Lest We Forget (Julian Burnside)

So here we are: Australia in 2011.  For convenience we have forgotten our origins, our good fortune, our blindness and our selfishness.  In place of memory we have constructed a national myth of a generous, welcoming country, a land of new arrivals where everyone gets a fair go; a myth in which vanity fills the emptiness where the truth was forgotten.

It is one of the most resonant phrases in our national mythology.  “Lest we forget”.  We say it, or think it, on 11th November each year and on Anzac day.

But forgetting lies at the heart of this country.  We have constructed a myth about ourselves which cannot survive unless we forget a number of painful truths.  We draw a veil of comforting amnesia over anything which contradicts our self-image.

Since John Howard saw the votes to be had by appropriating some of Pauline Hanson’s more repellent policy ideas, boat people have been tagged “illegals”.  Howard won the 2001 election on it; Abbott persists in it.  Gillard and Bowen go along with it like sheep because they have still not absorbed their own rhetoric.

We forget that boat people who come here to ask for protection are not illegal in any sense – they are exercising the right which every person has in international law to seek asylum in any country they can reach.

We forget that the first white settlers in this country were true illegals: sent here by English courts for a range of criminal offences, and the soldiers sent to guard them, and the administrators who, following London’s instructions, stole the country from its original inhabitants who, if possession is nine points of the law, had the backing of 30,000 years of law to justify calling the white invaders “illegals”.

And we forget, too, the line in the second verse of our national anthem: words that might fairly be understood as reflecting the simple truth recognised by the white settlers: for those who came across the sea there are truly boundless plains to share.  For refugees locked away on Christmas Island this must throw light on the frontier which delusion shares with hypocrisy.

And how many of us pause to remember how different it was for 85,000 Vietnamese boat people 30 years ago? They were resettled here swiftly and without fuss, thanks to the simple human decency which Malcolm Fraser and Ian Macphee showed, and which Abbott and Gillard so conspicuously lack.  We forget how hideously we scarred Vietnam; how we showered them with Agent Orange and trashed their villages and disfigured their people.  Just as we forget the effects of our collaboration in Iraq.  But if we knew back then why people flee the land of their birth, we seem to have forgotten it now.

When today’s refugees wash up on our shores, Abbott and Gillard, Bowen and Morrison all speak with concern about the boat people who die in their attempt to get to safety, but their concern is utterly false.  Instead of attacking the refugees directly, which is their real purpose, they attack the people smugglers instead.  Because, aren’t people smugglers the worst people imaginable?   They forget that Oskar Schindler was a people smuggler, and so was Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  And so was Gustav Schroeder, captain of the ill-fated MS St Louis which left Hamburg in May 1939 with a cargo of 900 Jews looking for help.  He tried every trick in the book to land them somewhere safe, but was pushed away.  He ended up putting them ashore again in Europe, and more than half of them perished in concentration camps.  Abbott and Gillard forget that Captain Schroeder was a people smuggler.

They forget too that, without the help of people smugglers, refugees are left to face persecution or death at the hands of whatever tyranny threatens them.  Let Gillard or Abbott say publicly that, in the same circumstances, they would not use a people smuggler if they had to.

Read more.

© Julian Burnside

Andrew Wakefield and the MMR fraud: Science Betrayed

From the BBC’s Science Betrayed, March 16th 2011. Dr Adam Rutherford does a splendid job of investigating the scandal and ethical breaches that led to the greatest medical and public health related disaster in the post penicillin era.

Recently there’s been a push by anti-vaccination lobbyists and those horrid folk from Age of Autism to argue that the BMJ committed fraud. They have a particular angle on Brian Deer and the entire campaign smacks of revenge borne of a total lack of evidence. Mike Adams is another source of woe begotten opportunism peddling this nonsense. Meryl Dorey is piping their tune in Australia despite originally screaming Wakefield’s disclaimer in his defence: “No association proved with MMR” – something Wakefield sticks to when questioned.

