AVSN president Tasha David misleads ‘We Are Vaxxed’ audience

Current president of the Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network, Tasha David, visited Atlanta Georgia in the USA to attend the so-called “CDC Truth rally”.

This caper was a big deal for antivaccinationists obsessed with the dishonest, deceptive film Vaxxed. In forming a view about the push to promote Vaxxed and the individuals involved it is important to understand how utterly false and potentially harmful it is. Like most outspoken antivaccinationists Tasha David keeps reminding us of her own dishonesty.

Whilst in the US, on the weekend of October 15-16, David joined the parade of vaccine victims appearing as video subjects for We Are Vaxxed. Although dishonest throughout her stint it is the first lies she offers that are so patently absurd. Initially David offers:

The government made us change our own name because we’re not allowed to choose our own name in Australia, so that’s basically one of the reasons why we’re here because in Australia we don’t have a Bill of rights we don’t have guaranteed freedom of speech, so we’re not allowed to speak on a lot of things.

Freedom of speech? Bill of Rights? Not allowed to choose our own name in Australia? Oh my. The government had “made us change our own name”? Balderdash and Blubberblurt. The Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network are obsessed with manipulating discourse and social media to keep their prior name – the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) – alive.

The AVN was formed in 1994. Twenty years later Tasha David became president. Clearly the AVN had a long run with the name they had chosen. It was however a confusing name and always intended to deceive. Regrettably the official sounding name was successful in fooling members of the public, and a legitimate midwifery organisation listed the AVN as reputable. The NSW Department of Fair Trading received complaints to this effect.

In December 2012 they ordered the AVN to change its name within two months or be deregistered. Minister for Fair Trading at the time, Anthony Roberts, said the group’s name “is confusing and has misled the public as to its operational intention”. The order was a huge blow to the twisted morale of the group which thrived on whenever possible snubbing regulators and mocking the vital purpose of regulation. They unsuccessfully challenged the order and by March 2014 changed their name to the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network.

By the time of the name change the Fair Trading Minister was Stuart Ayers. The ABC reported:

Fair Trading Minister Stuart Ayres says the association’s original name was misleading.

“The title wasn’t reflecting their strong anti-vaccination stance and so we after receiving numerous complaints requested them to change their name,” he said.

“They’ve now complied with that request and the new title reflects their anti-vaccination stance.”

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) says it hopes the name change makes sure the organisation is not mistaken for a government agency.

It would appear that David’s intellectually contorted statement suggesting government strong arm tactics and suppression of free speech is a calculated lie crafted to gain sympathy. In reality it is the health of Australian democracy and Fair Trading legislation that led to the order to change their deceptive name.

  • Listen to the first 2 min of David’s interview. NB: I edited out the confusion around live video streaming but have not altered the commentary in any way.

Tasha David continues:

I see that you guys are up in arms about that new CDC um, rule we’ve been talking about – forced vaccinating um, children, or people basically in the US. But I’m really sad to say that they’ve already passed that law in Australia. It’s called the Biosecurity Act 2015 so basically, um, they can force vaccinate you if you have a disease or um, some kind of illness that is a risk to human health.

Now that could be anything. Could be a cold you know, so we’ve already got the legislation in place. I haven’t seen it be used yet but the fact that it’s even in place is scary to me, you know, so…

Here, David is contending that forced vaccination is a reality in Australia if circumstances meet conditions outlined in the Biosecurity Act 2015. She further contends that the Act permits forced vaccination of an individual suffering “some kind of illness that is a risk to human health… that could be anything… could be a cold”. Putting aside David’s alarming lack of understanding the role of vaccination we should look closer at the Biosecurity Act 2015.

The Act is headed, An Act relating to diseases and pests that may cause harm to human, animal or plant health or the environment, and for related purposes.

The HTML version I’ve linked to has 681 pages, including endnotes. The word “vaccination” appears eleven times, the majority of these being in subsections or related sections. That is to say this vast document does not present a number of novel reasons for vaccination. Rather parts of the Act describe when vaccination is relevant to interpretation and application of the Act.

David is in error when claiming the Biosecurity Act 2015 deals with “anything” or “a cold”. The diseases this Act is designed to manage are in fact far removed from such a dismissive notion. Chapter 2 – Managing biosecurity risks: human health includes Listing Human Diseases:

(1)  The Director of Human Biosecurity may, in writing, determine that a human disease is a listed human disease if the Director considers that the disease may:
(a)  be communicable; and
(b)  cause significant harm to human health.
(2)  Before making a determination under this section, the Director of Human Biosecurity must consult with:
(a)  the chief health officer (however described) for each State and Territory; and
(b)  the Director of Biosecurity.
(3)  A determination made under this section is a legislative instrument, but section 42 (disallowance) of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 does not apply to the instrument.

