We can't immunise against stupidity. So we better lift our game with preventable disease

His son Tim, now 16, contracted respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as a toddler and collapsed at home.

Steve told The Canberra Times's Dana Daniel: "I find I get emotional, literally to this day, thinking about how we almost lost him."

"It was quite possibly the most extraordinarily distressing thing I've been through with my family and, you know, I still find it traumatic."

I know that feeling.

I remember rushing to emergency with my 10-day-old baby and chucking an absolute wobbly about getting this tiny infant seen to instantly.

My wobbly turned out to be necessary because she had meningitis (thank you very much chief paediatrician for listening to a sobbing mother). I spent the next month crying and breastfeeding, breastfeeding and crying.

Honestly, children. They seem like a good idea at the time.

But this is not the moment to remember all the times our children have freaked us out. It's a time to think about what vaccines are on the free list - and how that process - from good medical research to being available to everyone - works. There is now a vaccine for RSV, the disease which nearly took Tim Robson, and it's on the free list in Queensland (thank you Queensland government).

RSV cases are on the rise across Australia. My tiny granddaughter had it and was so so sick. Snot and coughing, coughing and snot. Kids and old people are most at risk - and it can end up causing bronchiolitis and pneumonia.

The highest risk is for bubs six months and younger.

Julie Leask was at the front-line of COVID communication. She's a professor at the University of Sydney and an immunisation policy expert.

Honestly, how that woman fronted up day-after-day to explain the inexplicable to the rest of us was very impressive.

I called her to ask how the National Immunisation Program listing works.

She's a big fan of the process. It is, she says, fair and equitable.

First, top-flight medical research.

Second, testing, testing, testing.

Third: A sponsor puts together a massive package of all the vaccine studies.

Fourth: the Therapeutic Goods Administration rigorously evaluates all this for licensing and registration. Fifth: the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee members assess it for inclusion in the publicly funded program.

Along the way, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI - remember we'd never heard of them before COVID) assess the medical side of things. If it passes all this, it goes to Cabinet.

And that's where it can get very - ah - interesting is one way to put it. Remember when Australia had just made an extraordinary breakthrough in the fight against cervical cancer? Ian Frazer with researcher Jian Zhou developed the Gardasil vaccine, to prevent the spread of the cancer-causing human papilloma virus (HPV).

In 2006, Barnaby Joyce, then a Nationals senator in the Howard government, opposed putting Gardasil on the immunisation schedule. Its inclusion would mean the drug was free. The vaccine, said researchers, would save the lives of hundreds of women a year by preventing the spread of HPV. It's best administered to people before becoming sexually active.

Barnaby thought it might encourage promiscuity. He now denies what was reported at the time - maybe that's because of his own recent experiences. Let's face it, promiscuity doesn't usually kill people (although it can break hearts).

But at the time Joyce insisted MPs should be allowed to debate its "social implications" and that the decision should not be left to the Therapeutic Goods Administration because "they will talk about the therapeutic aspects - they are not there to talk about the psychological implications or the social implications".

As I keep asking, has anyone ever debated the social implications of Viagra?

Anyhow here we are and Gardasil is already saving lives. After it was approved for girls, a few journalists started asking about boys. Then it was extended to them, too.

And there is already a huge reduction in the number of cancers, cervical, oral and anal because we have incredible coverage of the population with Gardasil. The latest findings are from Scotland where no cases of cervical cancer have been detected in women born between 1988-1996 who were fully vaccinated against HPV between the ages of 12 and 13.

So I asked Leask and Robson whether we should be campaigning to put RSV on the free list for immunisations. Sometimes public pressure can get something like this over the line. Leask is very confident that the current process works well. As she said, fair and equitable.

Robson says he is confident that the health authorities are already having sensible discussions.

"But sometimes with borderline cases, a big public push will get it over the line," he says.

He also shares my slight astonishment that this kind of decision should have anything to do with cabinet.

"Just because you are elected to the Parliament doesn't mean you are an expert on anything," he says.

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So so true. Just ask Barnaby Joyce. He even pretended to be an expert on family values. Only the ones that suited him though.

Anyhow I'm very grateful - and relieved - that we have Gardasil to save lives. I'm grateful the then cabinet ignored the man whose only, ah, qualification was parenting four daughters.

And we know that the government is considering adding RSV to the free list - but it won't hurt to write to your local members, both federal and state or territory, to say we need everything available to keep our population safe and healthy.

We can't immunise against ignorance and stupidity among our politicians - but we can do our best to be as informed as possible and put pressure on those who represent us.