Federal Health Minister placed on notice-stop the corruption in medicine!

January 24th, 2012

The following letter was sent by Judy Wilyman, a PhD researcher in WA, to Tanya Plibersek, the Federal Minister for Health. Ms Wilyman has placed the Minister on notice that she review the current coercive vaccination policy in Australia and start making decisions based on the best evidence available – not on the best profits for drug companies and the medical community. Please feel free to share this as widely as possible.

To the Federal Health Minister,

I am forwarding this letter of complaint that has been sent to the CHF because we would like the Health Department to acknowledge and address consumer concerns. The community has lost confidence in the ability of the Health Department to make decisions in the best interests of the public due to the lack of integrity in the science being used and the conflicts of interest in individuals on government advisory boards. There is overwhelming evidence for this and I will list this below. As a result of this corruption of the scientific process the community has lost confidence in the Government’s Childhood Immunisation Schedule as it is clearly driven by profit and not safety.

The community for whom this policy is designed, is saying no to coercive mandatory immunization policies. Choice in vaccination in Australia exists  more in theory than practice and this is not acceptable to the public. It is unethical for a Government to link considerable financial bribes to a Public Health policy involving a medical procedure which has not been proven safe or effective.

I am requesting that the Health Minister herself, replies to this letter with evidence that an immunization policy that pays doctor’s and parents to vaccinate is in the best interests of children. The government requires “the consent of the governed who have the right to full participation in the decision-making process “ before it implements public health policy (NRC- National Research Council, 1996). Therefore, until the issues below are addressed and consumers have equal representation on decision-making boards, the community is rejecting vaccination policy that is linked to financial benefits for parents.

Here is a list of the way in which the science for government policy has been corrupted. Please could you assure the community that these conflicts of interest are addressed and ensure that there are no financial or mandatory vaccination policies introduced into Australia.

Conflicts of interest that exist in the science that is used in policy-development:

  • doctors being paid to give presentations on vaccines using pharmaceutical company slides and pharmaceutical funded research and statistics
  • doctors given free international trips and paid to give presentations for drugs
  • Pharmaceutical sales representatives given large bonuses to sell a drug even after concerns were raised about the side-effects of the drugs
  • The hidden industry ties of academics in universities and similarly in government advisory boards.
  • The conflicts of interest in the media presentation of drugs and their side-effects (sponsorship of the media)
  • The conflicts of interest in Australia’s National Immunisation Conference presented by the Public Health of Australia (PHAA) and fully funded by the pharmaceutical companies
  • The hidden ties between industry and the chief-editors on peer-reviewed journals, who are selecting against articles with negative findings on drugs/vaccines.
  • Little research funding being provided for research in the public interest. In particular, the possibility that the chemicals in the 12 vaccines now recommended to infants under 12 months of age, are causing the steep increase in chronic illness in our children.
  • There has been no controlled clinical study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated animals or children with the combined schedule of vaccines.

Until these issues are addressed the public is rejecting coercive or mandatory immunization policies that result in the discrimination of healthy individuals. I hope the Health Minister will reply to these community concerns personally.

Kind regards,

Judy Wilyman

PhD researcher

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Posted in Medical ethics, Vaccination | 1 Comment »

In your own words – letters to change.org and Tanya Plibersek

January 24th, 2012

Yesterday, I sent an email out asking for letters to be sent to both mail@change.org and the Federal Health Minister, Tanya.Plibersek.MP@aph.gov.au, letting them know how you felt about the petition being promoted by change.org asking the government to Stop the AVN. (to read more about this, visit our blog post by clicking here). As always, you have come through for us brilliantly! Many more letters are needed however. As you can see, the length can range from one sentence to several paragraphs but you don’t need to take a lot of time getting these messages together – you just need to send them! Feel free to use any of the details from the letters below. The first group was sent to change.org – the next to Minister Plibersek.

To Whom it may concern,

I am completely disgusted by your petition which ,in essence, is trying to get the AVN shut down. Seems to me your site should be nochange.org because you are obviously only interested in protecting the status quo.

The letter sent to your subscribers claims that it is the AVN which uses scare tactics. Well your letter was one of the most emotive, scaremongering pieces of unscientific dribble I have read in a long time.

The AVN deals in facts. Why don’t you try doing the same?

In support of real change,

AH

Dear Change. org and Minister Tanya Plibersek

I’m for freedom of information and informed choice.

Please respect every parent’s right to choose how best to safeguard their children’s health.

The AVN provides an important service for parents thinking for themselves and making informed choice. It’s by no means the only place where one can find information on the potential pitfalls of vaccination. If you take the time to look, there is evidence of harm from vaccinating children.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.html

Vaccination is a medical procedure and as such, all potential side effects must be presented to parents so an informed choice can be made.

Vaccinations seem to be exempted from this practise. Why? How many other medical procedures are sold in this manner?

With most procedures there are records of success and failure and real percentages to consider before an informed choice is made.

It’s well known vaccinations have side effects so why isn’t this data being collected? Instead, the children who have suffered ill effects from their vaccinations are invisible.

These children’s side effects and injuries must be collected and published each year. At the moment transparency is missing. Why?

Informed Consent in Vaccination

The American Medical Association defines informed consent as “a process of communication between a patient and physician that results in the patient’s authorization or agreement to undergo a specific medical intervention.”1 The principle behind this process reflects respect for patient autonomy, and it is particularly relevant to the administration of vaccines. The Declaration of Helsinki, the highly-regarded international guidelines for research on human subjects, states that “considerations related to the well-being of human subjects should take precedence over the interests of science and society.”2While this statement was written with respect to biomedical research, it has been argued that a similar principle should be applied to vaccine policy. Some bioethicists, clinicians, and others argue that the decision to vaccinate should always be left to patients (or parents, in the case of children), despite years of evidence that mass immunization confers additional protection to the communities by reducing the spread of infectious disease–a phenomenon known as herd immunity. Regardless, the principle of informed consent requires that a patient (or his/her parents, in the case of children) understand the risks and potential benefits of a particular vaccine before receiving it.

/source: http://www.vaccineethics.org/issue_briefs/consent.php

regards

JT

Dear Change.Org Team,

On January 23 I received an email from Chang.org team member, Suzanne Culph, asking me to sign the Stop misinformation about vaccination #stopAVN petition. I joined Change.org a while ago and have signed many of the organization’s petitions but was shocked, to say the least, when I received the email in regards to this petition. I had a lot of respect for Change.org until I received the information about this petition. It’s a blatant attack on the Australian Vaccination Network by Dr Sue Ieraci and the Stop the Australian Vaccination Network and incorrectly blames the AVN for the death of baby Dana McCaffery.

I’m not a member of either group but am against any petition that does not contain facts and this is one of those petitions. Change.org should make sure the content in petitions is correct and not misleading to potential supporters.

For instance, the petition blamed the AVN for baby Dana’s death but didn’t mention that her parents had to take her to the doctor four times before a diagnosis was made and there was no mention that the whooping cough bacteria had mutated and the vaccinations at that time may not have protected those who were immunized with it as you can plainly see by clicking on the following link.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/whooping-cough-vaccine-may-need-to-change-say-researchers/story-e6frfku0-1225828831142

This petition and its misleading information has made me very aware of any future Change.org petitions and I’m seriously considering cancelling my membership. I thought you were an organization that could help the world change; I never expected you to support such a hate campaign against any group as you have done with this petition. You would do well to remove this petition or at the very least include facts and remove the misleading information.

