Dear Editor
There has been a lot of talk lately about the measles outbreaks in Samoa and in New Zealand. Yesterday (26 Nov 2019), a New Zealand immunologist by the name of Dr Helen Petousis-Harris was quoted on Stuff as saying that New Zealand should be ashamed for spreading measles to Samoa. Her exact words were:
“….given New Zealand’s responsibility for the 1918 flu epidemic reaching Samoa and wiping out 22 per cent of the population, this country should have done more to protect Samoa from the outbreak. “I feel deeply ashamed and incredibly angry that this has happened because it was absolutely predictable,”
“It was inevitable that we would export this to Samoa. The situation in Samoa is well known that they have very low levels of immunity there.” “I think ultimately we need to look to our leaders. [Not] the current leadership, or the one before… “
Phew, it almost seemed like she was going to blame Jacinda for a moment, but she quickly ruled that out, which was lucky, because the two of them seem to get on so well otherwise.
So Dr Petousis-Harriss’s conclusion that New Zealand must have infected Samoa, is based solely on the fact that there was an infection a hundred years ago, and so if we were guilty then, then we must be guilty now, of anything at all that happened 100 years later. That would stand up well in court.
For their part, our media have happily and willingly fed people the line that New Zealand is guilty of infecting Samoa with measles, and that it is colonialism’s fault, for which we must be ashamed!
I couldn’t help but notice a few strange things about this story though. For one, the outbreak in New Zealand was concentrated in Mangere, the country’s largest Samoan community, and the home of Auckland International Airport. The vast majority of the people infected were Polynesians, and most of those were from the Pacific. So let’s see, the outbreak in New Zealand coincided with the outbreak in Samoa, and it happened in our largest Samoan population, that just happens to be directly linked by air to Samoa, with continuous flights between the two ports. It’s not like the outbreak occurred among Scottish people in Dunedin. Could there be a possible link? Our media, however, could not for the life of them see any possible link.
I also read many overseas publications. So let’s look at what the rest of the world has been reporting about this case. ABC News in Australia reports:
Two senior Samoan nurses have each been sentenced to at least five years in jail after they incorrectly mixed and administered vaccinations that caused the death of two infant children.
The decision was handed down after the nurses, Luse Emo Tauvale and Leutogi Te’o, pleaded guilty to manslaughter after giving the children a routine mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) vaccination in July last year. Tauvale pleaded guilty to two charges of manslaughter and one charge of obstruction of justice.
She mixed the vaccine powder with an expired anaesthetic, the court was told, and was sentenced to five years and six months in jail. Te’o pleaded guilty to one charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to five years in prison.
And also from the ABC article:
“Parents are also scared to bring their children to vaccinate for other diseases.”
Almost all media from outside New Zealand have reported on this case and concluded that the measles epidemic in Samoa was caused by the criminal actions of 2 nurses, which then led to a lack of faith in the vaccination system by the Samoan public. They failed to vaccinate their children for fear that the hospitals would kill their children.
There was some degree of “anti-vacc” protest, but it was the cold hard reality that hospitals had killed children in Samoa that made most of the parents afraid to vaccinate their kids. To be quite frank, I would refuse too, under that state of affairs. It actually makes total sense, once you strip away the media lies.
It is furthermore stated in the New Zealand Medical Journal, referenced by the Ministry of Health, that:
“With multiple imports and more than 12 recognised outbreaks in the first five months of this year affecting most regions, this should appropriately be called an epidemic. “
and:
“With a mixture of increased transmission from international sources, ease of travel and a population with recognised immunity gaps, the current measles epidemic in New Zealand was not surprising. “
Hmmm, that’s interesting, our own Ministry of Health seems to contradict what both our media and our immunologist friend said, and instead state that the disease was imported from the Pacific to New Zealand.
So let us summarise. Our Ministry of Health says that the infection came from Samoa to New Zealand. Logic says that this is the most likely scenario. Our media, though, say it was the other way around, because, well you know, evil colonialism.
The media and their immunologist adviser both seem totally unaware that virtually all of the media outside of New Zealand have already reported on the fact that it was criminal action on the part of two Samoan nurses that created the MMR vaccine “crisis” in the first place, which then stopped a huge proportion of Samoans from being immunised, which then in turn led to a lack of herd immunity and an outbreak of measles in Samoa, which then led to it being transmitted to New Zealand via Mangere airport.
This leads to another interesting point. Does anyone honestly believe that NONE of our media knew that this story had been reported extensively throughout the rest of the world? Let’s face it, our media only copy and paste what the rest of the world has reported, and then put their names on it for clickbait. Yet they didn’t somehow know what any of their many, many sources had said? How about our famed “Pacific island correspondent” Barbara Dreaver for example? Did she go to Samoa and hear what they or anyone else in the Pacific was saying? Or did our media not want New Zealand to know the truth, so they deliberately hid it from us? I guess it just doesn’t fit the media agenda.
Send your letters to the Editor to sb at thebfd.co.nz
Please put Letter to the Editor in the subject line.
