Measles is one of the most infectious airborne diseases.
A new mum has had an Instagram post about her sick baby hijacked by anti-vaccinators.
South Auckland mother Tracey Fox had been concerned about the country's measles outbreak, especially since her son Ryan has been too young to receive the vaccine.
The day after he reached 6 months old, Fox took him to get vaccinated.
Children usually have two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, the first at 15 months. Although babies aged 6-11 months can have theirs early if there is a high risk of exposure to measles.
Ryan suffered a reaction to his measles vaccination. Photo / Supplied
After Fox returned home, Ryan broke out in a rash, with a fever and diarrhoea. She took him to the doctors every day for three or four days before taking him to the hospital on October 22.
"They kept saying it was a viral kind of thing," Fox said.
"He was getting worse. His chest started to cave in when he was breathing. His feet had started to turn blue, struggling to draw breath."
She thought it might have been a reaction to the vaccine. Doctors at the hospital told her they couldn't be sure what was wrong with Ryan, but they said it could be measles. But after the pair were sent home, the hospital called to confirm it wasn't measles
Anti-vaxxers hijacked Ryan's mum's post, accusing her of harming him. Photo / Supplied
Fox shared a photo of Ryan's rash in a post on Instagram with the caption "my poor sick bubba".
On Friday, the Instagram page Makinginformedchoices screen-shotted the post, and other historical posts from her page, and shared them on its page.
Its caption said: "If this is his body now, so young, can you imagine the reaction he'll receive at 12 month shots? When he already has so much poison in his body?
Tracey Fox' post anti-vaxxers shared on their Instagram page.
"This defenceless child is suffering because the mother is delusional and brainwashed by her doctor who probably told her that her child would die if he didn't get vaccinated."
Fox said she was then flooded with hundreds of private messages of abuse through Instagram.
"[They] attacked me and told me I was terrible mother."
She said she was told she could almost guarantee her son would die if he received his next routine vaccine at 12 months of age.
"[I felt] angry – really furious. I don't even have words."
An example of one of the messages Fox received.
Responding to a Herald request for comment, the operator of the Instagram page said: "I was achieving nothing but public ridicule for trying to warn her that she is damaging her son's immune system with vaccinations which have never been tested for safety or efficacy."
"I'm not suckered in, but some people might potentially be."
She said the messages themselves didn't affect her, but the re-posting of her son's photo does.
She said she initially replied to the messages and told people she would go to the police, in an attempt to scare them off. She believes the group found her through the hashtags she used on the post. Her Instagram profile is now private and she won't use hashtags anymore.
Another message sent to Tracey.
Dr Helen Petousis-Harris, director of the Vaccine Datalink and Research Group and senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, said reactions from anti-vaccination groups could get pretty nasty and are often "co-ordinated attacks".
"When they see something posted in a discussion, they tell others, and they co-ordinate an attack in some way. If you've been flooded with messages, it's co-ordinated."
Petousis-Harris said people have a right to make their own decisions, and express freedom of speech.
"But there is a line. This is harassment. Doxing. Trolling. And the deliberate spread of misinformation. There's a lot of lines there that have been crossed."
As of October 31, there were 1969 confirmed cases of measles in New Zealand, with 1591 of these in Auckland, and most of them in Counties Manukau.