Kind regards,

BG

To whom it may concern:

I thought change.org was an organisation dedicated to free speech and I am shocked to hear about your petition. The AVN was set up by parents who have children damaged by vaccines, and its purpose is to give parents a more complete picture of vaccination, as opposed to the rosy, unrealistic one given to many parents. Surely we all deserve to be given the truth so we can make an informed decision about the health of our children?

The group Stop the AVN is a hate group, run by people who’s only interest is in stifling free speech and ridiculing parents who have genuine questions about vaccination. They only exist because the AVN does. Meryl Dorey, who runs the AVN, has had to put up with frightening threats and intimidation from these people. Do you really want to be associated with them?

If you want a taste of how they opperate please see their Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/stopavn?sk=wall

Please continue to promote free speech. Thank you.

Regards,

CH

Dear change.org

As a parent of a child with autism whose diagnosis led me to start questioning and seeking information in hundreds of books, magazines and websites, I’ve always been very impressed with the information presented by the AVN. I have never felt pressured to vaccinate or not by anyone other than vaccine providers who would have preferred to jab my children than sign a form presented by a parent well-informed on both sides of the vaccine argument!!

I support a parent’s right to choose to vaccinate or not as one of the most basic rules of any civilised society and I encourage everyone to be informed on many health topics – not just vaccination. I suggest that the AVN would not be considered a ‘threat’ at all if there was nothing to be hidden when it comes to the vaccination debate.

The organisation known as Stop the AVN, Sue Ieraci and anyone who supports their suggested restrictions of AVN are very ill-informed and mis-led if they wish to prevent people accessing relevant, up-to-date information provided by compassionate people willing to put our basic freedom of access to information as a priority in our ‘free’ and civilised country.

Meryl, you are a champion of parents rights to free and informed choice and I support your cause and admire your strength and energy in the face of any opposition. Keep up the great work – anyone who supports freedom of speech and rights has my backing in any country.

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” Edmund Burke

BCG

To Whom it may concern

re: Petition to stop the AVN.

I am extremely disappointed and angered over what I have just read about this petition and how the AVN & its members are being made out to be disease carrying ferals that spread disease and kill people!

What a massive, far fetched lie!

STOP the AVN group is a vindictive, narrow minded, bullying group. If you care to take a look at their Facebook page you will clearly see how they conduct themselves and its downright disgusting.

The AVN is a life saver. – Yes, a LIFE SAVER!  I had no idea that I had a CHOICE when it came to what put into my tiny baby’s bodies.

Doctors didn’t tell me the facts – they don’t tell me that I had a choice.  They made up lies and bullied me into putting an unknown substance into my newborn child’s bloodstream and made out it was ‘safe and effective’.   I can tell you, that my perfect newborn baby nearly died because he was vaccinated!  I can tell you, that as a mother to a precious newborn baby, that to see my little miracle’s life slip slowly away is heart breaking. And this happened within 24 hours after the vaccine – which was ‘meant to help and protect him.

My baby was perfect, he didn’t need any vaccine!  But according to the doctors it was safe & effective.  I beg to differ!

Why was I not told the TRUTH? Why was I not told I had a CHOICE!?

The AVN has given me hope, knowledge & advice about vaccines and about CHOICE! – Something that EVERYONE is entitled to and should always have!

Everyone should know the ins and outs for anything they are about to do to their bodies.

The AVN has always supported people’s choices. And believes that everyone should be armed with ALL information before vaccinating & that all people should always have a CHOICE!

People are saying that a newborn baby died because of unvaccinated people. – Just because people haven’t got a vaccine doesn’t mean they are disease ridden.

Myself and my children are in perfect health and we aren’t vaccinated. I can also say this for many of my unvaccinated friends & family.

You may also want to know that those who are vaccinated can still get the disease. I have personal experience with a friend’s baby who was only 6mths old – fully vaccinated and still got Whooping cough.  This child’s parents were under the illusion that because she was vaccinated she couldn’t get Whooping Cough so continued to take their ‘contagious’ child to daycare, shopping centres, friend’s houses, – everywhere!!  In doing so, this fully vaccinated child was spreading Whooping Cough throughout the public!

It wasn’t until later that this fully vaccinated child’s tests came back as positive to Whooping Cough. Funny how this sort of thing never gets mentioned on TV!??! Who was the one spreading the disease??!!

Common sense goes along way.  If you’re sick, you stay at home. But sadly, vaccines have given people a false sense of security, making them think they are invincible to diseases, which they aren’t.  Everyone can still get the diseases vaccinated or not.

Being vaccinated doesn’t give you 100% immunity and those who aren’t vaccinate are not full of disease.  We are very healthy people who care about our bodies and what we put in them.

Why hasn’t there been a study done that shows vaccinated vs unvaccinated & who are the ones actually getting the diseases?

Why is there no official reporting system for those who react to a vaccine? Why do doctors think a a child who goes into a coma within hours after being vaccinated is ‘normal’?

I hope I’ve been able to open your eyes to both sides of vaccination and to help you realise that there is no quick fix to diseases.  Please don’t blindly blame those of us who haven’t vaccinated for deaths, when we have nothing to do with it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this,

TC

To whom it may concern: 

I support informed choice for vaccination and I am against the SAVN

trying to stop the AVN from sharing information about vaccinations.

Best regards,

FM

To whom it may concern:

I am wondering why you are supporting a hate group such as Stop The Australian Vaccination Network  by running a petition  to stop the Australian Vaccination Network, it totally goes against freedom of speech. You at change.org are supposedly out there for what’s right and just, yet you are supporting this hateful group that does nothing but spread lies about the Australian Vaccination Network. I am totally disgusted in the support you are giving to these people and your stand against freedom of speech. I will be removing my account from your page forthwith.

Regards,

TA

Dear change.org:

I support informed choice on vaccination and oppose the efforts of Stop the AVN and change.org in trying to prevent parents from accessing the information put forward by the AVN.

Yours Sincerely,

KV

To Whom it may Concern:

Regarding your petition from Sue Ieraci: Anti-immunisation scare tactics are causing a public health risk.

I totally disagree with this statement and this petition.  Australia is supposed to be a free country and yet it is clear that there is an agenda to make vaccinations compulsory. I am a very healthy 50 yr old who does not want to be made to have any vaccination I choose not to. I am not against anyone choosing to vaccinate and I likewise want the right not to.

It makes no sense to me whatsoever, that those who don’t vaccinate can have any effect on those that do if the vaccination is meant to prevent the disease. Regardless, I am as always, pro choice.

Yours Sincerely,

FB

Letters to Minister Plibersek:

Dear Ms Plibersek,

I am a firm supporter of a person’s right to choose in regards to vaccinations. As you are aware every vaccine carries a risk of damaging the recipient. Everyone should be fully informed of benefits and risks of any medical procedure and then have the right to decline that procedure if that is what they decide. For some people the risks of vaccine damage are simply too high.

I am a supporter of the AVN. Contrary to many reports the AVN is not anti-vaccine. It supports fully informed consent prior to vaccination and also the right to refuse vaccines.

Please inform yourself of the FACTS in this debate, not the hysterical nonsense that is being generated by certain groups.

In support of health freedom

AH

Dear Ms Plibersek,

I am writing in regards to the Change.org petition, ‘Stop misinformation about vaccination #stopAVN’. As you will read in the email to Change.org that I have copied below this petition is very misleading and is nothing more than a smear campaign against the AVN.

“Dear Change.Org Team,

On January 23 I received an email from Chang.org team member, Suzanne Culph, asking me to sign the Stop misinformation about vaccination #stopAVN petition. I joined Change.org a while ago and have signed many of the organization’s petitions but was shocked, to say the least, when I received the email in regards to this petition. I had a lot of respect for Change.org until I received the information about this petition. It’s a blatant attack on the Australian Vaccination Network by Dr Sue Ieraci and the Stop the Australian Vaccination Network and incorrectly blames the AVN for the death of baby Dana McCaffery.