“We never said there is a link to autism”, Meryl Dorey of The Australian Vaccination Network lied as Wakefield’s obliteration became complete. “Just to bowel disorders”. Of course, they quickly changed their tune to line up with the rest of the conspiracy cranks worldwide.

I feel like saying they make me sick. But that’s nonsense. In truth, they make sick children even sicker. What I find truly bizarre is that “anti-vaccination hero” Andrew Wakefield, filed patent for monovalent vaccines nine months before publishing his paper. Just as unethical is monovalent vaccine administrator Dr. Richard Halvorsen, author of The truth about vaccines. He is paid hundreds of dollars per shot. If anybody schemed to push vaccines it is these men.

In The Lancet article, Wakefield et al. wrote, “we did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described”. Yet he wrote a letter with Richard Barr one of the lawyers paying Wakefield, and representing anti-vaccination litigants, before beginning the study. Written on June 6th, 1996 it described a vaccine induced autistic and intestinal disorder. This was over two weeks before selecting the first child to be “studied” as part of The Lancet sample. It included;

Children with enteritis and disintegrative disorder, form part of a new syndrome. The evidence is undeniably in favour of a specific vaccine induced pathology.

Hired by lawyers with a predetermined agenda, inventing a vaccine induced syndrome at the behest of anti-vaccine activists, selecting a sample picked by the lawyers and lobbyists, filing for monovalent vaccine patents well before publishing his work, denying any link in print, suggesting this very same link in a press conference, making plans for a “treatment” centre for his pretend syndrome that he would run…

All to be abandoned by most co-author’s, struck off the medical register as callous and unethical and for his fraudulent “research” to be retracted. There can be no doubt. Andrew Wakefield is a fraud and those seeking to exhume the corpse of this despicable scam have embarked on yet another course of unique child, parent and indeed social abuse.

Although there’s a plethora of articles debunking this awful business, here’s some you may like to read.

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5258.full?sid=4d2cb324-6535-4766-8f06-6d398fc84c42

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126964.000-mmr-vaccine-not-linked-to-autism-says-us-court.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3315651/MMR-is-not-linked-to-autism-say-Japanese.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7076-autism-rises-despite-mmr-ban-in-japan.html

Australian Vaccination Network: Essential Facts

Balancing the fiction and propaganda of The Australian Vaccination Network against reality.

This video looks at some essential facts about the conduct, deception, insouciance and legal problems of Meryl Dorey and The Australian Vaccination Network. It covers quite a bit of ground from 2009 to the present. A serious message with a dash of dark humour in exposing the absurdity of their operation.

Through the anti-vaccination looking glass: responding to Brian Martin Pt. 2

Caught in the vaccination wars: Responding to Brian Martin Pt. 1 is a lengthy reflection of Dr. Brian Martin’s writings and input from Stop the AVN [SAVN] members on the same.

I’m very grateful to Dr. Martin for his time and pleasant tone in corresponding – an all to rare event in an advocacy role that sees one labelled a fascist, enemy of free speech, pharmacy shill and worse. As I pointed out I felt it was somewhat regretful that focus had fallen on my comments that Meryl Dorey and members of the AVN were indeed conspiracy theorists.

Nonetheless, we left off with Dr. Martin fairly suggesting impressive evidence was needed to prove this comment which had been prominent on the SAVN’s old Facebook page. I can’t prove the entire comment, nor have any idea where it came from. What I can and am going to do is present enough evidence to remove the word “mind”, leaving the rest of the comment intact;

They [AVN] believe that vaccines are part of a global conspiracy to implant mind control chips into every man, woman and child and that the ‘illuminati’ plan a mass cull of humans.

Yes anti-vaccination conspiracies do include vaccine induced mind control chips and culling, but as yet I have not found “mind control” itself in AVN writings. Of course, if one believes the many conspiracies below it’s arguable your mind is itself, controlled by extension.

Despite my view that this was time wasting and likely to cast all criticism of the AVN as sensational and irrelevant, I did provide Dr. Martin with many references to these actual conspiracies both on April 26th and in more depth on July 20th. Brian had revised part 2 of his piece and asked if I wished to comment for correction, on July 18th;

Hi Paul,

I’ve revised Part 2 of “Caught in the vaccination wars”: see http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/11savn/Mercury-comments.html

If you have any comments before I make it live, let me know.

