Joint Media Release from The Hon Nicola Roxon MP Minister for Health and Ageing and The Hon Jenny Macklin MP Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.
November 25th, 2011:
Home Page of Federal Minister for Health and Ageing:
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr11-nr-nr250.htm
Back in May 1998 a systematic review of published results from clinical trials and the country they are published in was, well… published.
Two studies were conducted. In one, trials in which the outcome of acupuncture was compared to placebo, no treatment or a non acupuncture intervention were studied. In the second study randomised, controlled trials (RCT) of non acupuncture interventions in China, Japan, Russia/USSR, or Taiwan were compared to those published in England. Regarding the study of acupuncture:
Research conducted in certain countries was uniformly favorable to acupuncture; all trials originating in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan were positive, as were 10 out of 11 of those published in Russia/USSR.
It was also found that trials in the second group were skewed to produce favourable results in China [99%], Japan [89%], Russia/USSR [97%], and Taiwan [95%]. In England, “75% gave the test treatment as superior to control”.
No trial published in China or Russia/USSR found a test treatment to be ineffective.
Conclusion: Some countries publish unusually high proportions of positive results. Publication bias is a possible explanation. Researchers undertaking systematic reviews should consider carefully how to manage data from these countries.
In 2010 a systematic review of systematic reviews of acupuncture for depression stated in part:
Acupuncture is often advocated as a treatment for depression, and several trials have tested its effectiveness. Their results are contradictory and even systematic reviews of these data do not arrive at uniform conclusions. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate all systematic reviews of the subject with a view of assisting clinical decisions. […]
All the positive reviews and most of the positive primary studies originated from China. There are reasons to believe that these reviews are less than reliable. In conclusion, the effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment of depression remains unproven and the authors’ findings are consistent with acupuncture effects in depression being indistinguishable from placebo effects.
So on top of favouritism to acupuncture in certain countries, notably China, there is also an overlay of unusually high results. Indeed as shown in many studies and reviews initial study design and publication bias in Asian countries favours acupuncture efficacy. A few minutes searching will confirm this over and again. Thus, we can confidently be skeptical about studies raised in defence of acupuncture and stand firm that it’s “success” stems from study design and publication bias.
Yet, there’s also the issue of mythology and outright fallacies presented time and again regarding acupuncture’s origins. Appeal to antiquity is a major thought stopper when it comes to how acupuncture works and the other hanky panky around “forces” and “energy flows”. Consider:
Acupuncture is a traditional technique developed over two thousand years ago based on the insertion of needles or more recently electrical stimulation, based on the Chinese medical theory that diseases are caused by blockages in the flow of energy within the body.
We can rather swiftly expose that story as a patently modern day fake. Some scam artists know that acupuncture as we know it, is only a few decades old. In reputable organisations or conventional medical service providers where it is offered, a cleverly worded non committal pitch, seems to please legal advisers whilst keeping the mystique alive. I particularly like this one from Arthritis M.D.:
Acupuncture is one of the key components of the traditional Chinese medicine system. Chinese medicine was documented in China in the 3rd century B.C. This system views the body… Traditional acupuncturists also believe… According to Chinese medicine… As acupuncture has evolved and spread across countries and continents, different acupuncture points have been reported. Chinese theory…
It’s one of the very few that acknowledge (but do not admit) the fallacious creation of the vast majority of the more than 2,000 acupuncture points, or acupoints. There was originally 365 to correspond to days of the year. But thanks to Western marketing, bogus diploma courses, bad science and general unaccountability manifesting in mock up journals things got more convoluted and sciency. So what are the problems with the story of a 2,500 year old therapy? Fortunately other sciences can explain.
We’re asked to believe that the technology to make needles far thinner that hypodermic needles existed around 500 BCE. Just on that, Reflexologists claim a history of up to 5,000 years in their appeal to antiquity. Historiologically this is absurdity on steroids, even out-dating Moses by 1,600 years.
Earliest Chinese texts are from 3rd century BCE, and no mention of any needling is in evidence. By 90 BCE needling of infected wounds and bloodletting was reported. Archeological and anthropological evidence is robust and unambiguous. Needles used were huge. It was not until the 1600s that the technology to manufacture acupuncture needles existed. So, immediately we’re down to a generous 400 years.
In 1680 the first Western accounts of Chinese medicine [TCM was introduced by Mao in the 1960s] by Wilhelm Rhijn did not mention acupuncture points,”qi” or energy flow. Needles were shoved into wombs and skulls for “thirty respirations”.The USA did try this technique for drowning victims from 1826, reporting 100% failure and that they “gave up in disgust”. Western reports of “acupuncture” from around the early 1900’s mention not one word of the practice we’re today told is 2,500 years old. Most tellingly there are no points, qi or meridians in these reports.