I’m not a member of either group but am against any petition that does not contain facts and this is one of those petitions. Change.org should make sure the content in petitions is correct and not misleading to potential supporters.

For instance, the petition blamed the AVN for baby Dana’s death but didn’t mention that her parents had to take her to the doctor four times before a diagnosis was made and there was no mention that the whooping cough bacteria had mutated and the vaccinations at that time may not have protected those who were immunized with it as you can plainly see by clicking on the following link.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/whooping-cough-vaccine-may-need-to-change-say-researchers/story-e6frfku0-1225828831142

This petition and its misleading information has made me very aware of any future Change.org petitions and I’m seriously considering cancelling my membership. I thought you were an organization that could help the world change; I never expected you to support such a hate campaign against any group as you have done with this petition. You would do well to remove this petition or at the very least include facts and remove the misleading information.

Kind regards,

BG

Ms Plibersek I believe that parents should have a right to factual information in regards to vaccinations so they can make an informed decision about whether to vaccinate or not vaccinate their children. We all know that there is no conclusive evidence that vaccinations are not harmful.

Kind regards,

BG

To Ms Plibersek MP,

I am wishing to add my support of  Informed Choice on vaccination and oppose the efforts of Stop the AVN and change.org in trying to prevent parents from accessing our information.

Obviously without this information being accessible, there is no informed choice available to many of us who choose to research before making a well informed choice and decision for our family’s health.

Regards,

CB

Dear Ms Plibersek,

I am writing you in regards to the  petition to stop the Australian Vaccination Network that was sent out by change.org on behalf of Stop The Australian Vaccination Network.

I support informed choice on vaccination and  totally oppose the efforts of both change .org and Stop The Australian Vaccination Network  in trying to prevent parents from having access to Australian Vaccination Network  which gives a balanced view from both sides  that parents can read and make an informed decision from. Never  have I seen them ever tell people not to vaccinate their children. All I have ever seen from them is information and people are advised to read as much information for and against  as possible and make the choice that’s right for them.

I am a mother of 6 children ranging from 23 to 5 years of age. All my children are fit and healthy and I appreciate the information that has been available to me over the years that has enabled me to make the choices to raise my children to be fit and healthy. I resent the efforts by these parties to try to prevent me from having as much information as possible to make these choices. It is very wrong.

Regards,

TA

 

 

 

 

Posted in AVN, Medical Bully-Boys | No Comments »

Change.org does the government’s bidding-blames pertussis death on the unvaccinated

January 24th, 2012

Many of you will probably remember that the website, www.getup.org.au, deleted our petition idea about asking the government to stop financially penalising parents who chose not to vaccinate a couple of months ago whilst leaving the petition idea asking for continued penalties submitted by Stop the AVN. At that time, the AVN chose to place our petition on the website www.change.org and we have gotten almost 2,300 signatures there to date.

The reason we chose change.org to host our petition as opposed to the many other petition sites on the internet is because they seemed to be one of the few places that support freedom of speech, freedom of choice and democracy.

How wrong we were!

Yesterday, change.org sent out an email to their subscribers – probably tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Australians – asking them to support a petition put together by a woman who is a very active member of Stop the AVN, Sue Ieraci. Sue has been a ministerial appointee to the NSW  Medical Board since the year 2000 and yet, it seems to me that she has time all day and virtually all night to write posts on the SAVN Facebook page, to comment on numerous blogs and news sites and now, to write a petition in opposition to the AVN that change.org has distributed on hers and SAVN’s behalf.

This petition blames the death of Dana McCaffery – a baby too young to have received the whooping cough vaccine and whose doctors misdiagnosed her several times before finally saying she had whooping cough – on the unvaccinated. It says that she lived in an area with a low vaccination rate when in fact, Ballina Shire where Dana’s family resides, has a far higher rate then the neighbouring Byron Shire. It was stated in the newspaper at the time of her death that her doctors said that due her age, it was most likely that she came into contact with pertussis bacteria in hospital. Despite all of this, despite the massive increase in pertussis vaccination and the large number of vaccinated children and adults getting this disease, the petition claims that the unvaccinated in general and the AVN in particular are to blame!

That email is reprinted below (I have highlighted some of the more offensive sections):

Petition name: Anti-immunisation scare tactics are causing a public health risk. Tell the government to act now

Dear XXXXX,

“It’s just pure torture. You see your precious, beautiful little baby, every portion of their body is in pain when they cough like that…they’re just pleading with you to make it stop.” [1]

When 4-week-old Dana McCaffery caught whooping cough, her tiny body didn’t stand a chance. But her death wasn’t just blind misfortune. Her parents didn’t know it then, but they were living in the stronghold of an anti-immunisation group called the Australian Vaccination Network.

AVN discourages parents from immunising their children with information that was found to be both “misleading” and a “threat to public health” [2]. They’re most active in Northern NSW, an area which — thanks to their “misleading” information — now has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country [3]. This is the same area where baby Dana caught and died from whooping cough.

Dr Sue Ieraci is an emergency physician at a public hospital, and she couldn’t believe the government would let the AVN’s dangerous information campaign go unanswered. She’s started a Change.org petition calling on Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek to urgently inform the public that the group’s message is not only scientifically wrong, but dangerous.

Click here to join Sue and tell the minister to make a strong statement now.

Vaccination works because of herd immunity — once a certain proportion of the population has been immunised, isolated cases can’t explode into epidemics [4]. Babies like Dana McCaffery, too young to be immunised, rely on this group shield. But in some areas where the AVN is active and eroding group immunity, cases of whooping cough rose by almost 400% in 2011 [5]. (ed note: The rate of pertussis has increased by over 10,000% Australia-wide in the last 20 years whilst the rate of pertussis vaccination has increased by 24%. The ACT which has the highest rate of pertussis vaccination in Australia also has the highest incidence of the disease – more than 7 times that of Tasmania and double that of most other Australian States and Territories).

Paediatrician Dr Chris Ingall says the group’s work is “negative, destructive and has no scientific basis” [6]. But as the tide of voices in the community grows and media attention is focused on the issue, Tanya Plibersek has a real window of opportunity.

The recent surge of whooping cough cases across the country means the media is paying close attention [7]. If Minister Plibersek takes action right now, she has a chance to discredit them once and for all.

Click here to join her and tell Tanya Plibersek act now — and stop the AVN creating a fatal health crisis.

Mass immunisation is the most important public health strategy ever launched in Australia. Many don’t remember the days when polio epidemics killed over 1,000 people and left tens of thousands more paralysed [8]. That’s because thanks to vaccination, it’s been all but eradicated — along with smallpox, diptheria, measles and whooping cough. Now, Sue is calling on the government to take action, before the AVN’s campaign leads to further public health risks.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Suzanne and the Change.org team

We are urgently asking you to send a letter to change.org asking them why they are supporting a hate group like Stop the AVN. This goes against everything they supposedly stand for and flies in the face of all their claims to be for freedom of speech and rights.

Please write to mail@change.org send a copy of your letter to Tanya Plibersek - Tanya.Plibersek.MP@aph.gov.au as well because you know she is getting plenty of rabid emails from SAVN and the Australian Skeptics.

Thank you for your help with this matter. If you can send copies of your letters to me at meryl@avn.org.au and forward this request to your friends and family as well, I would really appreciate that.

Below is the letter I sent to change.org as well as a couple of letters which have already been sent by our supporters. Feel free to copy this information in your own messages.

