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  "description": "If increasingly risky ‘vaccines’ are added to the NIP, we can expect the number of parents deviating from the schedule to continue on the current trajectory.",
  "path": "/vaccine-definition-broadened-to-push-new-therapeutics/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-02T23:00:55.000Z",
  "site": "https://goodoil.news",
  "tags": [
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  "textContent": "Rebekah Barnett\n_Independent journalist reporting from Western Australia. BA Communications, Hons, University of Western Australia._\n\nVaccines will be redefined in Australia, paving the way for emerging technologies like monoclonal antibodies and mRNA therapeutics to be listed on the National Immunisation Program (NIP) alongside traditional vaccines.\n\nThe National Health Amendment (Passive Immunological Products) Bill 2026_,_ passed in the Senate, changes the legal definition of ‘vaccine’ to include passive immunisation products, which give your body pre-made antibodies.\n\nThe current definition of vaccines only encompasses ‘active’ immunisation products which teach your body to fight a disease by provoking an immune response.\n\nThe change will be a boon for pharmaceutical companies, as products listed on the NIP are bulk purchased by the government, which will have carte blanche to spend even more than the $2.4 billion it typically spends on distributing vaccines for ‘free.’\n\nThis is the second major change in the definition of a vaccine in the last several years, after the standing definition was amended during the Covid pandemic to include mRNA technology, which is arguably a gene therapy, not a vaccine.\n\nPolitical discussion around the bill has focused on how it will improve access to monoclonal antibodies such as Beyfortus to protect children and babies from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and who wouldn’t want that?\n\nRSV is one of the leading causes of infant hospitalisation in Australia.\n\nWhile few babies in Australia die from RSV each year, the Australian government says that 12,000 babies are hospitalised every winter, and researchers have found that administration of monoclonal antibodies to babies prevents enough RSV hospitalisations to have a net cost-saving effect.\n\nNot discussed, but totally possible, is that this bill opens the door for a slew of mRNA passive immunisation therapeutics to make it onto the NIP. The federal and state governments are heavily invested in mRNA research, development and manufacture, with cancer therapies, antibodies for HIV and the flu, and mRNA-encoded autoimmune suppressors being just some of the products in the pipeline.\n\nA $2.2 million mRNA research centre at the University of Queensland, one of many university-government partnerships around the country.\n\nThat is the _what_ of the bill. Then there is the _how_ of it. This was one of 22 bills rushed via guillotine motion, which means very limited or no debate, through the Senate over the past several days.\n\nObviously, the House of Review can do very little review on such a short timeframe and with no opportunity for proper debate.\n\nIt must be said, though, that while this is a recurring theme with the Labor government, which has a habit of ramming through new laws in a mad rush right before holidays as it did with the under-16s social media ban, it’s not a partisan problem, but an all of government problem.\n\nThe coalition has been equally if not more likely to use the same tactics to stifle debate and blitz through stacks of bills – in fact, the Morrison government was one of the worst on this front.\n\nThis procedural bugbear might seem like not that big of a deal, but the consequences of not properly considering the impacts of this bill could be significant for Australian families.\n\nVaccines listed on the NIP schedule for children are mandatory for families wishing to access childcare subsidies and family tax benefits under No Jab No Pay legislation. Moreover, in some states children cannot access daycare at all unless they have received every single shot on the schedule under No Jab No Play rules.\n\nIf products added to the NIP are optional, that’s one thing, but if the list of shots required for babies and children expands, that’s a real concern. Australian children already receive 40–50 antigen doses across 16–18 injections by the age of 18.\n\nMeanwhile, Australia’s rate of childhood immunisation has fallen to a 10-year low according to recent government data, with only 90 per cent of children aged 24 months or less being fully immunised. This represents an almost three per cent decrease since the Covid pandemic, most likely due to vaccine fatigue and loss of trust in vaccines.\n\nWhere new technologies offer a safe alternative to riskier forms of disease prevention, increasing access is a good thing. But if increasingly risky ‘vaccines’ are added to the NIP, we can expect the number of parents deviating from the schedule to continue on the current trajectory.\n\nThe Department of Health did not respond to request for comment before publication deadline.\n\n_Credit to_ Michael Arbon_for drawing attention to this bill on Twitter._\n\nThis article was originally published by Dystopian Down Under.",
  "title": "Vaccine Definition Broadened To Push New Therapeutics",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-02T23:00:55.512Z"
}