In fact, it mirrored mechanical nociceptor stimulation and endorphin release, with needles jabbed into sites of pain. By the 1900s, “Qi” is still “vapour emitted by, or arising from food”. Meridians are still inert vessels/channels with no bodily association. So, we’re down to a few decades – but how few?
Enter… The French. Georges Soulie de Morant coined the usage of “meridian” to justify his belief that energy or “qi” moved throughout the body. He is the first properly documented human being to make that link. It was 1939. However, we had to wait until 1957 until another Frenchman, Paul Nogier, invented auricular acupuncture. Note this is not today’s acupuncture, nor the claimed ancient method. It is the notion of unseen energies. Similarly, today we hear much of non existent “toxins” where once we heard of disease carrying “Miasmas”. Some others in France accept this concept. Most French doctors claim this is “resurrecting an absurd doctrine from well deserved oblivion”.
So in respect of this practice supposedly a part of Chinese history, we’re down to 53 years, have no scientific or medical community support and seem to be nowhere near China. Also the Traditional Chinese Medicine [TCM] phrase is yet to exist also. Why? Interestingly enough, the only nation to strive to ban the acupuncture (of large needles jabbed into wounds, skulls and wombs) was China, between 1822 and WWII, under the Chinese Nationalist Government. Post Communist Revolution, Mao was faced with the reality of infection and disease as the few remaining Western or Soviet trained doctors worked in cities in a nation where 80% of the population was rural. An immediate problem for Mao was wide spread schistosomiasis. Vikki Valentine writes:
One of the Party’s first steps in medical reform called for massive campaigns against infectious disease. Thousands of workers were trained and sent out into the countryside to examine and treat peasants, and organize sanitation campaigns.
Enter his “Barefoot Doctors” who provided cheap and dangerous “alternative medicine”, and demonstrated the power of the Peoples Party when ordered to physically catch all fresh water dwelling snails capable of passing on the schistosoma parasite responsible for schistosomiasis. Ten million residents suffered from this and peasants called it “Big Belly”.
The schistosoma parasite when infectious swims about happily until it encounters a human. Then it burrows into the skin and becomes a schistosomula. It then sets up camp in the lungs or liver to mature.
Adults then infect the lungs and liver and also set off to invade the bladder, rectum, intestines, the portal venous system which carry blood from the intestines to liver, spleen, and lungs. Symptoms include seizures and the swollen belly.
A major platform of the Communist Party was a revolution in agriculture. A “Great Leap Forward” was needed in China. But Party leaders, including Chairman Mao Zedong, knew that improving the health of peasants was integral to increasing agricultural production.
What followed was a backlash against Western-style “elite” medicine. The “bourgeois” policies of “self-interested” physicians who only treated rare and difficult diseases were denounced as “disregarding the masses.”
Mao was pleased with reports that the disease was wiped out in up to 95% of areas where it had been endemic. He claimed his party could “cure what the powers above have failed to do”.
Mao’s government coined the term “traditional Chinese medicine” – TCM – including herbal medicine, crude acupuncture, moxibustion and more in the 1960’s. Mao himself despised the notion, never using any “TCM”. Vested interests had little trouble manufacturing an entire fake history which – ironically – we in the West could access with ease, from a nation practically able to suppress the flow of air, much less information.
Chinese do not use the TCM we have invented here in The West. In 1995 a group of visiting American medico’s were informed between 15-20% of Chinese use herbal medicine. Almost no Chinese medicine is used in and of itself but with mainstream medicine. It is considered a sign of poor class and ignorance by the Chinese in general to use any “TCM”.
The Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association offer a celebration of meaningless “qualifications”, codes of ethics and standards, all carefully crafted by themselves. So, what’s happening within this multi-billion dollar industry that need face no medical tribunals, provide data nor adhere to Australian Medical Standards?
Today it is a Western marketing success that grew following Communist Dictator Mao’s smirking at – then – superior economies. Unable to apply widespread Western medicine, alternatives were used. The West was assured this was successful and superior. We were scammed via our own gullibility about the far East and The Orient, still are by the Wellness Industry and China has indeed had the last laugh. Acupuncture produces a documented placebo effect. If you think youʼre getting it, it works, whether you are, or not. Itʼs you, the recipient who does this “mystical thing”. Harriet Hall writes in Science Based Medicine:
In the best controlled studies, only one thing mattered: whether the patients believed they were getting acupuncture. If they believed they got the real thing, they got better pain relief – whether they actually got acupuncture or not! If they got acupuncture but believed they didnʼt, it was less likely to work. If they didnʼt get it but believed they did, it was more likely to work.