Meryl

To whom it may concern:

I set up a petition on change.org approximately 2 months ago because I thought that you were a site that allowed members of the public to express their views on a variety of subjects. I thought that change.org was all about democracy and freedom of speech; support for human rights and open communication about information.

It appears that I was wrong!

Today, I received the following email, sent by change.org, about the organisation I started almost 18 years ago, the Australian Vaccination Network. It is obvious that whoever wrote this email has no idea what the AVN does or even how diseases are spread. I would have thought that before making outlandish statements such as “AVN discourages parents from immunising their children…” and stating that our work is “negative, destructive and has no scientific basis”, you might have first checked with us to get our side of this story. Because every story has two sides. Every perspective looks different from another person’s viewpoint.

Your email blames the AVN for the death of Dana McCaffery – a baby too young to have been vaccinated. Dana was brought to hospital several times and misdiagnosed by doctors each time and sent home. Perhaps if they had treated her promptly, she might still be here today. Yet they are not blamed for her death. In addition, her doctors said that because of the very young age at which she caught whooping cough, she most likely came into contact with it while she was in hospital immediately after her birth. None of this relates to the AVN. Yet change.org blames us for the death of a baby simply because she lived in the same shire as the AVN – a shire, by the way, which has a far higher level of vaccination then the neighbouring Byron Shire.

I am truly disappointed by this email and am not sure how this can be remedied, but remedied it should be!

It is incorrect and libelous to say these things about the AVN and if you are relying on Sue Ierici from Stop the AVN for your information about our organisation (look a the name of her group again – do you think she might have a particular viewpoint on this subject that would make her a less than unbiased source of information?) then you have been gravely misinformed.

Perhaps I can direct you to the following article by Dr Brian Martin of Whistleblowers’ Australia. Dr Martin has been working in the area of attacks against community organisations for over 35 years, and states that the attacks against the AVN and myself are the worst he has ever come across. This article, Debating Vaccination (http://avn.org.au/pdfs/LW8_debating_vaccination.pdf), discusses these issues and the serious threats, cyberbullying and lies told by the organisation Ms Ierici belongs to.

Yes, there are two sides to every story but you did not try to get the other side before allowing yourselves to be used by this hate group, Stop the AVN. I am disappointed and our members will be disappointed too when they hear about it.

I would very much like to hear back from you on this issue. You can either email me at meryl@avn.org.au or call on 612 6687 1699.

Please allow free speech back onto your page. Please let both sides of this issue be heard.

For democracy, freedom and the right to choose.

Meryl Dorey,
President
The Australian Vaccination Network, Inc.
PO Box 177
BANGALOW NSW 2479
Investigate before you vaccinate.

Dear Ms Plibersek

I have received an email from Change.Org, an organisation to which I used to subscribe.

They are mounting a campaign against the AVN blaming the AVN for the death of a baby
from whooping cough. They are claiming the AVN was the reason this baby acquired whooping
cough in the first place! They are presenting an emotive campaign to discredit the AVN.

I have been a member of the AVN for many years. At no time has this organisation
told people NOT to vaccinate. The AVN gives balanced scientific argument on both sides.
The AVN helps parents to make an informed choice by providing information not readily
available about vaccination. Why is it wrong for me to read information about vaccination?
Why am I not allowed (according to Change.org) to read information about side effects of
vaccination?

Parents have the right to both pro and con information about vaccination, surely?

Change.org is asking you curtail the work of the AVN. Change.org is basically asking you
to treat Australian parents as non-thinkers who must be spoon fed only what Change.org
thinks is suitable fodder.

I am a proud parent of 4 children. They are all very healthy adults. They have had some
vaccines – some I did not let them have e.g. chicken pox, rubella (they had the disease when
very young), HPV.

This was an informed choice by my husband and I – we researched our decisions thoroughly.
Change.org would have it that our source of information, the AVN, should be cut off at the knees.

Please do not allow Change.org, and its affiliates the Australian Skeptics, and the SAVN (Stop the
AVN) to succeed in muting the AVN voice.

The AVN did not cause this poor baby’s death. And yet that is what they are having people believe in their
statement. (see below for an excerpt from their email). Please allow us to have the free speech,
we Australians are proud to have. Please do not censor or censure the AVN.

Thank you

DT

Dear Change.Org,
I’m ashamed to see you perpetuating SUCH biased, ignorant and defamatory information.
Shame on you.  I’d like to start a petition against change.org
Who’s funding you???   My opinion of you has turned a 180 direction.
Regards,
SW

 

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Posted in AVN, Medical Bully-Boys | 11 Comments »

Police called in by anti-choice zealot because mum exposed child to chicken pox!

January 22nd, 2012

Ken McLeod is the complainant against the AVN in many, many different government outlets; he has written letters to every venue where I have spoken for the last 3 years, telling them lies about me (that I believe in reptilian overlords and microchips to cull 3/4 of the human race amongst others! – things which he knows to be untrue) and urging them to cancel our bookings.

Now, he is pulling random people from the AVN’s facebook page and filing complaints against them because of things they have done that he disagrees with.

The article (Chickenpox response ‘inadequate’ Cambridge Post WA) is from the West Australian Cambridge Post newspaper and it is in this week’s edition. The editor’s name is Brett Christian and I believe he would be receptive to hearing from you, your friends and family regarding your opinion on this sort of misuse of power. I am 53 and when I was a child, everyone’s mothers exposed them to childhood diseases. There was no fear and there was certainly no talk that this was a criminal activity. How much power do we want the government to have over us and our children?

While this became news locally, how many West Australians were killed by medical error, adverse reactions to properly prescribed medications and hospital-borne infections. Why isn’t that written up in the newspapers? According to the most conservative estimate of the number of people in Australia killed by medical error – 18,000 – Cambridge WA loses more than 1 person every day from this cause. Why isn’t the government, medical community and yes, the police, involved in ensuring that sort of medically-caused death doesn’t continue at the current high rate? Why doesn’t the Editor of the Cambridge Post investigate that? Why doesn’t he assign an investigative journalist to do an in-depth article on this issue including interviewing the 8 grieving families each week who have lost loved ones to medical mishaps? (determined by dividing the population of Cambridge into the population of Australia and then using the most conservative figure of medical deaths – 18,000 [could be as high as 54,000] into that number – arriving at nearly 8 deaths per week)

But no – a mother who exposes her child to chicken pox – a disease that has never been considered deadly (the vaccine was not introduced to prevent deaths but rather, to allow mums to continue working so the country would not lose out financially) and an action that all our mothers and grandmothers would have taken – is threatened with police action or child protection because a man who considers vaccination to be a sacrament of medicine, reported her to the authorities and they didn’t laugh him down.

Keep in mind that giving someone a live virus vaccine (chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella) is already deliberately infecting them with the virus. Also remember that getting chicken pox as a child is preferable to getting it as an adult and you can get chicken pox from the vaccine – you can also get shingles as a child because you were vaccinated.

If you would like to write to the paper with your opinion on this piece, here are their details:

e : mailbox@postnewspapers.com.au | p : +61 (08) 9381 3088 | f : +61 (08) 9388 2258

Chickenpox response ‘inadequate’ Cambridge Post WA

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Posted in AVN, Chicken Pox, Medical Bully-Boys | 4 Comments »

Why is Australia in the midst of a whooping cough epidemic

January 18th, 2012

Following is the transcript of an interview on Gary Hardgrave’s Drive programme on 4BC (Brisbane), yesterday afternoon, the 18th of January. This is in regards to the current record levels of whooping cough in Australia (and worldwide) and the vilification by the government and medical community who blame the unvaccinated for the outbreak whilst ignoring the evidence that the vaccine is not working and may itself, be the source of the epidemic.