With regard to Human Biosecurity Control Orders it should be noted that these are not applied frivolously and when an individual objects to the application of such measures the Director of Human Biosecurity “must take into account any factors that may affect the health of the individual”. Thus an established risk to an individual of an adverse reaction from vaccination would prevent administration of a vaccine.

With respect to imposing biosecurity measures the Act includes, in Chapter 2:

[Protections] aim to ensure that a power is exercised, or biosecurity measure imposed, only when circumstances are sufficiently serious to justify it, and only if it would be effective, it is appropriate and adapted for its purpose, and it is no more restrictive or intrusive than is required. [Protection] also ensures that the requirements of this Chapter do not interfere with an individual’s urgent or life‑threatening medical needs.

It’s important to realise with respect to disease a great deal of this Act and the application of biosecurity measures involve individuals entering Australian territory and the operation of aircraft or vessels entering or leaving Australia. Managing risks to human health include human biosecurity control orders. Section 59 of the Act includes:

A human biosecurity control order that is in force in relation to an individual may require the individual to comply with certain biosecurity measures. [Those measures] include vaccination, restricting the individual’s behaviour and ordering the individual to remain isolated.

In Division 2 of the Act it states under Entry Requirements (bold mine):

The Health Minister may determine one or more requirements for individuals who are entering Australian territory at a landing place or port.

for an individual to provide either:
(i)  a declaration as to whether the individual has received a specified vaccination or other prophylaxis within a specified previous period; or
(ii)  evidence that the individual has received a specified vaccination or other prophylaxis within a specified previous period

With respect to vaccination identical requirements exist under Exit Requirements.

Unvaccinated Australians are freely travelling to and from the country without being vaccinated against potential disease. Despite the Biosecurity Act travellers have brought measles to Australia, resulting in a sixteen year diagnostic high in 2014. Tasha David may claim that under this Act a simple cold could lead to forced vaccination, but there was no evidence of Human Biosecurity Control Orders in the wake of a recent measles outbreak in Melbourne. David would benefit from understanding just why she hasn’t seen this Act used to force vaccination for trivial reasons.

Section 74 of the Act notes when an individual is expected to comply with a biosecurity measure. Subsection (2) reads:

The individual is required to comply with the measure only if:
(a)  the individual consents to the measure; or
(b)  the Director of Human Biosecurity has given a direction for the individual to comply with the measure…

Section 92: Receiving a vaccination or treatment:

An individual may be required by a human biosecurity control order to receive, at a specified medical facility:
(a)  a specified vaccination; or
(b)  a specified form of treatment;
in order to manage the listed human disease specified in the order, and any other listed human disease.

With respect to the use of force one notes Section 95: No use of force to require compliance with certain biosecurity measures:

Force must not be used against an individual to require the individual to comply with a biosecurity measure imposed under any of sections 85 to 93.

Note: Force may be used in preventing an individual leaving Australian territory in contravention of a traveller movement measure (see section 101) or in detaining a person who fails to comply with an isolation measure (see section 104).

Thus contrary to Tasha David’s claim that, “they can force vaccinate you” under implementation of the Biosecurity Act 2015, we can see in this case that the Act itself prevents forced vaccination. It’s clear that no force can be used for the imposition of biosecurity measures under Sections 85 to 93. Vaccination, being Section 92, falls within this range.

No doubt antivaccinationists will disagree with any legislation that involves vaccination to protect the public from serious disease. What is important however is to underscore how this group will continually mislead the public without compunction. The Biosecurity Act 2015 is not used for just “anything” or simple “colds”. Nor does it permit forced vaccination.

David continues with considerable more nonsense. Offensive, crude dishonesty. Her next target is No Jab No Pay but it is the impact she claims to have observed that is quite sickening.

So these people that are single parents that don’t have that money to pay, you know that need that money just to survive… they can’t work, they can’t afford child care. So they’re basically on the street. We have so many stories on our web site of people living in cars, that are having abortions because they can’t afford to have a child in Australia now because of these laws.

Typically there is no evidence for these claims. If they were true the right thing for Tasha David to do would be to advise these individuals to have their children vaccinated and thus be eligible for the payments in question. Or perhaps the AVSN could help with some of that donated cash instead of spending it on trips to the USA.

Either way I doubt the AVSN will change their deceptive habits.

