– – MEDIA RELEASE – – July 15 2019 – –

Federal Court Judge –

• Revokes 3-year ban on Autism-mum, Polly Tommey
• States that the Minister made a “jurisdictional error”
• Awards costs to Ms Tommey

The AVN has just learned that Ms Polly Tommey, one of the producers of the documentary film, VaxXed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe and publisher of the Autism File magazine, has won her appeal against a 3-year ban from entry into Australia, has had her visa reinstated and been awarded full costs.

The Federal Circuit Court under Judge Barnes noted that:

The respondent [the Australian Government] concedes that the decision is affected by jurisdictional error, being the misapplication of s 116 (1)(e)(i) of the Migration Act, 1958 (Cth). There was no evidence available to satisfy the delegate in finding that Ms Tommey “would be a risk to the health, safety or good order of the Australian community…”

The AVN assisted Ms Tommey in fighting against this unconscionable ban. The Minister for Immigration tried to claim that Ms Tommey, a mother of 3 children, one of whom has been seriously injured by vaccination, was somehow a terrorist and needed to be kept out of Australia.

“This decision was made as Polly was boarding a plane to leave Australia after a sold-out tour of VaxXed. In our opinion, this was nothing more than an attempt to silence critics of Australia’s dangerous, one-size-fits-all vaccination policy.”, says AVN President, Aneeta Hafemeister. “In addition, this was a terrible waste of government resources and court time.”

Polly is the mother of a young man who was permanently injured by his vaccines, leading to a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. A former ITV Britain television personality, she has spent decades fighting for the rights of all families to make informed vaccination decisions and sharing referenced, scientifically-based information on the relative risks of vaccines sourced from mainstream publications.

The documentary, VaxXed, tells the story of Dr William Thompson, a lead researcher with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who claims that he and his co-authors omitted vital information from their 2004 seminal study which purported to claim that the MMR vaccine is not linked with the development of autism. This article, called the De Stefano study, could only claim that MMR was not associated with autism because the authors destroyed and suppressed data which demonstrated the complete opposite.

VaxXed II will be premiering soon and we hope that this decision by the court will convince the government that these issues deserve genuine and respectful discussions on both sides – not censorship and bans on those who, like Ms Tommey and the AVN, are passionate about preserving and maintaining the health of children here in Australia and around the world.

For media comment, contact:
Aneeta Hafemeister on 0427 362 990