Regards,

Brian

My July 20th email listed 7 proven conspiracy links that I asked Dr. Martin to refer to as possible reason for the above comment. He didn’t reply. On July 22nd I emailed Dr. Martin again. It’s reproduced in full below;

Brian,

Are you able to confirm as yet that you will be adding the many links to conspiracy theories demonstrated by Meryl Dorey and AVN members?

Most particular being Ms. Dorey’s admission that they do subscribe to these theories in response to a “chemtrail” conspiracy (seen at the time as a means to human culling), but stressing it does their argument no good at all to use them. Also that later an AVN member posted the same article Dorey herself had on her blog, which specifically refers to the Illuminati and global control.

I realise you seek to zero in on “mind control chips”, the “Illuminati” and the provision of the former by the latter in “vaccines”. My strident contention however, is that the AVN and Dorey have at many times demonstrated comfort with conspiracies. I would suggest if dismissing the description on SAVN’s Facebook page deserves so much attention then it should accompany a point by point listing of what conspiracies the AVN do subscribe to.

At the same time, an argument as to why this is not damaging to the integrity of any “whistleblowers” credibility would seem required. At the very least your final draft must fairly include the listed conspiracies – including:

– Publication of material on use of the H1N1 vaccine, the Illuminati and the proposed “global fascist dictatorship of total human control.” It must be noted that Ms. Dorey often uses the term “fascism” to describe science advocates and public health aims in conducting her “business”.

– The action alert that included four (and more) conspiracies, particularly that Baxter had possibly released the H1N1 virus and would also be the company to profit from consequent vaccination which is seemingly highlighted by their filing for a patent for this vaccine. That Baxter very likely have intentionally “released” a vaccine tainted with avian influenza. That this batch was referred to as “doses” even though it was a laboratory preparation destined for further testing. These issues were to be stressed to politicians in email correspondence. The wording of these facsimile emails strongly suggests intention on the part of Baxter. A fifth conspiracy that it is not “too much to expect” Baxter again released tainted vaccines – “excactly the same thing” – is proposed even though no reports of this exist. They also incorrectly claim H1N1 was unknown at the time of patent filing. This is not accurate as strains of H1 viruses have been studied for decades.

– Dorey has not once objected to AVN members posting conspiracy material related to the Illuminati. Rather she has urged obfuscation, and from this it is expected she would publically deny any such beliefs.

– A vocal AVN member entertains the notion that our planet is under the control of beings unlike us and suggests the search for a hepatitis C vaccine should remove any doubt about this.

– Any presentation of vaccines used with or for other reasons or purposes than what parents need to know to make a sound risk benefit decision that deviates from accurately presenting AEFI data is demonstrating that the AVN have a different agenda to what is publically presented.

– Meryl Dorey has never publically dismissed any of the conspiracy theories presented by the AVN and herself. Her only comment, as noted above, is to acknowledge they are damaging to the cause. This at the least must cause concern about AVN hidden agendas.

As I stressed before, I feel this is an unfortunate diversion. Nonetheless, the volume of conspiracy material far outweighs calling to examination the specifics of one statement.

Ms. Dorey is notably back peddling since the law and public scrutiny caught up with her, in the hope of presenting a more rational image.

All the best

Regards,

Paul Gallagher

Regrettably, Brian did not reply. That’s understandable and acceptable. He sought for me to address items related to his interpretation of a certain video. He didn’t ask me to prove Meryl Dorey and her pals are in fact, batshit crazy.

It seems he was intent, as is his right, on maintaining that SAVN had unfairly accused the AVN of adhering to the stated conspiracy theory above. He’d listed some assumptions he felt I’d made and appeared to doggedly want my explanation for them. Read them here in purple. I wasn’t thrilled about having a straw man built based on assumptions Dr. Martin believed I’d made nor asking me to jump through hoops by “explaining” how I’d made them.