Acupuncturists can rationalize with great ingenuity. In a recent study using sham acupuncture as a control, both the sham placebo acupuncture and the true acupuncture worked equally well and were better than no treatment. The obvious conclusion was that acupuncture was no better than placebo. Their conclusion was that acupuncture worked and the placebo acupuncture worked too!
Certainly there are ancient practices involved in the modern TCM plaguing the growing hokus pokus that constitutes the “Wellness Industry” yet acupuncture is not one of them. What we have today is not a 2,500 year old practice but a relatively modern expression of bad science derived from archaic ignorance that’s been very recently polished and refined to seem like genuine therapeutic intervention. At it’s very best acupuncture may well be responsible for releasing endorphins. It is a placebo and thus as a reliable mode of treatment is utterly and absolutely useless.
Of course many herbs can have demonstrable effects. In truth those that do are few and regulation is poor. Contamination with mercury, arsenic and lead is common whilst interaction with genuine drugs can lead to serious adverse reactions. All TCM must be regarded as harmful in that it delays access to efficacious evidence based treatment and is buoyed by the deceptions or well meaning but erroneous beliefs of practitioners. Proponents are welcome to subject their “medicine” for clinical trials, yet time and again they emerge as alternatives to medicine.
To argue there has been an unbroken chronology of superior “natural” therapies is simply false. It’s a common myth proffered by the Wellness Industry. Archaeology is absolute in producing evidence that humans have for many thousands of years died much, much younger and from painful chronic diseases that were quite simply beyond treatment. Diseases we today do not encounter in developed nations. Like any alternative to medicine acupuncture cannot survive RCT except to emerge time and again as placebo.
Australia would do well to review how much we spend on education and insurance for this slick ritual.
A mere 15 days ago we had a look at the fact Consumer Protection in W.A. was investigating the Australian Vaccination Network as reported in The West Australian.
Along with an example of Meryl’s economic use of facts to construct fallacies it included this flyer given out during Dorey’s Supercalifragilistichomeoprophylaxis W.A. Tour 2011. Of course if you click, it will embiggen itself. We are interested in the far left panel. Yes, that’s correct that 33.3% of that side of the flyer. One third as it were. Under Become A Member Or Donate.
It’s awfully interesting because when the OLGR revoked the AVN’s charitable fundraising licence they mentioned that the AVN – which basically means Meryl Dorey:
… is not entitled to accept donations from members of the public via any method of collection including face-to-face and online appeals. AVN is not prevented from receiving donations from its members as this is not considered fundraising for the purposes of the charitable fundraising legislation.
Dorey aka the Australian Vaccination Network was also prevented from taking new memberships when the revocation came into effect. At first glance this may seem strange, but the OLGR is there to protect the public from charity fraud amongst other things. As the AVN had refused to comply with HCCC demands to warn the public about it’s antivaccination stance, the OLGR took the view that receipt of monies could not be judged to occur in good faith. Ergo, purchasing a new membership could feasibly be done under the stupendously erroneous belief that the AVN was presenting accurate information.
The wording of the OLGR revocation is clear in that Dorey is forbidden to conduct fundraising. The above flyer is directly soliciting for donations and membership. The OLGR’s definition of a fund raising appeal is:
The soliciting or receiving of any money, property or other benefit from the public constitutes a fundraising appeal if a representation is made (this may be implied) that the appeal is for a charitable purpose or for the support of an organisation having a charitable object.
An appeal may take a variety of forms — donations, sponsorship, telethons, the conduct of lotteries and competitions, the supply of food, entertainment or other goods or services, or in connection with any other commercial undertaking. A membership drive undertaken by an organisation is a fundraising appeal if one of the objects of the organisation is a charitable object.
The term is not limited to simple collections from the public.
If you have embiggened you’ll notice that (apart from charging $15 per head for attending her seminar), that the options for donations and membership include:
My understanding is that any number of people may have queried the legality of this grab for cash, not least because Living Wisdom is several editions behind and may not rear it’s woo again. The initial news item that Consumer Protection was “investigating” the AVN came from Cathy O’Leary. Meryl, calling herself a “Consumer Watchdog Advocate”, emailed her list subscribers on November 12th with the following media release. It wasn’t actually released in any media, but was emailed to Media Watch where it was seemingly ignored. So I guess it’s just an email.
Basically Meryl is trying to sully Cathy’s reputation by alluding to a Media Watch article on O’Leary. Needless to say this has no bearing whatsoever on the content, accuracy or implications of her article Anti-vaccination Group Under Scrutiny. In part O’Leary wrote:
The NSW-based Australian Vaccination Network held public forums in Perth, Busselton, Jurien Bay and Geraldton, charging $15 and giving out brochures asking people to donate to the group.
