ON the surface, it looks like a tug-of-love over a severely disabled boy’s treatment.

But two of Australia’s most extreme anti-vaccine campaigners are behind the Chase Walker Steven story, claiming he is vaccine-injured and turning him into a poster boy for the movement.

Four-year-old Chase, who suffers from spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy as a ­result of epileptic seizures that began shortly after birth, became the subject of a two-state police search last week as his parents fled with him from a Queensland hospital.

media_camera Marc Steven and Jacinda Walker with four-year-old Chase Walker-Steven. Chase is battling Epileptic Encephalopathy, a severe brain disorder which causes him to have daily seizures. Picture: Patria Jannides

They took refuge at the Church of Ubuntu, a “wellness centre” in Newcastle that prescribes medicinal cannabis.

Chase is under the care of Andrew Katelaris, a doctor deregistered in 2005 for growing and supplying cannabis. Katelaris is also the subject of a current order by the Health Care Complaints Commission after he injected huge doses of cannabis oil into two women with ovarian cancer. One patient died.

The child’s self-appointed advocate is well known anti-vaccine campaigner, herb grower and conspiracy theorist Graeme Little, also known as Peter Little, who was with the family last week in Lady Cilento Hospital when the ­arranged appointment with a paediatrician turned sour and the family fled the hospital, then the state.

media_camera Chase's parents suspected his condition was brought on because of issues with early vaccine.

media_camera Chase Walker-Steven’s life on facebook.

media_camera Chase cannot walk, talk or eat and is fed through a peg in his stomach.

Chase cannot walk, talk or eat and is fed through a peg in his stomach. Last year his parents Marc Steven and Cini Walker took him off the prescribed total nutrition formula prescribed by doctors in favour of “a natural diet” of pureed fruit and vegetables combined with medicinal cannabis oil. Both Ms Walker and Dr Katelaris claim the child was intolerant to the milk-based formula.

Chase’s weight plummeted from 20kg to 11.5kg, putting him at risk of refeeding syndrome — a condition that can be fatal if a child loses more than a quarter of their body weight. In February, the parents left the state to avoid admission to hospital for a ­refeeding program. Again they took refuge at the Church of Ubuntu.

Ms Walker told The Sunday Telegraph at the time that “they keep saying he is going to die but he hasn’t. I will never stop fighting for the justice and health of Chase”.

The family fled to the church again last week, sparking the amber alert.

media_camera Chase has become the poster boy for antivaxxer campaigners.

“The hospital is trying to kill him, they have harmed my child, they almost killed my child, and yeah, I’m that lady on the news who stole her own child,” Cini Walker posted on Facebook Live last weekend. The family, Little and Katelaris now claim that Chase is “vaccine-injured” (a catchword of the anti-vaccine movement) but the parents didn’t always believe that.

When Chase was 15 months old, Ms Walker set up a page outlining her son’s ­issues. “Within hours of being born Chase … showed signs that weren’t consistent to that of a healthy baby. He began having epileptic-type seizures that Dr’s (sic) could not explain. He had issues breathing … and he didn’t take to the breast or bottle for feeding.

“He was recently diagnosed with epileptic encephalopathy with evidence of hypertonic quadriplegic cerebral palsy and microcephaly,” she posted “The cerebral palsy I reckoned, happened when he was born and he lacked that oxygen at birth for the 12 hours with meconium down his throat. So, that to me is what suffered him to give him brain damage, which made him have cerebral palsy which ended up giving him seizures after birth, two hours after birth.”

media_camera Ms Walker claims a vitamin K shot was the cause of her son’s epilepsy.

Ms Walker said Chase began having seizures two hours after birth. He had not received any vaccines. He had received vitamin K, given to all babies at birth to stop haemorrhaging. It is not a vaccine but a vitamin supplement. Ms Walker now claims this was the cause of her son’s epilepsy.

Millions of shots of vitamin K are routinely given around the world every day to stop vitamin K deficiency bleeding in newborns.

Australian Medical Association president Dr Michael Gannon said “there is not even a sniff of evidence vitamin K can cause seizures”.

Epilepsy experts say in a third of babies born with epilepsy there is no known cause.

Little, who regularly posts on Facebook Live wearing a cap promoting a conspiracy movie, Vaxxed, to commentate on the case, claims vitamin K “nuked” Chase. He stood by his claim Chase was vaccine-injured but refused to answer any questions.