I was arguing well, here’s a bunch of conspiracies and attempts to hide involvement that I feel outweigh your need for exact evidence. More so, I feel this is a black mark against the integrity of anyone who purports to speak for Australian families and maintains they are not anti-vaccine. So, what was my evidence? What had I sent to Dr. Martin?

Meryl Dorey and at least two of her members published material from what was the biggest show in conspiracy land at the time. I quote from their referred source “Flu is not the biggest danger – it’s the vaccine”, by David Icke. [Bold mine]:

What Bürgermeister describes in her FBI submission is a summary of what I have been trying to get across in my books and talks for nearly two decades. A cabal of interbreeding families is seeking to impose a global fascist dictatorship of total human control.

Their vehicle is a secret society network structured like a transnational corporation. The operational headquarters is in Europe, in places like Rome, London, Paris, Brussels and Berlin. I refer to this as ‘the Spider’ and it dictates to the global web.

There are subsidiary networks of secret societies in every country that answer to the ‘Spider’. Their job is to control their country’s politics, banking, business, military, media, medicine, and so on, and introduce in their sphere of influence the global agenda dictated by the ‘Spider’. Those on the inner levels of this structure are collectively known as the ‘Illuminati’.

That was July 21st, 2009. Four days later, Dorey published her own version of an Australian episode of “forced vaccination”, in Living Wisdom. Entitled Action Alert: compulsory H1N1 (swine flu) vaccination just around the corner, it is an assortment of five separate conspiracies involving Baxter Pharmaceuticals – and a plea to members to write to “politicians”. She provided two facsimile letters which I highly recommend you read. The article began;

It is happening just as we said it would. First, we said that a worldwide pandemic would be declared and that has happened. Because of the pandemic, we said that the government would use its emergency powers to enforce vaccination. That hasn’t happened here in Australia yet but in the US and the UK, all the talk is about getting EVERYONE vaccinated against swine flu and normal human flu this coming (Northern) winter….

… We need to take action now to let our elected representatives and the media know what we feel about any form of forced medication….

The facsimile letters essentially claim it is 50% likely that Baxter “intentionally” contaminated the vaccine. AVN members were asked to relay to politicians that only 2 conclusions could be drawn:

Baxter were incredibly careless with their procedures causing an accidental contamination which then, incredibly, was allowed to get out into millions of doses of vaccine before anyone noticed; or

The contamination was intentional and it was only a matter of luck and good due diligence on the part of the Czech officials that this was caught before anyone received the contaminated vaccine lots.

It’s not the David Icke conspiracy rant in total but does have all the elements. “Declared pandemic, we said this would happen… government’s emergency powers… enforce vaccination…intentional contamination”. The second point unambiguously suggests a deliberate attempt to infect humans with a potentially lethal virus – for profit.

Essentially this “action alert” contains 5 conspiracies. H1N1 is being used for mandatory vaccination. That H1N1 was purposely released by Baxter. That Baxter intended to harm and kill with a tainted vaccine. That Baxter filed for vaccine patent prior to H1N1 outbreak they may have intentionally caused by releasing the virus. A fifth conspiracy that it is not “too much to expect” Baxter again released tainted vaccines.

Is it too much to expect that the company which sent out contaminated flu vaccines in February could not have done exactly the same thing several months later in May?

Then on July 26th Dorey reproduced Ickes article.

The next day, July 27th, AVN member Sheri Nakken publishes on the AVN email group this article about an aerosol precursor spray released into the air via chemtrail. This precursor will be activated via the H1N1 vaccine – leading to a spread of the H1N1 virus. It references Jane Burgermeister the Austrian journalist who served a “bioterrorism” suit on world leaders, the CIA, Obama, WHO members and more. At this time there were claims of widespread death and genocide complete with conspiracy videos and videos of plastic coffin stockpiles circulating on the internet.

AVN member Janine Roberts responds at 10:35am writing “we do not need to raise very dubious genocide charges just to criticise vaccines”. Genocide? Okay, genocide. Dorey also responds the same day at 10:48am writing, “…. it does our argument no good at all to bring in conspiracy theories, which though we may subscribe to them are unprovable“.

