Italian upper house votes to overturn mandatory vaccinations despite surge in measles cases
Five Star Movement and the League have long-running ties with Italy’s growing anti-vaccination movement
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Your support makes all the difference.Parents in Italy are no longer obliged to have their children vaccinated against measles, despite a recent surge in cases of the disease in the country.
Italy’s upper house voted through legislation from the ruling anti-establishment government to remove a law that requires children to have 10 vaccinations before enrolling in state schools
The law came into effect in March after a measles outbreak affected almost 5,000 people and killed four.
Only four vaccines – not including the measles inoculation – were required at the time of the outbreak.
Under the decree, parents of unvaccinated children aged between six and 16 faced fines of up to €500 (£386).
But the Five Star Movement and the League, which formed a ruling coalition in May, vowed to scrap the rule in campaign ahead of the March general election.
Both parties have long-running ties with Italy’s growing anti-vaccination movement and have courted the anti-vaxx vote.
Five Star’s health minister Giulia Grillo, said she supported vaccination in general but argued the current rules were too restrictive.
Deputy prime minister and leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, has said that having ten compulsory vaccines is “useless and sometimes dangerous”.
The amendment, which was passed by 148 to 110 votes, will not become law in time for the new school year since it still needs to pass the lower house after the parliamentary recess.
Vaccine scepticism in Italy dates back to a debunked 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield that suggested the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) inoculation was linked to autism.
Experts have widely discredited his study and he was struck off the medical register in 2010.
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