TUBERCULOSIS TESTING

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27690, 21 June 1955, Page 17

TUBERCULOSIS TESTING

SECONDARY SCHOOL PROGRAMME “NO FALLING OFF IN NUMBERS” There was no falling-off in the numbers of secondary school pupils being tested for tuberculosis under the B.C.G. programme in Christchurch, said the Medical Officer of Health (Dr. D. P. Kennedy) yesterday, when Auckland reports that a large percentage of parents had forbidden their children to be tested were referred to him. “We are getting a 75 per cent, to 80 per cent, response,” Dr. Kennedy said. “We would like to see it higher, but we think it is good, and encouraging. We are living in a democratic community, and we hope reason will prevail eventually.”

In Auckland, a meeting of the board of managers of the Seddon Memorial Technical College decided io ask the Education Department to take action □ver the present situation. Board members said it was “incredible” and

“a menace to other children at the school” when the principal (Mr H. M. Scott) said that 26 per cent, of the boys’ and 37 per cent, of the girls’ parents did not consent to the tests. Mr K. J. H. Cohen said parents who refused were forcing their children to take a risk on whether they had a tubercular tendency. There were no medical grounds for any opposition to the vaccination.

Mr Scott, replying to a question, said that chiropractors, naturopaths and others asserted that the injection of dead matter into the body* 1 was contrary to the laws of health. The board should take into account that some parents might hold that view. The tuberculosis officer of the Health Department at Auckland (Dr. C. H. King), when the board’s discussion was referred to him, said that children’s health was not in any way endangered by tuberculosis tests and vaccination. The vaccine used was a non-virulent culture of tuberculosis which had already been used by the World Health Organisation to vaccinate about 60.000,000 people. There was occasionally a local reaction, but nothing dangerous.

Dr. King said that *3O per cent, was not an unusually large quantity of refusals. Parents refused for a number of reasons. Confusion with the Salk PoliomyeWis vaccine was probably one of them, but there was actually no connexion between the poliomyelitis and the tuberculosis vaccines.