Notice Dorey does not actually refute the claim of asking for donations. Rather, she refutes the claim of there being an investigation. Dorey claims to have contacted Consumer Protection who “confirmed” this. She also makes the claim of discovering that Cathy O’Leary is a sole complainant – also “confirmed”. That strikes me as unusual. O’Leary did not lodge any complaint.
So in effect this “media release” is just another falsehood created by Meryl Dorey. It also goes on to say she filed complaints with MEAA and the Press Council. No-one cared. A “nameless” ABC contact suggested sections 1 and 5 of the Journalists Code of Ethics had likely been breached, Dorey thundered. Nothing happened. I do know that Cathy O’Leary is one of Australia’s most loved journalists since reporting on the AVN. Perhaps that was the real problem.
As for likening four small paragraphs in The West Australian to the News of the World’s demise and the scandalous abuses involved one can only call our new advocate for consumer watchdogs (which is what I presume a Consumer Watchdog Advocate is) quite deluded.
More to the point it seems things didn’t go to plan in dismissing this caper as the dastardly work of one journalist. Today on Facebook Meryl Dorey blamed volunteer group Stop The AVN for pretty much the same thing. Does she even pay attention? Apparently not. It seems the penny has dropped regarding being caught out asking for donations and more, a full 16 days since Cathy O’Leary’s article. Or perhaps some type of mail arrived? If so, I wonder if the word “investigation” was used.
Pleading innocence Dorey claims this flyer was inadvertently handed out at The Conscious Living Expo in Perth where they were being given away “for free”. Yes, free! Wow that’s mighty generous. You see, the requests for donations and option for membership had been crossed out with a “black texta”.
Meryl wrote:
Stop the AVN, in their usual vile manner, is in the process of filing complaints everywhere they possibly can, saying that we took donations or memberships whilst we were out in Western Australia. Their evidence is a flu vaccination flyer that was supposedly handed out at the Conscious Living Expo. This flyer was being given away for free (we have updated the flyers to change the membership information – all the other information is unchanged). 
I had crossed out the membership / donation information in black texta but either the person from SAVN who picked one up at our stand got one that had been missed or else, they were using an older copy that was not blacked out – because when these forms were originally printed, we were still able to take members and accept donations from the general public.
How absolutely amazing. What are the odds, eh? It’s all an oversight. A complete fluke that someone happened to pick that one up. Stupid, stupid Texta. Just another little error. Like with the OLGR. Saying 23 breaches of the Charitable Fundraising Act is so excessive as Meryl pointed out last October. Just little errors:
… the simple errors …errors which any small, volunteer-run organisation can and does make
She continued on with Textagate:
As I have said numerous times, both here on Facebook, in our magazine and in other locations as well as at my seminars, the AVN is not allowed to take on new members or donations from non-AVN members because this group and various government departments have blocked that in an attempt to – as they say – stop the AVN. The fact that this assault on our freedom of communication has been allowed is a black mark against Australia and proof that it is very far from a democracy. […]
in (sic) the meantime, as much as I hate to respond to those horrible, abusive, heartless people who do not care one little bit about your children who have been killed or injured by vaccines, it was necessary to do so because they just love to sling the mud around and I value the trust and respect of our AVN members.
Is anyone keeping tally on the lies?
“… I value the trust and respect of our AVN members”. Gosh. Have I been a bit harsh judging Meryl as ripping off AVN members? What comes next?
If you believe that what is happening is wrong. If you think that the government should not be trying to shut the AVN down and that groups like SAVN that are – let’s face it – not information groups but simply hate groups who don’t want you to have the right to make informed health choices, then please support us with your subscription and / or by purchasing books. Use this link – (link here) to read our recent newsletter and then, subscribe as a digital, hard copy or professional subscriber. If you are already a member, please renew.
Spend as little as $25 to strike a blow for freedom and if you have friends or family or clients who you think would like to know about this issue, please sign them up for a gift subscription for as little as $25.
Hmmmm. Apparently not. Emotion, conspiratorial plotting, callousness toward your children[s] vaccine injuries/deaths and then more pleading for money via the incredibly inflated AVN Shop or the non existent hard copies of Living Wisdom. A link to AVN rubbish packaged as Christmas goodies. Would anyone fall for that?
Thank you? Really? Thank you!? Sigh…
What do we see above? On the one hand Dorey attacks a journalist for (supposedly) complaining about her, “giving out brochures asking people to donate to the group” at W.A. seminars. Dorey at no time refutes this. Then suddenly when aware of presumably more complainants she has a ready excuse. A Texta no less. With this Bart Simpson excuse she vilifies those who would challenge her antivaccination message, places herself so far above the law as to ridicule Australian democracy then asks for even more money. I’ve no doubt that stash of flyers has a bunch nicely blacked out in Texta now.
