Dangerous nuts

According to this report, a prominent anti-vaccination group in New South Wales is not only spreading their mis-information via the Web; they are actively pursuing those who have suffered a tragedy:

When their four-week-old baby daughter Dana died from whooping cough Toni and David McCaffery sought love and healing to ease their grief.

Instead, they say they were subjected to a campaign of harassment and abuse at the hands of anti-vaccination campaigners, a group who were yesterday labelled a serious threat to the public's health and safety….

Its investigation was sparked by two complaints, one from Toni and David McCaffery, whose four-week-old daughter Dana died from whooping cough last year.

The couple, from Lennox Head, allege they were subjected to months of harassment and abuse by Ms Dorey and anti-vaccination campaigners, accusing them of lying about the cause of their daughter's death. They received anonymous letters and emails that said whooping cough was not fatal and vaccinations were not needed.

Mrs McCaffery, whose daughter was too young to be vaccinated when she caught whooping cough, said Ms Dorey also tried to get her baby's medical records from the hospital without permission. ''Instead of love and healing in the weeks after Dana's death, we got ugliness … it has been terrible,'' she said.

It doesn’t explain why the parents were in contact with the group in the first place, but still this sounds like an appalling story.

I mentioned this anti-vaccination group late last year after they appeared on the 7.30 Report under a post headed “Immunisation Dills”.  It deserves the upgrade to “Dangerous Nuts”.