The Treviso public prosecutor’s office has indicted a nurse whose patients she allegedly vaccinated show no trace of immunization.
7,000 people, including 5,400 children. The list of individuals who do not know if they have been properly vaccinated is long. Emanuela Petrillo, a 31-year-old nurse, allegedly pretended to vaccinate her patients between 2009 and 2016, believes the prosecutor’s office in Treviso (Italy), which indicted her in early May for forgery, abuse of power and fraud. The woman faces up to 10 years in prison, a high fine, and compensation of up to one million euros.
The deception could have gone unnoticed had it not been for the routine post-prophylaxis checks by the regional Social Security section. By testing part of the population under the age of 15 in the region, she found that 20 of the 22 patients vaccinated by this nurse did not show antibodies, leaving little doubt that they did not have not actually vaccinated.
A weak defense
The 500 families in the Treviso area, whose members should have been vaccinated by Ms. Petrillo, have been called back by the health authorities to be properly immunized. Other patients, on the side of Udine, where the nurse had worked, could also be summoned.
Negligence, gratuitous criminal act or militant act? The motive “anti-vaccination” seems to be studied by the justice, even if the defendant denies such motivations. “I have always been for prophylaxis, and I have always vaccinated all the children”, reports the Doctor’s Daily.
A defense that does not stand up to the evidence, and weakened by the testimonies of his colleagues, who are surprised to have never heard the children who were entrusted to him for the vaccine injections cry. “It looked like she was putting the needle on her arm and pretending.”
Accusation which Emanuela Petrillo defends by advancing a special technique to sting patients without them realizing it… Not sure that justice is receptive to it.
Vaccination debate
This case comes in full debate among our transalpine neighbors. In recent years, anti-vaccination groups have gone on the offensive, much to the despair of health authorities. Measles, in particular, is resurging. Since the beginning of 2017, the number of cases would have almost already caught up with that of the whole of 2016, i.e. 844.
This resurgence follows a notable drop in vaccination coverage, which stood at 88% among 2-year-olds in 2013, 86% in 2014, and 85.3% in 2015. The World Health Organization ( WHO) recommends the vaccination of 95% of the population to avoid epidemics.
A political affair
The postures of the 5 Star Movement, a political group led by Beppe Grillo, are not unrelated to this trend. Although he denies it today, the political leader criticized systematic vaccination, arguing the disappearance of polio or diphtheria, and even for a time relayed false rumors of links between vaccination and autism, or the dangers of HPV immunization.
In response, the Italian health authorities take the opposite view, considering a return to compulsory vaccination for certain diseases.
Anti-vaccine leagues on the offensive
In the United States, where anti-vaccine leagues are increasingly influential, measles is also making a comeback. Eradicated in 2000 on American territory, its reappearance followed rumors and false research linking its vaccine to autism spectrum disorders.
In Minnesota, whose poor and immigrant communities – usually benefiting from excellent vaccination coverage – have been particularly targeted by anti-vaccination campaigns, the number of cases is rising sharply, in parallel with the drop in immunizations.
Since the start of 2017, 44 cases have been confirmed, making this resurgence the strongest epidemic since 1990, when 460 cases were recorded over the year. In 2014 in the United States, 667 cases of measles were recorded. Almost 400 of them had been in the Amish population of Ohio, which refuses vaccination.
.