More to the point as well as being duped by Meryl Dorey, once in her clutches existing members (financial or group) are the target of back to back scams. Dorey invents stories that are designed to keep alive the myth of regular vaccine injuries, big brother callousness and abuse of your steadily eroding civil rights, along with the terror of mandatory vaccination. In this scam Dorey invents fictitious nurses that she diagnosed via Google with Lupus Panniculitis, brought on by compulsory HBV vaccination. What can members do? Why, donate their Maternity Immunisation Allowance of course. And why do this? Well fictitious members are already doing so because:
…without the AVN’s lobbying Parliament to get legislation put through to ensure their rights to government entitlements, they wouldn’t have this money or the Childcare Allowance anyway so they felt that we deserved part of it for our support of them.
Which is all a load of fiction in itself. Dorey and the AVN have no history of lobbying beyond writing offensive and ranting letters. Manipulation of emotion and embellishment are constant features in her scams. Donors never receive updates or breakdowns of where this money goes. This advertisement scam and this absconding family scam are two the OLGR confirmed raised money that vanished into Dorey’s pockets. In fact check page 81 of Ken McLeod’s comprehensive Meryl Dorey’s trouble with the truth part 3 to note:
A calculation of the total amount raised from all these appeals and scams, and others not mentioned here, approaches $500,000. None of it was processed according the relevant NSW legislation; where did it go?
In my mind it’s very clear who is vile, hate filled and cares naught for children.
I don’t believe her for a second.
PS: Do pop over to the site by @reasonable_hank, who had earlier published on Textagate. I mean, it’s not until you actually see a flyer with all that Texta….
Over the past few months I’ve come to accept that there is one Australian absolutely delighted with the fact that (then) 12 month old Saba Button suffered organ and brain damage following febrile convulsions brought on by Fluvax.
Meryl Dorey of the AVN has enveloped herself in the tragedy of the Button family, declaring long and loud she is their unofficial antivaccination representative. She claims to have twice met with them and had been, “in contact by both telephone and email many times over the intervening period…”. Finally, after 18 years of fabrication, untraceable images, offensive claims and being a danger to public health the woman who likens vaccination to “rape with full penetration” has landed her fish.
She writes in a conspiracy piece on her blog:
I can also tell you that this reaction was entirely preventable because neither they nor any other parent who gave permission for their precious child to be vaccinated in this campaign was informed that their babies were being used as guinea pigs in a trial that was paid for by the drug companies involved. Neither were they aware that those payments going to people who ostensibly worked for the government (both state and federal) and who were considered to be – but actually were not – independent.
All of this is a complete fabrication. No trials are conducted surreptitiously. Ethics requirements aside exactly what data could those conducting Meryl’s pretend trial hope to collate? By who, how and when would subjects be monitored, what tests would be carried out and for how long? Indeed Dorey is suggesting this “trial” was simply a stab in the dark to see what happened. No such trial took place and thus was not paid for by drug companies. Worse, this is knowingly exploitative of the Button family and reduces their personal tragedy and grief to yet another of the thousands of tactics Meryl Dorey has used to mislead Australians.
Morally it is no different to her claim yesterday that infants who die in a co-sleeping arrangement are likely vaccine induced fatalities. Why? Because GP’s point out the danger of this arrangement, so it must be an abuse of “natural instinct” and thus a conspiracy is in order. Or her ACTION ALERT! announcement that supporters of vaccines were mobilising to harass the author of Virus in the system – an article that recounted Saba’s experience.
CSL does carry out yearly trials following strict protocols on an informed, compliant sample, the results of which are published in peer reviewed literature. This is mentioned below. Yet I’m not here to make excuses for CSL whose conduct surrounding Fluvax, their economic handling of certain legitimate trial results and adherence to Good Manufacturing Practice leaves a great deal to be desired. Nor am I by any stretch of the imagination a fan of Dr. Rohan Hammett, head of Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration. One cannot however make conclusions without evidence. Unless of course, one fabricates.
As an update, one commenter below has pointed out there was a trial to gauge the epidemiological impact of the present schedule, in response to infant fatalities from influenza the year before. I’m perhaps duty bound to note that infant fatality from flu was mentioned by Judy Wilyman at the AVN’s first Perth trip on June 30th 2010 at the State Library, W.A. Judy informed the audience that the media report such fatalities as scare campaigns to “coerce us into vaccination”. This is because, “We’re being educated by the media who have pharmaceutical interests”. I should also point out that W.A. was the only state to use seasonal influenza and H1N1 together for children under five, which can be regarded as novel and thus raise concerns about earlier trials, particularly on sample size. Yet there were no guinea pigs, or state sanctioned, profit driven guesswork.
