The anti-vaccination movement gaining traction across the world is "extremely dangerous'' and more of a threat than an asteroid strike, according to a respected British professor.
English physicist Prof Brian Cox, in New Zealand for a science show, said yesterday anti-vaxxers, climate change sceptics and other groups which discredited science were the biggest danger to civilisation.
When people asked him what were the great threats to civilisation, it was true that might include very unlikely things like asteroid impacts.
"But really I think the biggest threat to our civilisation at the moment is the disconnect in democratic societies between facts or data and the understanding of our electorates.''
Prof Cox said the anti-vaccination movement "baffled'' him and was "extremely dangerous''.
He disagreed with climate change sceptics but could, at least, understand questioning about climate modelling because it was extremely complicated, abstract and the consequences were "not fast''.
But the eradication of smallpox through a worldwide co-ordinated vaccination programme was probably one of the greatest achievements of modern civilisation.
Prof Cox said the anti-vaccination movement seemed to be about the freedom to choose what was best for your child. And he understood as a parent the wish not to take a child to the doctor to actively do something that was slightly unpleasant for them.
"But it's clear that these childhood diseases that we've largely controlled or eradicated are going to begin rise back again if we, as a society, don't properly vaccinate our children.
"It's a huge risk.''