GH: Doctors are fearing a rise in whooping cough, yet we’ve been immunising people for ages. Just what is going on here? I thought immunising against whooping cough was supposed to prevent it and there’s been a mini epidemic in far north Queensland. I don’t know much more details than that. I’m wondering if it’s within indigenous communities or possibly within newly arrived migrants. I don’t know, but others are saying no, it’s a pretty broad cross section of our community that have been called out of that. We’ll talk about that in some detail in a moment.

We return with this apparent mini epidemic of whooping cough. I had a touch of whooping cough when I was a young tacker and I as far as I know was immunised. It is not a nice thing. Australia’s gone from having only 332 cases of whooping cough per year in 1991 to having something like 38,000 cases in 2011. That’s the claim. 10,000% increase. I thought we were immunising people against this.

The Australian Vaccination Network’s Meryl Dorey joins us, Meryl I know you’re not a big fan of vaccination, but something’s wrong here.

MD: Well something is definitely wrong here. It’s not that I’m a fan or not a fan of vaccinations, but I am a fan of using scientific information to say that what we’re doing works and it’s not a mini epidemic that’s happening for whooping cough. We’re actually starting the fifth year of a record-breaking number of cases of whooping cough. When the vaccine was introduced in 1953 we had about 180 cases of whooping cough per 100,000 population in Australia and right now, with our vaccination rate going from 0 to 95%, we have 180 cases per 100,000 head of population. So we’ve actually seen no improvement in the incidence of whooping cough and what’s occurring in Australia is what is occurring around the world. Any place that the vaccine is being used we’re seeing this huge increase, an absolutely enormous increase in incidence, 10,000% in the last 20 years in Australia and the vaccine may very well be responsible for it. What the medical community is saying is that in the same way that antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria, well over use of the whooping cough vaccine has actually caused a mutation in the bacteria that causes whooping cough and it’s no longer in the vaccine.

GH: Yeah so what you’re saying really is we need a bit more science to check out what we’re actually vaccinating against?

MD: Absolutely. And right now the medical community and the government are using this outbreak of whooping cough to try and get people to vaccinate more but we are vaccinating more than we’ve ever vaccinated before and it’s not having any effect. Like you said – you thought, I thought, everyone thought – that when they vaccinated against whooping cough, it meant that they were protected. But now, even the medical community is saying, “No, you’re not protected. It may just mean that you get the disease milder.” and I have to tell you that from my research, there isn’t any evidence that that’s the case either. We are getting more cases of whooping cough than we’ve had in decades and it’s despite a 24% increase in the vaccination rate against whooping cough in Australia in the last 20 years.

GH: But I was vaccinated when I was a kid because I’ve been born 1953, I was born on January 5th in 1953 if anyone wants to write that down for my 60th birthday, my point being that I had a mild form of whooping cough when I was a kid, it terrified my parents, it was an aweful time they reckon.

MD: Well that’s it. And from the statistics we’ve gotten from the government, it appears that something close to 80% of all cases of whooping cough are occurring in fully vaccinated people so you know, we have a situation where we’re getting a huge incidence of disease and we’re being told that the only answer is to get more vaccinations, more vaccinations, but we already have so many people vaccinated and the disease is not declining – it’s actually increasing. And what the AVN says is that we have about a 95% vaccination rate against whooping cough right now. If the government wants to increase that even higher, and that’s a pretty high vaccination rate, a lot of parents that we speak with are very concerned about whether or not giving their children vaccines is going to keep them healthy. And we have been asking, organisations like the AVN around the world have been asking for decades now, for the governments to do the one study that will actually make parents feel more comfortable about giving their children these vaccines and that is a study comparing the overall health of children who are fully vaccinated with children who are completely unvaccinated but that’s never been done.

GH: All right, SOMETHING is out there, I appreciate your time.

MD: Thank you.

GH: We’ll talk to you again.

M: Thanks a lot.

GH: Meryl Dorey, President of the Australian Vaccination Network. They say parents have the right to choose. And I am a great believer in vaccination but I get the point that she’s making that I’m very, very interested in because whether or not we’re vaccinating against exactly the same thing, or the right thing, that we should be vaccinating against.

Doctor Richard Kidd, President of the Australian Medical Association joins us. Vaccinations do make sense but are we getting the vaccination right?

RK: Hi Gary. Yes, I think we are using the right vaccines. The tricky thing here is that people like you and me who got vaccinated as young children, the vaccines that we used then are different to the ones now.

R: So they keep updating the vaccine, that’s what you’re saying?

K: they do, and improving them. And whooping cough is still not one of the ones where we’ve got a vaccine that gives life-long protection. If you’re vaccinated against, Hepatitis B for example, we now have pretty good evidence that you can, if it’s demonstrated that you become immune through a blood test, that immunity will probably last you the rest of your life. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with whooping cough so people like you and me who got vaccinated as children are losing that immunity now so we need to be revaccinated, especially if we’re going to be in contact with babies. The problem with whooping cough is that children under the age of 6 months who contract whooping cough, one in about 200 die from pneumonia or brain damage and the reason that we have a series of vaccinations given through the time that someone’s a baby and then to early childhood is that we know that while the immune system is immune, a single vaccine isn’t going to be enough to generate proper immunity. Well that’s why these poor kids go through the vaccinations at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months and in the case of whooping cough they have them a number of times. So practically no baby will have protective immunity at the age of 6 months or younger against whooping cough so the reason society has to pull together to try to minimise the chance of exposing new born babies to whooping cough.

GH: So, I mean the point made by the Australian Vaccination Network, and I know the Queensland government has feared, that we shouldn’t be taking their side of it, we should be taking other things but we want to have a debate here though. The point they’re making is, I think possibly very timely in that you were sort of making the same point from a different starting position and that is that the vaccine we thought that would work for us may need to be updated. We in fact need, as grown-ups now, to reconsider whether or not we’re properly vaccinated against whooping cough.

RK: That’s right, a number of the, well just about all the vaccines that we have as children, we know now did protect us to some degree and no vaccine will guarantee that someone won’t get a disease but if you’ve been vaccinated and your immune system has actually worked then if you get exposed to it, like for example chicken pox. There’s a lot of evidence that a kid who’s had a chicken pox vaccine, but then might actually catch chicken pox later on and most of them don’t, but the ones who do will only get a few blisters rather than getting covered from head to foot and maybe getting a chicken pox pneumonia or something else so as with your experience, the whooping cough vaccine probably worked for you in that you only got a mild disease.

GH: Well, it was pretty awful though. I do remember it, having the lamps burning in the middle of the night, all sorts of stuff; it was all old technology I suppose.

RK: Yeah, at least you’re alive.

GH: Well all true! And it’s a god awful thing because the kids literally shake their brain loose from coughing and so forth.

RK: Yeah, you know 1 in 200 will die under the age of 6 months.

GH: Okay, so what should we be doing? As grown-ups, and you say those of us who might be seeing babies, we should perhaps be talking to our doctor and saying I want to update my vaccine? Is that what we should be doing?

RK; Absolutely, and the government is supporting young adults, well adults who are expecting to have a baby so people who are expecting to have a baby, mum and dad can go along and get that vaccine for free. The rest of us have to cough up and pay for the vaccine so you know, the grandparents, the uncles, the aunts, the friends who know that they’re going to go and visit someone who’s had a baby, all of us should be getting our whooping cough vaccines.

GH: All right well my family if you’re listening to that because we’ve got one due in the next couple of weeks so I think we’ll be going getting a jab by the sounds of it. Good to talk to you, thanks for your time.

