Antivax Validation -- In Canada?

"Choosing not to vaccinate is not illegal, negligent nor immoral. It is a personal choice."
"I am unable to find any risk to [the children] if they remain unvaccinated."
"Further, I am satisfied on the evidence the vaccines may pose additional risk to them."
"[The] most compelling [part of Bark’s -- alternative medicines practitioner -- testimony was her suggestion that the mother had a genetic mutation that made it more difficult to clear the] toxins [in vaccines, and that her sons may have inherited that mutation]."
Herschel Fogelman, family law arbitrator

An unnamed Canadian boy being vaccinated in 1959.   Library and Archives Canada/National Film Board

"[Much of what the arbitrator wrote] doesn’t make sense."
"[While it’s technically accurate that when everyone else around a child is well-vaccinated — creating herd immunity — the minimal risk posed by vaccines outweighs the extra benefit for that individual. However], we’d be in big trouble [if all Canadians thought that way and chose not to get immunized]."
"It’s everybody’s responsibility to be vaccinated."
Dr. Caroline Quach, pediatric infectious-disease specialist, past president of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Canada

A divorced couple with joint custody of two school-age children was unable to agree on vaccination for their children. The mother vehemently opposed it, their father was strongly in favour of vaccinating the children. Their disagreement ended up in arbitration, leading lawyer and family law arbitrator Herschel Fogelman to rule in the mother's favour against vaccinating the children. The father was directed by the arbitrator to pay the mother's legal bills of $35,000.

Even as the case was being heard, both of the children contracted pertussis (whooping cough) because they missed the standard child vaccination, to protect against measles, mumps and whooping cough. The father's new partner, pregnant at the time, had to submit to a pertussis booster in recognition of the potentially deadly effect on newborns that whooping cough represents. This is happening at a time of old diseases returning to plague society, reflecting the rise of parents refusing to vaccinate their children.

In this Toronto case, the father, Arnaud Presti, plans a challenge of the ruling in court, refusing to allow a lawyer acting as a family arbitrator to have the last word, arguing that "the system is broken". "I really feel a sense of injustice. It doesn't seem normal that the government is not helping my child get vaccinated." Granted joint custody of the two boys, aged 12 and eight, in a 2015 divorce settlement, a process to resolve disputes was included. Evidently that process failed in this instance.

The mother of the two boys had two witnesses called by the lawyer she had retained. One of the witnesses was a Dr. Toni Bark, a medical doctor who decided to abandon general practise to focus on homeopathy, and who regularly appears at anti-vaccination events in the U.S. The arbitrator allowed her testimony as a vaccination expert. In several recent cases in the States judges there withheld that kind of expert recognition from her, referencing her as a general medicine authority.

"Reported measles cases spiked in 2017, as multiple countries experienced severe and protracted outbreaks of the disease. This is according to a new report published today by leading health organizations."
"Because of gaps in vaccination coverage, measles outbreaks occurred in all regions, while there were an estimated 110 000 deaths related to the disease."
"Using updated disease modelling data, the report provides the most comprehensive estimates of measles trends over the last 17 years. It shows that since 2000, over 21 million lives have been saved through measles immunizations. However, reported cases increased by more than 30 percent worldwide from 2016."
"The Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean Region, and Europe experienced the greatest upsurges in cases in 2017, with the Western Pacific the only World Health Organization (WHO) region where measles incidence fell."
World Health Organization report   29 November 2018

"There is very little grounds to see her as an expert on vaccine or even on medicine", commented law professor Dorit Weiss of the University of California Hastings, whose studies focus on legal aspects of immunization. Yet Mr. Fogelman heard out Dr. Bark's outline on perils she saw related to vaccination, despite studies pointing to vaccination being the cause of only minor side effects in exchange for its prevention of many serious illnesses.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 53 confirmed reports of deaths were received after 110 million doses of HPV vaccine were administered; no evidence being found that any of those deaths which occurred some time after the vaccinations, were caused by the inoculations. Dr. Bark's testimony earned her $11,000 which was to come out of the $35,000 for legal defence awarded to the boys' mother which the father was ordered to pay.