Regarding “those payments going to people who ostensibly worked for the government…”, that too is fallacious. TGA national manager Dr Rohan Hammett was before a Senate estimates committee on October 19th, being quizzed over the very nature of Fluvax, CSL, trial results, the febrile convulsions in W.A. and payments from drug companies.
Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, quizzes Dr. Hammett beginning with justified concerns that the TGA knew of high fevers in 2009. Yet more disturbing is that 2005 trial data yielded fever rates of 22.5%. The 2006 fever rates were 39.5%. Despite this, CSL advised the TGA in 2009 of the 2005 figure [pp.42-43]:
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: Are you demanding an explanation? You should be.
Dr Hammett: We are. We have written to CSL.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: It emerged that the company knew two years ago about research suggesting a sharp rise in feeders linked to its seasonal flu vaccine but omitted this from information given to doctors. We have canvassed this in these estimates. My question is: when did you and when did the government first know about this? Is this the first you have heard of it? That is really what I would like to know.
Dr Hammett: No, it is not, Senator. In 2009 a study was published which related to clinical trials undertaken in 2005 and 2006. That study was published in peer-reviewed scientific literature. We were advised by CSL of its publication at about the same time as it was actually published. You will recall that that in the years before the Fluvax incident with febrile convulsions—and, indeed, for the last four decades—seasonal flu vaccine has been regarded as an incredibly safe vaccine. In 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 there was no suggestion of safety problems with the flu vaccine.
In retrospect, knowing now what we know in 2010, that there was a problem with the 2010 vaccine, people are going back through clinical trials and saying, ‘With the aid of the ‘retrospector scope’, could we have picked anything?’ Indeed, in those earlier clinical trials there were rates of fever for the Fluvax vaccine that were higher than some other comparable vaccines. However, as noted in yesterday’s article, most of those fevers were mild or moderate and there was no sign of a febrile convulsion signal. Febrile convulsions were not occurring in those studies that were done.
As I have said, we have written to CSL and made inquiries as to whether there was any delay in notification of us of these issues and have sought to gain a greater understanding of what they knew when. We have not yet received a response, but we are awaiting that.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: Can I ask you to take on notice how much money has been paid to CSL? It is an enormous amount of money that you pay them. You obviously must have a very close relationship with CSL—and I mean that simply because of the nature of the work that they do and how much they provide in terms of products to the Commonwealth. Surely, Dr Hammett, you must have been aware of what this company was doing and certainly known about its research in relation to these fevers.
Ms Halton: Let’s just back up a second. There are a couple of things. Dr Hammett is the regulator. He does not pay the CSL anything. He has a very clear role, which is as a regulator. He takes that role very responsibly and very seriously. There is a separate part of the government which purchases vaccine, including from CSL. So I think we need to make a distinction here about who is paying what for whom and what the nature of the relationship is, because I do think it is—
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: I am happy for that to happen, Ms Halton, but the point that I am getting to is, given the close relationship—whether it is on the side of the purchasing arm or on the side of the TGA—this is a serious issue. Two years ago, at a period much earlier than has been previously canvassed in these estimates, there was an issue about fever. My question is: when did the government first become aware of this?
Senator Nick Xenophon later cuts to the chase addressing Hammett [p.44]:
Because time is so limited, I will put some questions on notice for you. First, can you provide details of when the TGA first became aware of the peer-reviewed article? Second, at what point was action taken? Third, did the TGA embark on other inquiries as a result of that peer-reviewed article? Fourth, do you agree with Professor Peter Collignon’s view? It is:
The TGA should be ensuring companies do update their data—it should be compulsory that the TGA should be informed of any new information, and the TGA should ensure the product information is updated to reflect that.
What really stinks coming from CSL is that the 2010 product information did not include the already documented 2009 higher fever rates. It is true these fevers are usually mild to moderate and of short duration – a factor which influenced the TGA to take no action.
It is here – and only here – that Meryl Dorey is more than welcome to raise concerns and recount poor practice or lack of insight and follow up on the part of either CSL or the TGA. However perhaps the greatest damage done by CSL is to public confidence in the safety of influenza vaccination, particularly for at risk children.
So what of actual febrile convulsion? Dorey variously claims hundreds of hospitalisations or hundreds of cases. The ABC reported “hundreds of reactions” on April 18th, 2010 with 47 taken to hospital reported on April 23. The West Australian on the same day reports 23 admissions. This led to the suspension nationwide by Commonwealth chief health officer Professor Jim Bishop.
Fluvax was given to W.A. babies resulting in a seizure rate of 3.3 per 1000. On this point MJA Insight write:
This rate of febrile convulsions [noted in 2006 trial data] (1 per 272) is similar to the estimate for the 2010 season (3.3 per 1000) which led to the unprecedented decision by Australia’s chief medical officer to suspend the use of paediatric flu vaccines.
