THE family who lost their four-week-old daughter to whooping cough have revealed the insensitive harassment they have endured at the hands of the anti-vaccination campaigners.

Toni and David McCaffery have broken their silence on the four years of vilification they have endured since baby Dana died in March 2009.

The attacks against the family include anonymous letters, cyber-attacks and heartless, abusive messages telling them to "harden the f ... up".

They have been accused of lying about their daughter's death and being part of a conspiracy to force vaccinations on others.

Grieving parents, vaccine and venom

Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) founder Meryl Dorey even posted her own anti-vaccination information on Dana McCaffery's memorial website.

Ms Dorey also demanded medical reports from public health officials the day before the four-week-old baby's funeral on March 13, 2009.

When asked by The Sunday Telegraph to comment on these allegations, Ms Dorey declined, saying she would answer the questions on her own website.

Toni McCaffery said: "The lunacy and the venom directed at us has just been torture - it's been frightening, abhorrent and insensitive in the extreme."

Last sting in anti-vaccine bag of tricks

She said she had received three anonymous letters at her home which included pamphlets from the AVN.

The family's campaign to raise awareness of the importance of immunising children has made them targets of harassment, she said.

"They hated us because our child died," Ms McCaffery said. "We were being told you're horrible and you'll kill other people, diminishing what my child went through, that she was weak anyway and it was natural selection."

Dr Google can't be trusted

One man, a regular on AVN forums, emailed the family via Dana's website.

The email reads: "It must be tragic to lose a daughter and I wish you all sympathy and trust that God delivers unto you. We find it amazing that some people firmly believe that God was not perfect.

"Apparently, according to these people, God forgot to add the heavy toxic metals, pig cells, chicken cells etc that are found in vaccines, sorry, but I believe Dana passed away because of different reasons than you claim. All the same, please accept my sympathy for your tragic loss."

Another message to the McCaffery's told them to "harden the f ... up".

One woman wrote: "I could walk through a ward of babies dying from whooping cough or any other infectious disease and it would not affect my decision to not vaccinate my children."

End the childcare danger

"Instead of Dana in our lives, we had this madness," Ms McCaffery said, adding she endured two miscarriages in the year following Dana's death at the height of the vilification.

"When someone disrespects your loved one, it hurts. But people mocking your child's death - it's just not human."

Yet the abuse has not swayed the McCafferys' determination to educate the public about the importance of vaccination. "We've had to keep focus on what was important and that is making the changes so what happened to Dana doesn't happen to anyone else," she said.

Add your support now

Their revelations come on the eve of historic legislation planned for the coming week to allow childcare centres to ban unvaccinated children.

The Sunday Telegraph and Daily Telegraph have been running a No Jab, No Play campaign to address low immunisation rates in the state.

In areas such as Mosman and the eastern suburbs, rates are as low as 85 per cent, and communities in the far north of the state have rates as low as 46 per cent.