunisation: Failure of academic rigour with real-world consequences (Vaccine 37; p. 1542), Wiley et al postulate as to how this oversight possibly came to be:
The quality of the writing and presentation of the thesis is such that many of its arguments could seem plausible to an examiner without specific content knowledge, despite sound academic credentials. Our combined expertise (vaccinology, epidemiology, the history and practise of immunisation policy development globally and in Australia, social science) and as PhD examiners, both gives us detailed knowledge of the sources cited by the thesis, and allows us to identify key deficiencies […] A critical analysis should consider the merits and faults of an issue and be conducted in a way that is not designed to find only evidence for the writer’s pre-determined conclusions. […] This thesis does not include methods for assessing the literature, does not discuss aspects of identified studies which may contradict one another, or attempt to establish the quality of relevant studies. Rather, the references used are highly selective, only citing a small number of the available epidemiological studies and clinical trial reports, all of which are interpreted to support conclusions which appear pre-determined.
The Supervisor
A News GP summary of the above paper in Vaccine is available here. Let’s examine the first sentence in the above quote. Firstly, does it help us understand how such a deliberate failure to include material supporting Australia’s vaccination policy was not addressed by Wilyman’s supervisor? Secondly, is it likely such a biased collection of arguments was missed because examiners, and particularly the supervisor, lacked “specific content knowledge”? Sure, Wilyman studied within the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry. Her supervisor, Professor Brian Martin completed his PhD in Theoretical Physics and later became a Professor of Social Sciences, at the University of Wollongong. But not being qualified in vaccinology, related fields or policy development does not render senior academics incapable of accessing evidence or seeking consultation. More so, Wilyman’s published acknowledgement of her supervisor is unambiguous;
I would also like to thank Professor Brian Martin, my primary supervisor at the University of Wollongong, for his unwavering support and encouragement. His weekly phone calls kept me focused and there were many robust discussions that helped me to overcome the significant opposition to this project. I thank him for his patience and dedication to my research.
It’s important to acknowledge that the role of Professor Brian Martin (left) in Wilyman’s thesis was not just one of “unwavering support” for her many unsupported claims, but one in which his own later accounts afford academic freedom more importance than academic integrity. I shall endeavour to be as fair as possible in referencing claims Brian Martin has made in defence of the Wilyman thesis. I will seriously consider the notion of Conspiracy Theory Attribution (CTA) and the suggested failure of critics to analyse the thesis and citations presented.
Losing In The Lucky Country 