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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the when-you-can't-make-them-see-the-light dept.

The Center for American Progress reports

The anti-vaccine sentiments that originated with a [completely] discredited British study linking the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) shot to autism have made their way to other western countries like Australia.

According to the government agency that tracks Australia's childhood vaccination rates, the rate of kids going without their shots has doubled over the past decade.

[...]Australia has announced an aggressive new approach in this area: Cutting off government benefits to parents who refuse to inoculate their children.

Under the proposal, parents who claim philosophical objections to vaccines will no longer be eligible for welfare payments and childcare rebates that can equal up to $11,500 per child in American dollars. Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the policy change on Sunday, although it still has to be approved by Parliament.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by esperto123 on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:50PM

    by esperto123 (4303) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:50PM (#170386)

    Ok, I'm being picky, but isn't Australia pretty much as eastern as it can be?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @06:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @06:04PM (#170474)

    Ok, I'm being picky, but isn't Australia pretty much as eastern as it can be?

    Hint: "western" is code for "white people". Glad I could be of help.

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:03PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:03PM (#170522) Journal

    Western is short for "Western Civilization" and refers to that culture that originated on the western coast of Europe after the collapse of Rome. Sometimes it includes the entire area along the northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. and is such cases it extends back to Rome and Greece, but usually they aren't included, and the time period included us usually only starts at the 15th or 16th century. Different areas of culture tend to be traced back to slightly different origins, depending on the perspective of the author talking about it. (Exact boundaries are essentially arbitrary in all real world events, even your skin, though there you need to look more closely than in most areas to see the arbitrariness of the exact position of the boundary.)

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:50PM (#170570)

    Its populated by European colonists (well, prisoners, but same difference) rather than Asian colonists, thus "Western".

  • (Score: 1) by m2o2r2g2 on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:24AM

    by m2o2r2g2 (3673) on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:24AM (#170723)

    only if you define America as the reference. The USA is East of Australia.

    Now if we take it from the term's origination of location relative to setting out via ship from Europe/UK, then yes Australia is East, but again the West coast of the US is east of that (it's just that there was no real demand for sailing that route, as they would go to East Coast and go across the land instead).

    At some point as language does, it got transformed to mean Western European culture, or white people, vs Asian culture, or asian people, (with oddly no equivalent definition for African culture / black people)