Bingo! We subscribe to them, they’re unprovable thus does our argument no good to “bring in conspiracy theories”. And not just any conspiracy. A chemtrail dispensed aerosol that is inhaled by humans ready to be “activated” by the H1N1 vaccine and thus, according to an AVN member, lead to genocide. By 12:23pm another AVN member uploads a copy of Ickes article in full. Dorey makes no attempt to comment on this.

Over the 25th, 26th and 27th of July 2009 Dorey made no attempt to refute involvement in conspiracy theories. But still we cannot fully prove the above comment to be factual. We can however offer more from Meryl Dorey and senior AVN members. AVN online health educator, Sheri Nakken in Jan. 2010 claimed, “you should not be having anymore doubts” that beings unlike ourselves have taken control on this planet… for “eons”. Why dear reader? Well, there’s increased research into a hepatitis C vaccine, why else? Poor Sheri’s post is below, or in high resolution;

Still however, with regard to forced microchipping, we only have this original controversial image sent to Dr. Martin. Dr. Martin is concerned that the video Dorey regards as “excellent” does not mention the Illuminati nor a mass cull of humans. I’m… quite simply shocked that he cannot see this video for what it is. Plain, rank, paranoid conspiracy cut and edited to present misleading information. Help yourself – Mandatory vaccination and forced microchipping. Here’s a typically themed if rather forceful comment;

When they come for me they had better come prepared to fight. Sheer numbers will get me in the end but I will take some of them with me. Better to die a quick death standing on my feet than a slow, sickly and painful death kneeling before the elitist and socialist scum who rule our society today.

So with the greatest of respect to Dr. Martin, Doreys posting of that “excellent video” must be seen as well beyond offering “informed choice”. This arguably, alone debunks her claim of not being a conspiracy theorist, and by extension refutes Martin’s claim of Dorey being a well meaning dissenter. It helps us grasp why Martin Walker from Age of Autism wrote Health Fascism In Australia, blaming Dorey’s woes on international “sinister skeptics” linked to Big Pharma.

We still however, need more. We need Meryl Dorey caught red handed raving about conspiracies. Government conspiracies. Microchips delivered by vaccination into your unsuspecting children at birth so their every detail is monitored. Remember the Australia card controversy? The card we still don’t have? Well if we search the Wayback macine archive we find that on January 8th, 2001 – a decade ago – Meryl Dorey wrote, Australia’s Big Brother Card: Coming your way! It included claims of microchips injected at birth via vaccine that will track people and also be used to deduct money for purchases via direct scanning. There is a much higher resolution here.

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20010406083421/avn.org.au/big.htm

So we can now review the comment highlighting in red what can be substantiated by the Australian Vaccination Network and Meryl Dorey in their own words.

They [AVN] believe that vaccines are part of a global conspiracy to implant mind control chips into every man, woman and child and that the ‘illuminati’ plan a mass cull of humans.

I realise hairs can be split that AVN beliefs are not Dorey’s beliefs and vice versa. Though I would stress for someone who spends hours devoted to censoring and deleting commentary she doesn’t agree with, Dorey has proven by inaction her comfort with this madness. Mind you if we included the Baxter rant in full we could expand on this sentence.

In conclusion it does seem a rather silly business. I conclude far more weighty issues need to be thrashed out, not least that the AVN is not a citizens group but a group of criminals who remain a malignant threat to Australian public health. Yet, Dr. Martin set me an unspoken challenge suggesting that “a survey of AVN members” would be a suitable approach. Anyone familiar with the AVN can see the folly in such an idea. Fortunately, as always the evidence speaks for itself.

Most damning is Meryl Dorey’s admission that they do subscribe to conspiracy theories but must obfuscate this to maintain a veneer of credibility.

Meryl Dorey has once again been found out and caught lying. Despite protesting that she has no interest in conspiracies and it’s a cruel plot to undermine her integrity, she is damned by her own words and actions.

It would seem I am indeed in Dr. Brian Martin’s debt.