A TGA spokeswoman told MJA InSight that a single adverse reaction report within a clinical study was not usually regarded as an adequate signal of a major safety problem. Lead author of the clinical study, Professor Terry Nolan, also told MJA InSight that the small sample size of the study meant the rates of febrile convulsions were not comparable with those seen in the community in 2010.
“We did a clinical study. It was published in a peer-reviewed journal. The serious adverse events were notified to the sponsor [CSL]”, said Professor Nolan, who is also head of the school of population health at Melbourne University.
It is not Professor Nolan’s role to inform the TGA. Nor do other members of the ATAGI receive special bonuses or payments from drug companies to influence perception of vaccines. Nevertheless Dorey manufactured a letter from a supposed “whistleblower”. A sordid tale about another W.A. based ATAGI member being handsomely rewarded by evil drug companies led her to wind up her article with:
In fact, we are told that all of our medical advisors must be paid by the drug companies because it seems to be impossible to find qualified people who haven’t been tainted by drug company cash.
This is why the AVN says that we can’t trust our government when it comes to their assessment of the safety or effectiveness of drugs and vaccines. There is a holy trinity comprised of the government, the drug companies and the doctors. This triad is protected by self-regulation (via the TGA which is completely funded by pharmaceutical licensing fees) and a complicit media which is beholden to drug company advertising.
Sounds conspiratorial? Well I’m sorry, but these are the facts.
No Meryl, that is simply fantastic conspiracy twaddle wasting good space on your blog when the real facts are far more convincing and indeed far more concerning.
But Meryl wasn’t finished with that simple post-W.A. trip tantrum, presumably to let off steam after her enormous W.A. tour flop. Last Wednesday November 16th she posted:
We read fiction:
I personally know of one 70 year old woman and a 19 year old man who were hospitalised within hours of getting the shot and who died within 7 and 2 days of that (respectively) Those deaths were never reported as being related to the vaccine.
More accusations are made about the TGA “knowing” and the CDC not buying Fluvax for this reason. No sources are cited. Then most offensively:
I will check and see how donations can be made to Saba’s fund. I know there is one that was set up for her when she was first injured. Her parents could not possibly be taking care of her in this way if it weren’t for that fund. Here’s hoping that compensation will be swift and generous for this poor victim of vaccines.
So far there is no word and I imagine no feedback will be forthcoming. In all the press surrounding Saba Button Meryl Dorey and the AVN is totally absent. Dorey has never breathed a word of the lawyer acting for the Buttons. History shows exactly what will happen to any money she would have gleefully collected and pocketed before the OLGR revoked her charitable fund raising licence for exactly that reason. Members of Stop the AVN can be proud they have this time stopped her stealing money from another family in need.
Those familiar with Dorey know if this was a death from a vaccine preventable disease her accusations would be of earlier vaccines – especially HBV leading to the death, possible antibiotic induced fatality, a lack of breast feeding or a simple media fabrication designed to scare people into vaccinating. Without sighting the medical records Dorey might well deny any disease at all. “You didn’t die from [measles or whooping cough] thirty years ago and you’re not going to die from it today”, she announced on national TV. All that’s needed is homeopathy, fresh air and clean water. Avoid doctors and hospitals.
Let’s face it. Dorey cares little for children, vaccine injured or maimed by the diseases she has helped bring back to dangerous levels. On either side they are tools to help her to offend, mislead and to cultivate fear. Snaring an innocent family with a very rational view of the world in her web of deceit can only be a negative for them. There are ample facts that assist their case. Facts Dorey is largely ignorant of. I fail utterly to see how lies and conspiracy theories manufactured by a proven threat to public health can be welcome.
Saba Button is in need of constant care via conventional medicine. Dorey is an out and proud enemy of conventional medicine. Despite the catalyst for her injuries Saba will forever be an at risk patient and need vaccination and conventional prophylactic measures to protect her from future viral threats. She will be surrounded by doctors, specialists and hospital staff perhaps for most of her life. The very people and places Dorey insists keep people sick – for profit.
It’s time Meryl Dorey did at least one morally correct thing and just left the Button family alone.
Few things underscore the failure of the war on drugs quite like the, well… failure of the war on drugs.
Two mornings ago I read in the press Synthetic drugs banned ahead of schoolies.
Attorney-General Paul Lucas said a further 19 cannabinoids, which are used to make fake illicit drugs such as the synthetic cannabis Kronic, have been outlawed. Mr Lucas said anyone caught selling them now risked between 15 and 20 years in jail.
Ten hours later I read Synthetic drugs seized ahead of schoolies, as police raided business across the Gold Coast to remove the obvious supply of, but not the demand for, synthetic drugs. No problems. Kids can go back to buying regular pot supporting organised crime in the time honored fashion. Perhaps amphetamine type stimulants (ATS) like ecstasy (or their safer legal cousins) will soon be managed identically, literally placing kids lives at risk.
