It doesn't take the skills of a latterday Poirot to work out what is going on behind the the decision of the governors of the first (faith-based) school to come out against the plans to vaccinate teenage girls against the virus involved in causing cervical cancer.
Perm as many as you want from scaremongering, moralising and blatant medical ignorance on the part of the Catholic authorities...Monsignor John Allen, governor and parish priest, is quoted by Guardian as saying "This is not a moral judgment on the vaccination. It's a question of where this vaccination should be given and how it should be given." Yeah, right. Even the Catholic Education Service disagree.
But what's striking is the lack of real understanding about how vaccination works to curb diseases in a population (as a process generally rather than in terms of particular vaccines). Not just in the school but also in the local health authority.
Of course, the initial benefit to the individual of any vaccination is protection for that individual from the virus; the longer term benefit is to the rest of us - reducing the prevalence of the disease in the population so that it can be controlled. The whole MMR ballyhoo has ended up giving once almost unknown but dangerous and damaging diseases a real foothold again.
If you refuse to permit the vaccination, not only are you putting those individuals at risk but the rest of the population also.