Richard Glover from the Sydney Morning Herald/Melbourne Age/Canberra Times and other Fairfax newspapers, has asked the question – How much honesty do we really need?

Unfortunately, his article is filled with so much misinformation due to, I would imagine, a complete lack of research on his part. Is he simply rehashing what the Minister for Fair Trading has said or is he plugged into SAVN and their outright lies? I leave it to you to decide.

Here are the first two paragraph of Richard Glover’s article.

There is a link above and below where you can read the rest and if you want to write him a polite letter to let him know that you are an AVN member or supporter and don’t consider yourself to be a nutbag, please click here to do so.

The nutbags from Australian Vaccination Network will be forced to change their name to something that better reflects their anti-vaccination stance, following a court ruling this week. Fair enough. I’m all for truth in labelling. But once the principle is established, where does it stop?

The Liberal Party, for instance, has never been very liberal; the Labor Party, according to the voters, doesn’t work; and the National Party is anything but national, representing, as it does, the sectional interests of country people. So all three have to go.

Please click here to read the entire article.

Here is my response which was sent to the paper this morning but which, strangely enough, hasn’t yet appeared on either the Age or the Sydney Morning Herald website. I have also sent this directly to Richard Glover. Hopefully, he will read it.

What’s in a name? What is honesty? Perhaps the question Richard Glover should really be asking is – how much intelligence do we really want. Because even a man in his position is showing a distinct lack of both comprehension and critical thinking.

The ADT decision on the Australian Vaccination Network’s name was quite clear – whilst the AVN is sceptical of vaccination, there is no evidence that they are anti-vaccine. In addition, their name was deemed to be neither undesirable nor unacceptable. So please do your reading before commenting. And as for calling AVN members nutbags – though that may make you feel better, it is downright insulting to the AVN’s membership of thousands of Australians – the majority of whom are tertiary-educated and many of whom have had children either killed or injured by vaccinations.

As for telling the truth – the truth is that if our government in NSW were not so willing to bend the rules of democracy, our case would never have occurred. You see, Minister Anthony Roberts did not have the power to order the AVN to change its name but he did it anyway. Only after the fact, when he was  informed that he was not able to do this, did he take what might have been a totally illegal action. He put through an Amendment Regulation – which was never debated or voted on by Parliament –  granting himself the power to force the AVN to change its name and then applied that retrospectively. According to the rules of Parliament, Amendment Regulations cannot be used to extend the scope or power of an existing piece of legislation.

Perhaps instead of berating intelligent and caring parents, you should instead be looking at why our government is still able to call itself a democracy? Just a suggestion. And perhaps while you are doing this investigation, you might want to look at the Health Care Complaints Committee which is currently investigating the advisability of citing and punishing anyone who speaks about natural therapies or against mainstream medicine.

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the AVN National Committee. The AVN is a forum, support and information organisation and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.