Trying to terrify a nation Detective Superintendent Steve Holahan lies, “They’ve contained pesticides, crushed glass – extremely dangerous for human consumption.” Then, even though kids will now buy from organised crime figures with corrupt connections, zero accountability, no business to legally maintain and nothing in mind but an easy quick dollar we get Poe’s Law:
“Anything that you don’t know what it contains, should sound alarm bells straight away,” he said. “I really can’t emphasise enough, don’t ingest something that you don’t know what it contains.
“People need to understand they’re taking a very real risk both for their personal health…”.
In this 60 Minutes clip examining the status of “legal highs” – synthetic drugs that do not fall under the various misuse of drugs, or drug misuse and trafficking acts – vision of police savaging illegal cannabis growers struck me like never before. The recognition of futility, posturing and wasted public money was there. Yet more and more the anger I used to feel has given way to vague annoyance toward these pitiful people dressed up in action costumes to engage in what is a demonstrably futile endeavour.
Perhaps my annoyance peaked when NSW Drug Squad Chief, Nick Bingham angled to plead tough on “legal” drugs. He first admits to the difficulty of policing drugs that are not illegal then offers:
We have enough legal drugs on the market. We have tobacco, we have alcohol, we have your benzodiazapines. Why do we want to open up an avenue of all these synthetic substances to make them legal as well?
Er, firstly benzodiazapines area a prescription medication. Why not just rattle off the entire edition of MIMS there Nick? Next, there is no safe level of tobacco consumption. Which leaves alcohol – the most abused mind altering drug in the developed world clocking up a cost to public health that is approximately 15 times that of illicit drugs and once again wasting public money in policing violence. Lastly, regarding drugs that can’t be legally seized without legislative change there is no evidence anywhere of “opening up an avenue… to make them legal as well”.
Readers may remember back in June I covered the inaccurate “anecdotal” claims made by Steve Fielding on June 22nd in Questions without notice as he hassled Attorney-General Representative, Senator Joe Ludwig over what he intended to do nationally about Kronic. Fielding’s hysteria aside we still have no evidence to back his horror stories about what NSW health minister, Kevin Humphries told ABC Lateline was a “synthetic psychotic drug”. Indeed, despite years of sensational press and conservative panic the risk of chronic psychosis in people genetically predisposed to schizophrenia is roughly around one in 15,000 of regular smokers of illegal cannabis.
Of course, Fielding’s frown and Ludwig’s lament did nothing. It turns out Kronic derivatives remain legal and misunderstood. Colin Barnett, perhaps Australia’s most daring and dashing politician on the topic of illicit drugs banned Kronic in June promising maximum sentences of 25 years. Rather than understand the drugs and manage any issues we have simply enforced ignorance and expanded the supposed problem.
Surely now is the time for education and sensible regulation. In all the hype essential facts are lost and urban myths begin to emerge. “Synthetic cannabinoids” aren’t in many cases, cannabinoids. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction notes:
Although often referred to simply as synthetic cannabinoids, many of the substances are not structurally related to the so-called ‘classical’ cannabinoids, i.e. compounds, like THC, based on dibenzopyran. The cannabinoid receptor agonists form a diverse group, but most are lipid soluble and non-polar, and consist of 22 to 26 carbon atoms; they would therefore be expected to volatilize readily when smoked. A common structural feature is a side-chain, where optimal activity requires more than four and up to nine saturated carbon atoms. The first figure shows the structure of THC, while the others show examples of synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists, all of which have been found in ‘Spice’ or other smoking mixtures. The synthetic cannabinoids fall into seven major structural groups…
This clip spends ample time allowing Matt Bowden, NZ’s incredibly successful legal drug producer to chat with Liz Hayes. With ATS we all know the status of mephedrone as illegal in Australia. Yet smart chemists have enough formulas for both ATS and cannabinoids to keep the production-ban-production-ban arms race going for some time. Slowly the rhetoric is changing. Less and less are we terrified with stories of mashed neurons, instant madness and blokes who ripped off their scrotum. It’s pretty simple. Impairment. Drugs, like alcohol, cause impairment. And no, we don’t want those we care about going about their business impaired.
We need open and honest discourse. Proper scientific understanding and advice strikes me as the only sensible, critical next step. Users do not deserve to be scared witless to the point of hiding and lying about what is in essence simple human behaviour. More to the point the action to ban synthetic cannabinoids announced the presence of such legal drugs to Australians sending sales to unprecedented levels.
The history of banning previously legal substances is one of failure. Perhaps we might like to not repeat this particular aspect.
Losing In The Lucky Country 