Vaccination: its Benefits, Risks and Problems of Community Acceptance

Dr Katie Flanagan,Head of Infectious Diseases Services, LGH, Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Immunology, Monash University will present

Vaccination, its Benefits, Risks and Problems of Community Acceptance

in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk
2.00 pm Sunday 25th May 2014
Admission: $5 General Public, $3 Friends of the Museum, $2 Students
Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organization of this event
RSVP by Thursday 22nd May 2014:
Email [email protected] or telephone 6323 3798

Dr Flanagan will briefly discuss the history of vaccination and describe how vaccines work. She will go on to describe epidemiological and scientific evidence for the benefits of vaccination, including their effects on immunity to other infections. She will describe risk in terms of adverse reactions to vaccines, including some of the more controversial issues that have been widely advertised in the media, some leading to a decrease in vaccine uptake. This will lead to a discussion regarding community acceptance of vaccination, some of the reasons for vaccine refusal, and the effects this is having on disease incidence throughout the world. Hopefully this talk will dispel some of the myths held by the general public, and provide the evidence base for modern day vaccination practices.

Dr Katie Flanagan, BA(Hons) MBBS DTM&H MA PhD CCST FRCP FRACP, leads the Infectious Diseases Service at Launceston General Hospital in Tasmania, and is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Dept of Immunology at Monash University in Melbourne. She obtained a degree in Physiological Sciences from Oxford University in 1988, and her MBBS from the University of London in 1992. She is a UK and Australia accredited Infectious Diseases Physician. She did a PhD in malaria immunology based at Oxford University (1997 – 2000). She was previously Head of Infant Immunology Research at the MRC Laboratories in The Gambia from 2005-11 where she conducted multiple