RK: you too

GH: Doctor Richard Kidd, I mean this is some pretty big numbers here, 745 confirmed cases the number of whooping cough cases in far north Queensland, a 400% increase in 2011, I mean this is serious. What you thought you were vaccinated for you may not be now. I think that’s the point, the common point, from both of those contributors.

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Posted in DPT - DPaT | 11 Comments »

Woodfordia – from another perspective

January 12th, 2012

The following was written by a friend who came with me to the Woodfordia Festival this year. Her take on the events is great because it gives another perspective to what can happen when a group opposed to freedom of choice decides to shoot themselves in the foot by overcapitalising their opposition to the AVN in front of a crowd that believes in freedom of speech. This group spent $2,800 hiring a plane to circle the venue, thinking that this would bring people around to their way of thinking. All it REALLY did was antagonise the crowd and make more people think about, talk about and decide to investigate the other side of the vaccination debate. Here’s hoping that those who try to suppress freedom will always fail so spectacularly!

I was somewhat surprised in mid-December last year to receive an invitation from Meryl to attend the Woodford Folk Festival with her.  Surprised because I’d never heard of the festival. So, of course I had to go. The programme of speakers and musicians promised a very busy week. Then there was the food.

Originally Meryl’s talk was on the increasing rate of autism, but this was changed to a talk on vaccination with an immunologist presenting the vaccine side. Meryl, contrary to many reports, was fully aware of the change and assisted in the hunt for the other speaker. Some of her opponents can thank her for their inclusion in the hunt for this speaker.

Her venue on the day was standing room only, with overflow outside. An aeroplane flew overhead towing the banner “Vaccination Saves Lives”. It was apparently up there for two hours at a cost of $2800. The plane was certainly noticed by the festival attendees. I don’t know whether it influenced attendance at the talk or not. The publicity prior to the event probably influenced that more so than the ‘plane, though the plane might have jogged some memories.

As is the case at these events, you talk to a lot of strangers. Everyone at the Festival is identified by an arm band. This band is colour coded so security can restrict access to the performer’s area and other parts of the Festival. As I was with Meryl I had a performer’s band. People would ask me what I was doing as part of the Festival. I had to confess that I was a mere hanger-on, there to support a friend.

I would then tell them who I was with and what Meryl was talking on. The first thing most people said was “Did you see the plane!”.  So, yes the plane was noticed. We would then talk about the opposition to Meryl, and every person I spoke to thought that she should be allowed to talk. They were surprised at the level of opposition to her. Some I spoke to were people who did not vaccinate, others did not mention their beliefs. I spoke to performers and the general public, and the opinions were the same. Trying to suppress an unpopular belief does more harm than good.

The general opinion on the ‘plane was that it was a desperate measure to silence a critic. There was disbelief when I told of how sponsors were inundated with emails and tweets urging them to tell the Woodford organisers that Meryl should be dropped from the programme or they would withdraw their sponsorship.

At one stage there was great glee among her detractors because two names did disappear from the sponsorship page on the Woodford website. Unfortunately they failed to notice the appearance of the “media partners” link on the same webpage, and this is where the missing names were relocated to. They were media partners, not financial sponsors, so should not have been on the sponsorship page.

I witnessed many people coming up to Meryl to thank her for being there. Some also brought stories of their own vaccine experiences, which were not positive. I saw Meryl go from being concerned about her possible hostile reception to being relaxed, positive and overwhelmed by the reaction of everyone. If anything, the whole episode has made her stronger and more determined.

Of course, I only spoke to a dozen or so people. There were thousands at the festival. The majority of whom probably had no idea what the ‘plane flying overhead was all about. Nor did they care. They were there for music, food and fun.

 

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Posted in AVN, Medical Bully-Boys, Seminars / Webinars | 29 Comments »

Whistleblower Scientist Accuses British Medical Journal of Institutional Research Misconduct

January 9th, 2012

I very rarely do this, but today’s post from the Age of Autism is so important and indeed, instructive, that I felt it merited reposting to the AVN’s blog. Can we possibly believe that dishonesty on the part of the BMJ, its Editor and its mouthpiece-for-hire, Brian Deer, will finally be brought to light? Is it possible that Wakefield, who is now taking legal action against this trinity, will win the day and not only be vindicated himself, but will win a major victory for the children around the world whose autism was caused by vaccination – whether it be by the MMR vaccine, another vaccine or a combination of vaccines?

I say we can believe this and I say it is not only possible, but likely. The times are changing. People are getting up and getting angry and it’s bloody about time too! Please share this with your lists – it is important information.

Actions of BMJ Editor and Reporter “More Tabloid News than Science” According to Dr. David Lewis, and “a Genuine Threat to Public Health”

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 9, 2012 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Dr. David Lewis, internationally known whistleblower and respected expert on institutional fraud, released a report today calling for a formal investigation into the practices of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), and specifically into the actions of its editor, Dr. Fiona Godlee, and Brian Deer, a reporter she hired to write a series of articles which appeared in the journal beginning on January 4, 2011.

The BMJ articles accuse Dr. Andrew Wakefield of committing scientific fraud in a 1998 Lancet publication he co-authored that brought global attention to a link many parents and physicians suspect may exist between autism and children who are genetically predisposed to adverse reactions from the Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccine.

The BMJ, Deer, and Godlee alleged that Wakefield fabricated a diagnosis of colitis in most of the 12 children described in The Lancet article — calling Wakefield’s work an “elaborate fraud” intended to create an “MMR scare” — so Wakefield could profit from a patent related to his research.

“Documents recovered from Dr. Wakefield’s files during my investigation at the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) – www.researchmisconduct.org – reveal that a pathologist associated with the study, Dr. Andrew Anthony, interpreted a number of the children’s biopsies as evidence of colitis,” explained Dr. Lewis. “Altogether, the evidence contained in Wakefield’s files suggested to me that the BMJ’s fraud theory was more tabloid news than science.”

According to documents Lewis filed with Sir John Tooke, Vice-Provost for Health at the University College London (UCL) where The Lancet study was done, BMJ Editor Godlee responded to the Lewis revelations by “cherry-picking the evidence and coming up with a grand conspiracy theory involving ‘institutional research misconduct’. Alleged fraudsters now include University College London (UCL) administrators, the Royal Free Hospital, and all 13 co-authors of the Lancet study.”

UCL President Malcolm Grant notified Lewis that, because his charges were “so serious,” he urged Dr. Lewis to inform Dr. Godlee and Deer “at the earliest opportunity.”

Lewis also reports that Godlee has previously acknowledged the BMJ Group receives funding from the two manufacturers of the MMR vaccine, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, and has testified in a Parliamentary inquiry that peer-reviewed medical journals are “the marketing arm of the pharmaceutical industry.” Lewis added: “Apparently scientists who question certain government policies and industry practices can be destroyed for a price. If so, this kind of tabloid science poses a genuine threat to public health.”

On January 3, 2012, Dr. Wakefield filed suit against the BMJ and Brian Deer ( http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/04/BritMedJ.pdf ). Last September, Columbia University published a major study supporting the link Dr. Wakefield established between autism and enterocolitis ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3174969/ ).

Lewis Investigation Available Online:

Dr. Lewis’ detailed investigation of the BMJ series in question can be downloaded from the following URL:

http://www.yousendit.com/download/T2dkSmJ5SWVOQnhBSXRVag .

