Catherine Hughes’ baby Riley died from a vaccine-preventable disease before he was old enough to smile. “He was just peaceful. He didn’t cry much. He was just a sweet little thing with blond hair, blue eyes and beautiful, soft skin,” she said. “Then everything turned upside down.”
Riley was three weeks old in February 2015 when he started to develop what Catherine thought were mild cold symptoms. Catherine called a doctor to check her sniffling son, who said he appeared “perfectly fine”. But when Riley stopped feeding, Catherine had one of those stomach-sinking intuitions only a mother can have. “I tried to feed him the next morning, but he was just not interested – he kept falling asleep,” she said. “So we took him to the children’s hospital.”
By his third day in hospital, doctors suspected Riley had whooping cough. By the fourth, he had pneumonia, and on his fifth, he was on life support. The Bordetella pertussis bug had overwhelmed his tiny body.
“He passed away when he was 32 days old,” Hughes recalled.
“My son would likely be alive today if everyone in my community had been fully vaccinated against whooping cough.”
Now, a Herald and Age investigation reveals parents are boasting about paying anti-vaccine doctors and nurses to falsify Medicare records to enrol their children in childcare and fraudulently claim government payments.
“Imagine being a mother dropping off your two-year-old at childcare, and one of the kids there has whooping cough or measles, and it spreads through the childcare, putting your child at risk?” said Margie Danchin, a professor of paediatrics and vaccinology at The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. “This is a huge public health issue.”
Health experts warn that unvaccinated children risk infecting themselves with preventable diseases while lowering herd immunity, leaving others at risk of severe illness or death. Vaccine uptake in Australia has stalled below national targets in a global climate of rising anti-vaccine sentiment, partly fuelled by US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Danchin said.
“No jab, no pay,” and “no jab, no play” policies mean unvaccinated children can’t be enrolled in childcare or preschool in most Australian jurisdictions, and families lose tax benefits unless they have a medical exemption or are on a vaccination catch-up program.
The restrictions have led some parents to seek out healthcare professionals to alter immunisation records, Danchin said.
‘$2500 per child’
Parents are using an anti-vaccine Facebook group with more than 40,000 members to find doctors or nurses to falsify their children’s immunisation records.
“Has anyone found a good doctor who was willing to sign off childhood immunisations as complete even though the child isn’t vaccinated, or who deemed them medically exempt?” one post read.
“I can get your child’s full immunisation schedule up to date and uploaded to your Medicare file without any [syringe emoji] being administered,” came the reply. “And no, it’s not a scam. I’ve helped hundreds of people since the COVID pandemic until now. DM on the Signal app if interested.”
Another post said: “So hard to find because they’re risking their jobs doing it. From what I have been able to find, it costs thousands. Someone recently told me they know a nurse who does and charges $2500 per child.”
A father said he got a medical practitioner to falsify his daughter’s vaccine schedule.
“I’m grateful to share that my daughter’s immunisation records were successfully updated in the database without requiring vaccination,” the comment read. “She has since been accepted into kindergarten without issue. If you’re seeking information on alternative options for immunisation records, I’d be happy to provide more details about the medical professionals who assisted me.”
The only people authorised to log a vaccination on the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) are nurses with specialised qualifications who have registered as vaccination providers.
“You’re relying on the honesty of the medical provider to tick those boxes of those vaccines truthfully,” Danchin said. “It is clear that we need to address parents’ concerns openly with better communication and resources to prevent this issue from growing, although some parents will never be convinced.”
Public health experts warned in 2019 that vaccine mandates can backfire, and “simply induce parents to seek loopholes, and, worse, fuel negative attitudes towards vaccination”.
In November 2021, Perth nurse Christina Hartmann Benz was charged with fraudulently recording a vaccine after a doctor allegedly witnessed her insert a needle into a 15-year-old’s arm but not dispense the vaccine. A police prosecutor told the court suspicions were raised when patients kept specifically asking for her, and she would close the door to her room, citing privacy reasons, in what was “clearly an anti-vaccination stance”.
WA Police said a lack of health information hindered their ability to prosecute the 51-year-old, and the case was dropped.
In Victoria, Dr Denes Borsos had his registration suspended after he issued fake COVID-19 vaccine exemption documents to allow children to enrol in early education.
A spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia said it was aware some health professionals were offered, and rejected, bribes during the COVID-19 pandemic to falsify vaccination records, adding: “This practice is not something our members have raised with us in recent years.”
Threat of childhood diseases returning
In NSW, health authorities have issued a warning about an increased risk of measles – a vaccine-preventable airborne disease – with 14 cases since December 1, 2025. The measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is given free to children in doses at 12 and 18 months. There were 181 measles cases in Australia in 2025, according to the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System – more than three times the number in 2024.
One parent in a Facebook group asked if anyone “personally” knew of childcare centres that enrolled unvaccinated children in Sydney’s south-west, even though their child was partially vaccinated. One mother replied that she had enrolled her child in Camden, and that she could “share some locations”.
In a 2025 study of parents of 2000 under-fives, 47.9 per cent of unvaccinated parents did not believe vaccines are safe, and 46.7 per cent would not feel guilty if their unvaccinated child got a vaccine-preventable disease. Nearly 40 per cent did not believe vaccinating children helps protect others in the community.
Permanent medical vaccine exemptions are granted under strict conditions to patients who have had a life-threatening allergic reaction to a vaccine or are severely immunocompromised.
Bianca Devsam, a PhD candidate investigating medical exemptions, has found vaccine-hesitant and anti-vaccine parents seek medical exemptions at specialist clinics because they believe vaccines may not be safe for their child.
“Clinicians encountered very fixed beliefs, and some described experiences of aggression, abuse, or threats in these consultations,” said Devsam, of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
The consequences
Dr Niroshini Kennedy, president of paediatrics and child health division at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, said the introduction of childhood vaccines transformed paediatrics.
“Measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough – these are all conditions that have been largely made much less common because of our vaccination schedule,” she said. “It’s frankly quite concerning to consider that that may change because of a growing move towards vaccine hesitancy in the community.”
Any medical practitioner registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) found acting fraudulently risks being suspended or deregistered.
“AHPRA is concerned by any behaviour – by practitioners or involving practitioners – that fails to put the health and wellbeing of patients first,” a spokesman for the regulator said. “Allegations of fraudulent activity in immunisation administration are thankfully very rare. Anyone with a complaint about a practitioner is urged to contact AHPRA.”
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said vaccinations play a crucial role in protecting children and that misinformation and disinformation are factors helping fuel vaccine hesitancy and refusal.
“I am shocked and appalled that any doctor or nurse would falsify vaccination records,” he said. “If these reports are true, these doctors and nurses must be referred to AHPRA for investigation.
“These illnesses can spread quickly, particularly in schools and childcare settings, and can lead to serious complications, hospitalisation, and in some cases, death.”
The federal Department of Health said it was unaware of any confirmed cases of parents paying health practitioners to fraudulently update children’s records.
Medical practitioners deliberately providing false or misleading information to the national register face disciplinary action and/or jail.
Services Australia investigates members of the public engaging in Medicare and Centrelink fraud.
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