Victoria, Australia government wants to stop free pertussis vaccines

[Note: Although I think it's clear in the text below, I changed the title of this post to reflect the fact that it's the Victorian government doing this, not the Federal Australian government.] In Australia, pertussis -- whooping cough -- is at epidemic levels. There were over 38,000 cases last year, and it's killed eight babies since 2008. Despite this, the Health Minister of Victoria wants to cut a program that provides free pertussis vaccines for caregivers and parents of babies. He claims (under advice of a panel of experts) that it isn't providing sufficient clinical results, but many doctors are concerned what this will do to the already too-high rates of infection. Even if the results aren't as good as hoped, it would make sense to fund this program until infection rates are down, at least to where they were before the epidemic. Toni McCaffery -- the mother of ...