You can also download this paper directly by clicking here – Apparent Egregious Ethical Misconduct by British Medical Journal, Brian Deer

Expires: January 19, 2012 09:40 PST

About Dr. David Lewis:

Dr. David Lewis, a member of the NWC Board of Directors and Director of its Research Misconduct Project, is a former senior-level research microbiologist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He was the only EPA scientist to ever publish first-authored research articles in Lancet and Nature. His research published in Lancet and Nature Medicine on the inadequacy of CDC guidelines to prevent transmission of HIV in dentistry prompted the current heat sterilization standard for dentistry in the mid-1990s. His environmental research published in Nature received the Science Achievement Award by the EPA Administrator in 2000. Editors at Annals of Internal Medicine rated him in the top 10 percent of reviewers in 2010. His accomplishments in medical and environmental research have been widely covered in professional, scientific and popular publications and broadcasts including Nature, Science, Lancet, JAMA, National Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Voice of America, Paul Harvey News, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, NY Times, Washington Post, London Times, NPR’s All Things Considered, PBS Healthweek, PBS Technopolitics, CBS Evening News, ABC’s Primetime Live, and BBC Panorama.

Dr. Lewis’s direct contact information: (706) 296 3675

LewisDaveL@aol.com .

About the BMJ:

The British Medical Journal is a highly regarded, peer-reviewed scientific journal sent to more than 100,000 doctors internationally, many of whom have stakes in vaccine usage.

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Posted in Accountability, Medical Bully-Boys, Medical ethics | 4 Comments »

Is there anybody…out there?

December 31st, 2011

Hello, hello, hello

Is there anybody in there?

Just nod if you can hear me

Is there anyone home?

Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd

OK, that is a bit of a messed-up question. Of COURSE there is and whoever is ‘out there’ is a real person despite all the electronics between them and me. There is a reason I’ve asked this however so please read on.

I have been to no fewer than 3 forums here at Woodford on the issue of effective uses for media and social media. At every one of these, at least one person in the audience has bemoaned the fact that due to outlets such as FaceBook, Twitter, blogs and other social media, people no longer seem to speak face-to-face and they have begun to lose that ‘common touch’ of real human contact.

Of course, there would then be someone who would bring up a story about an 80-year old they know who is now able to stay in contact with their grandchildren in the UK or the isolated farmer out bush who can finally chat with their brothers and sisters now that they have an internet connection and access to social media.

I myself rediscovered my High School friends and was able to attend a 35th reunion last year due to FaceBook. The AVN has extensively used many forms of social media to stay in touch with our supporters and to network closely with other vaccine safety organisations both here in Australia and New Zealand as well as around the world. We are in contact with groups on every continent apart from Antarctica and that simply could not have happened without social media.

As you would probably be aware, my participation with the Woodfordia Folk Festival this year caused all kinds of angst. From the pressure on festival sponsors (including the QLD government) to withdraw their funding, to airplanes flying over the venue with a banner trailing behind saying “vaccination saves lives”, this year’s Woodfordia received an awful lot of press about the question of whether or not both sides of the vaccination debate should be heard. I found this a bit confronting at first, but also satisfying.

Why satisfying? Because if people were talking about vaccination, they were also thinking about vaccination and that’s what the AVN wants. We want people to consider why they are vaccinating and for their ultimate decision to be based on information – not fear or ignorance. So, the more people think about this issue, the more people there will be making informed choices rather than default decisions. Whether that choice is to vaccinate fully, selectively or not at all is not something the AVN is concerned about – we just want to protect parent’s rights to get complete information and make a choice without pressure, penalties or coercion.

Of course, the downside of the attention the AVN has garnered is the inevitable (it seems) abuse dished out by those who are concerned with preventing people from obtaining information on the other side of this medical procedure. And whilst I am now used to bearing the brunt of this hate-fest that seems to spring up around me wherever I happen to be, I do have to say that it can be a bit hurtful at times because I am a human being and the parent of a vaccine-injured child myself, though most of those who are writing the hateful and sometimes disgusting things about me seem to forget that (or perhaps they don’t really care?).

One person crossed my path during my time here at Woodfordia in a most unexpected way however. A person I’d never heard of before but one who has restored my faith in the basic goodness of most people and also made me realise that anyone can fall into the trap of dehumanising other through the outlet of social media. I thought long and hard about writing this blog because I don’t want to leave her open for the sort of vilification I have been getting, but as you will see, she has already come in for more than her fair share of this (though I am hopeful that this story won’t lead to more) and like me, has learned to not take the abuse so personally any more.

This person’s name is Clementine Ford and she is a young freelance writer who, as many people of her age (and not so many of mine), has wholeheartedly embraced social media. She has written extensively for many different web and non-web media outlets including the rather conservative Adelaide Advertiser newspaper and the more left-thinking ABC Drum.

As I said, prior to hearing her speak, I had never heard of Clementine. I was drawn to a forum she participated in on the subject of climate change ‘denialism’. I will write more about the forum at a later time – it was quite interesting and raised some very important issues – not only about the vital question of the unsustainable usage of our beautiful planet, but also about the conduct of scientific debates and how we treat those who disagree with us which, I must say, is a topic I am quite passionate about.

I listened to the forum in the morning and that afternoon, I participated in my own forum at the Blue Lotus. I was unaware of this at the time, but Clementine Ford was one of the people sitting in the audience and as I was speaking, she was sending out a steady stream of tweets which were, to put it kindly, not supportive of the message of the AVN that I was conveying nor were they considerate of me personally.

Let me make this clear – her messages were far from abusive! There were members of Stop the AVN (SAVN) present who were certainly sending out abusive messages on twitter, but Clementine Ford was not one of them. She did make some rather uncomplimentary personal comments about me which as I said, I am used to so I wouldn’t have worried too much about them anyway. Compared to some of the things SAVN members have been saying about me, Clementine’s posts were almost tame!

But an interesting thing happened later that night which sort of turned things around for both of us, I gues

Here at Woodfordia, there is a special area for ‘performers’ called the Green Room. Filled with smelly lounges and day beds which are well worn but comfortable and, most importantly, power points to allow us to charge our phones, laptops, ipads, etc. (None of us seems to travel without electronic devices these days!), it is THE place to be when you aren’t speaking or watching someone else perform.

In any case, after dinner, I went to the Green Room to use my laptop and charge it. There was a woman sitting in front of the bank of power points and I just asked her if I could please reach past her to plug in. She turned around and I saw that it was Clementine Ford. I didn’t think more about it, but in plugging in my laptop, I accidentally knocked her on the shoulder and apologised for it.

That was it as far as I was concerned, but apparently, politeness has become even more or a rarity today then even I had noticed because right after our meeting, Clementine Ford sent out the following tweet:

I know being polite doesn’t make you less wrong. But it makes it harder to truly hate the person. Why couldn’t Dorey be a pushy horror?

This blew me away, to be honest.

When we first started our Facebook page (over 2 years ago, now), one of the first messages I received was from an anonymous ‘fan’ who said – “We’re coming for you, baby killer.”

At the time, I had been working with this organisation for over 15 years and had never had a death threat or anything hateful said to me before. Of course there had been arguments and heated discussions, but there was always at least the minimum amount of respect and certainly never threats of violence. Those encounters were all either face-to-face or on the phone – not quite as anonymous as the current contacts with SAVN.

When I went to the police after receiving the first threat on FaceBook, the officer behind the counter was quite unsympathetic. She simply said that if I didn’t want to get threats, I should get off of social media. I did not feel that was an appropriate response but there you go – when those who are meant to uphold the law abrogate that responsibility, the average citizen has nowhere else to go.

As anyone who has been reading this blog for any time at all would be aware, since that time, there has been a non-stop stream of attacks against the AVN – mostly targeting me as a person. Thanks to the support of Dr Brian Martin and my wonderful family, I have been able to keep this abuse in perspective and have learned to view them more as a reflection of the people sending the messages then of me or the AVN.

