The recent resurgence of preventable diseases like measles and mumps has been attributed to the anti-vaccination movement and the misinformation being spread online in particular.
Vaccination campaigner and activist Fiona Pettit O'Leary joined us on The Last Word to talk about her fight against quack medicine and pseudoscience, as well as the abuse she has received from those with opposing views.
She began by paying tribute to her friend Laura Brennan, the HPV vaccine campaigner, who died this week aged just 26.
"She did such important work. The uptake in the HPV vaccine was primarily down to Laura's activism."
Fiona now says she wants to keep these rates climbing.
"I don't understand why people don't want to protect their children from a preventable disease."
"We've seen all these preventable diseases coming back into modern times, and it's absolutely insane and dangerous."
She is an advocate of mandatory vaccination and points out, "It isn't just about protecting your own family, it's about protecting other people as well."
"We are living in a time when there's so much misinformation, especially on social media, and without these platforms they wouldn't succeed."
