North & South

PARENTS’ VAXXING CLASH GOES TO COURT

A mother who fought for two years to prevent her daughter being immunised says personalised risk assessment and genetics, not a rigid regime of shots, should guide vaccination decisions. The woman told a Family Court hearing in Auckland that she did not like the term “anti-vaxxer” and regarded herself as believing in “pro-informed choice”.

The case is one of a number of parental disputes over immunisation to reach court, and its timing coincided with the country’s measles epidemic, which led to an 11th-hour agreement by the mother for the now five-year-old child to receive the MMR (measles,

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