A doctor has received a number of death threats after he said unvaccinated kids should be banned from attending schools.
Dr Dominic Rowley, a Genital Urinary consultant at Portlaoise Hospital, told the Irish Mirror: “I have been told to go hang myself and if I didn’t do it, someone would do it for me.
“I have been called a parasite and have been told I am depraved.”
The doctor received the nasty messages after he tweeted that unvaccinated kids should be banned from attending schools and creches.
He urged Health Minister Simon Harris to “take a bold step” with his proposal.
Dr Rowley tweeted: “It’s a really simple life saving concept. We should be protecting those kids who cannot receive #vaccines.” Mr Harris responded to Dr Rowley and said he “instinctively” agreed with banning unvaccinated kids from schools and would “research further” despite possible constitutional issues.
Following the support, Dr Rowley said although he has been flooded with positive messages in agreement with his idea he has also received extreme trolling.
He said: “I’ve heard from the most wonderful people, people are so kind saying keep up the good fight.
“I have received about 70% nice and 30% awful messages and then a lot of the extreme groups have joined in.
“For exmaple a lot of the anti-abortion groups have given me grief as well but I’m not sure where this extremism comes from.
“These vaccines are miracles, especially the one that stops you getting cancer. If we heard about that 50 years ago we would have said that can’t be true.
“I knew the tweet was controversial but I think the pro-vaccine people need to have a stronger voice because I don’t think anybody in 2019 should be dying of preventable illness.”
Dr Rowley told the irish Mirror his campaigning about pro-vaccination has changed people’s opinions.
He said: “I’ve had multiple people messaging me on Facebook and Twitter and saying ‘thanks a million you’ve changed my mind’.
“I’m baffled, I think the responsibility relies with social media, with companies like Facebook and Twitter, they have moderators and that’s where the responsibility lies to clamp down on misinformation.
“All doctors can do is keep on giving parents the right information so they don’t get confused.
“That’s most of the problem the anti-vaxxers have put out so much misinformation that parents get frightened and it’s our job for parents to stop getting frightened.”