One of the things that has always intrigued me when considering these attacks is the fact that the anonymity of the internet seems to not only enable but encourage a certain type of person to make personal and vile attacks against those they disagree with. The net is full of trolls and SAVN seems to have more then their fair share.

I have often wondered whether – face-to-face – these people would be as strident and to be honest, I hope I never get the answer to that question. But the fact is that being on line has made me a target and that is something I have simply had to come to terms with.

In considering this situation, the one thing that comes through very clearly is the fact that the internet has made people less real to each other. Those people who have been asking me to die in a fire are not speaking to Meryl – they are addressing nocompulsoryvac. And when someone asked if they could chip in on a contract to kill me, they were not considering a mother of 4 but just an organisation that is not alive anyway – it’s just a presence on a network of computers.

Where is all this going? We’re getting there so thanks for your patience in reading this far.

That little encounter with Clementine Ford had an outcome that I think neither of us planned but it is one that we really all need to think about.

Clementine no longer saw me as some idiot who doesn’t care about children. Instead, I was a human being who she disagrees with but who has feelings that she did not want to hurt.

The day after our meeting in the Green Room, there was another forum that Clementine participated in. To be honest, I didn’t go because of her, but Andrew Bartlett was speaking and he is someone I have a great deal of respect for – plus, the subject concerned social media and that is something I am always interested in!

I sat right up front and obviously, I saw Clementine quite clearly and she saw me too.

During the discussions, someone in the audience mentioned the fact that Clementine had recently received some very abusive messages on her online articles. There was also another female journalist in Melbourne who had messages saying that she should be raped with a broom. The discussion turned to abuse of those who are on social media and Clementine looked straight at me and started to speak:

I think that the way that women are attacked in the media is – I think that sometimes people do go after them purely because they’re a woman and sometimes, I think that their being a woman just opens up a whole new way of them  being criticised.

…I think I try and be quite honest in my writing and I think I try and be quite self-reflective and I try to judge myself as well.

…I’m just going to share a little story from yesterday. I noticed that Meryl Dorey is here in the front row. I got to see Meryl’s speech yesterday on the anti-vaccination stuff and look, I don’t agree with anti-vaccination (ed note: neither do I!) and I was tweeting through it and I don’t think I was vicious and vile about Meryl but I may have made some sweeping statements the way that people do on Twitter, having 3 days before had people make the same sort of statements about me and however used to it you get, it does hurt your feelings when you read it.

And I was charging my phone in the Green Room last night and this very lovely lady tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me, do you mind if I just plug my computer in? Thank you very much.” It was Meryl and I thought, God, it’s actually, It’s funny when you meet someone in person and you realise that all of the things that you feel hurt by about the way that people talk about you it’s because they don’t see you as being a real person either. They see you as being an identity on the internet.

So I did feel really bad about that actually because while I might disagree with what she’s saying, I think you have to be really conscious that if you’re asking people not to speak about you in that way, then you have to try hard not to speak about other people that way and that is the reality of, especially being on Twitter, that in 140 characters, somebody can just decimate your character, particularly if they feel resentful of the fact that you have a position they might not want you to have…

All the positive comments that you’ve got from people … can be totally eradicated by 5 people saying that you’re an attention-seeking whore. And that is something that you have to kind of cope with on the internet, especially if you’re a woman, but people are just going to say awful, vile things about you and can you deal with it?

I never expected that. I never expected that someone who attacked me thoughtlessly would think again and realise that yes, I am a real person. But Clementine got it! From a simple accidental meeting and her own experience with having hurtful things said about her on the internet, she realised the impact these sorts of attacks can have on another being.

I invite those members of the SAVN who have been attacking me non-stop for the last 2 1/2 to 3 years to do the same thing. Take a step back, consider moderating your language and let’s get back to playing the ball – not the person. Just because we disagree with each other on a scientific issue is no reason to continue the abuse.

Let’s disagree, and let’s communicate about that. Let’s accept that we may never reach a common ground but that in the end, the truth of the matter will emerge regardless of what we do today but understand that we are all concerned with the health of children and we all care deeply about our own families and our own choices.

I know that the real ‘die-hards’ of SAVN will just look at this and take it as a challenge to try even harder to continue the attacks. But I also know that there are many good people involved with that group who would not want to be associated with this type of behaviour and yet, they have been sucked in due to their commitment to the issue of vaccination.

There are better ways to get your point across – there are more productive methods of debate. I invite you to join in the conversation.

 

 

 

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Posted in AVN, Medical Bully-Boys, Seminars / Webinars | 55 Comments »

Package inserts – please save and share this link

December 29th, 2011

This is an important link to have – http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/package_inserts.htm. This site contains a list of most US licensed vaccinations. Since we in Australia get the majority of our vaccines from the same multi-national pharmaceutical companies as the US, our vaccines will, for the most part, be the same (though there are more vaccines given in the US and more options for some of them). Please be sure that if you are considering getting vaccinated or giving your child these shots, that you first look at the inserts for the vaccines being offered. The most important things to consider are:

1- The ingredients (are there heavy metals, toxins, contaminants, antibiotics, etc. in the shot? If so, where is the proof of safety of those ingredients? What are the safety limits for the age group being vaccinated and have they been studied for their individual and cumulative safety?)

2- The listed side effects. The information given to doctors in Australia is incredibly incomplete. Please take a look at my earlier blog post – Does the Doctor Really Know Best – to see that though the government tells doctors about 3 very mild reactions to the Gardasil vaccine, the manufacturer’s information (and the manufacturer has done the studies of this shot – not the government) lists 26 far more serious and even life threatening reactions. This is yet another reason why you must take responsibility and do this research for yourself – not just listen to your doctor who may be less informed then you are about this issue.

3- The contraindications or reasons why the vaccine may not be appropriate for everyone. This is important information to have. Is there a family history of sensitivities or reactions (such as seizures or severe allergies) that you should be concerned about? Has your child reacted to certain vaccine ingredient (such as egg or msg) before and therefore, should not be receiving a particular shot? In general, doctors do not give this information out to parents before vaccinating their children and if your child is vaccinated in a school setting, they will NEVER be given this information to bring home to you in order to allow you to make an informed choice. Therefore, having access to this information can be very important.

Keep it and share it with others. We also have links to most of the current Australian vaccines on our website but this list is more complete.

Posted in Vaccination | 9 Comments »

Woodford Vaccination Forum

December 29th, 2011

I am just writing a very brief post here because I want to relax a bit this evening but I promised to get these slides up on the website so here goes.

The Woodfordia Vaccination Forum went according to schedule this afternoon. It was standing room only with people sitting in the aisles and standing up all around the back and sides. Stop the AVN paid a lot of money to get an airplane to fly over the venue during the talk towing a banner that said Vaccines Save Lives. I thanked them as soon as I got on stage for the great publicity that led to such a wonderful turn-out. In fact, one person said that they hadn’t known anything about the forum but had seen the plane and came along to find out what all the fuss was about. Good job, SAVN!

The talk went very well. Everyone was polite, there was no heckling and I think that everyone – even the immunologist, agreed that vaccinations should not be compulsory. The audience asked some great questions and the vaccination forum was an example of how this issue can and should be aired – in public and with fairness to both sides.

There was a video tape of the whole talk I’m not sure yet how that will be distributed, but I will let you know when I know.

In the meantime, thanks to all of our AVN members who came along to support this forum. I can’t tell you how heartening it was to look down into the audience and see your smiling faces looking up during the talk.

Here are the slides – I hope you enjoy them. The references should be clickable too!

Woodford Debate 2011 SML

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Posted in AVN, Medical Error, Seminars / Webinars | 9 Comments »

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