The State Government is seeking to have an anti-vaccination billboard in Perth pulled down, after doctors complained it was posing a public health risk.
The billboard on the corner of Brisbane and William streets depicts a woman with textbooks and the question: “Do you know what’s in a vaccine?”
It provides a link to the radical American anti-vaccination group Learn the Risk.
The Australian Medical Association complained to Health Minister Roger Cook that the billboard should be banned, using legislation that states regulators can prohibit the advertising of “any public health risk activity”.
Mr Cook said yesterday that hewanted to see the billboard removed immediately and had asked the Health Department to investigate if powers under the Public Health Act could be used.
The Learn the Risk website claims it is a US-based, non-profit organisation with a global mission “for educating people worldwide on the dangers of pharmaceutical products, including vaccines and unnecessary medical treatments”.
It states it was founded by a former pharmaceutical insider Brandy Vaughan, an ex-Merck sales executive who “felt she had no choice when the industry’s agenda to keep us all sick began to spiral out of control”.
Australian Medical Association WA president Omar Khorshid said there was no place in WA for messages about vaccines that were misleading.