Conspiracy Theorists: obsessed and beyond reason

This morning I was met with the news that a train accident in Hoboken, New Jersey had left one person dead and over 100 injured. It was being described as “the worst NJ transit incident in the recent past”.

Moments later I was pondering what conspiracy theorists would be doing with this information. I didn’t expect much but a visit to Prison Planet – a hive of conspiracy paranoia fathered by Alex Jones – yielded some pickings. Comments lay under opening paragraphs from an NBC New York article. One read:

Yet another “accident” hundreds in serious condition, death toll still rising.

Note the press will not identify the train engineer.

Note how the press wont even identify if train was under control of “PTC” positive train control.

PTC prevents this, unless its tampered with. PTC cannot turn the power “up”, in a train, only “down”. That region was one the 1st in the USA to get PTC. Appears Mr. Obama needs a few days to work a narrative.

The author seemed to be “arguing” that the event was executed deliberately. His over confident assessment of “PTC” train control in that region suggested such an accident was unlikely if not impossible. The press, in his mind, were suppressing two vital facts: the driver’s name and the presence/absence of PTC control. President Obama thus, needed “a few days” to mislead the American public.

As it turned out the driver, engineer Thomas Gallagher had spoken to authorities “within hours” of the accident. He had been rescued from his crushed cabin and is reported to be in a critical condition.

Another commenter had worked it out using exclamation marks. This was no accident. It was the “scum Muslims”. He’s quite likely blown his ten bucks – unless the almost certainly American born descendent of Irish-Americans, has converted to Islam:

Can you say Tabotage / Terrorism !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The scum Muslims have struck again. This was no accident !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Ten bucks – the engineer was a Muslim.

Someone had posted Beastie Boys Sabotage clip, which was followed by Beastie boyz are enemy jews. Why do you listen to their music?

By this point someone gleaned the rules, summarising them neatly:

RULES FOR POSTING ABOUT THIS STORY:
1. DO NOT WAIT FOR ANY FACTS ABOUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU IMMEDIATELY POST WHATEVER MINDLESS CONSPIRACY THEORY YOU CAN THINK OF.
2. BLAME THE JEWS

So why was I pondering what these enemies of reason would be thinking? Recently, I’ve been considering the intractability of conspiracy theorist thinking. Or is that lack of thinking? Either way it (the pondering) is likely a constant for those who value the role of evidence in public health and appreciate the harm caused by opportunists who benefit from peddling fear and confusion.

This week I’d enjoyed a discussion in a clinical setting with a physiotherapist about “vitalistic” chiropractic. Whilst familiar and infuriated with the lack of evidence behind treatment claims, she was fascinated to learn of the anti-vaccine slant in chiropractic.

I’ve been as fascinated as disgusted with the antics of David Thrussell who, as artistic director of the Castlemaine Local and International Film Festival, attempted to bring the rankly deceptive anti-vaccine film Vaxxed to Castlemaine. An outstanding conspiracy theorist and blatant liar, Thrussell has played the victim whilst misleading both the media and sponsors of the film festival.

As always the delightfully unstable Judy Wilyman has been showing off her declining grip on reality. Of late she has chosen to bully the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health at the University of Wollongong and also the Minister for Social Services. Wilyman’s ranting is so far from possessing an evidence base or a cogent stream of argument that it beggars belief. Unless of course, one considers it through the eyes of a conspiracy devotee.

Rob Brotherton (@rob_brotherton) authored Suspicious Minds – The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories. He suggests that to the conspiracy theorist their beliefs are unfalsifiable. There is simply no evidence to prove them wrong. In addition, driven by a need for control – a need which they cannot develop when faced with reality – the likes of Thrussell, Wilyman and Meryl Dorey, develop compensatory control.

The misleading film Vaxxed has given compensatory control to so many who lack control. We may consider Dorey’s misappropriation of funds, Wilyman’s feverish ranting about her superior “research” and Thrussell’s manipulation of others as types of compensatory control also.

Suffering from the insignificance that comes with no control over reality, such conspiracy prone personalities fall victim to proportionality bias. Events they desire to control, but can’t, must have a complicated – indeed powerful – cause. We see this also in their propensity toward other conspiracies.

Between 1/4 to 1/3 of Americans believe 9/11 was the result of some type of conspiracy. Usually the Inside Job theory. Within days of Kennedy being assassinated more than half of Americans believed Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. Today, according to Brotherton, “the majority of Americans” believe some type of conspiracy led to the Kennedy assassination.

The audio below is from ABC’s All In The Mind and includes an excellent interview with Rob Brotherton. I certainly recommend it.

  • © ABC – All In The Mind

 

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

 

“Something has happened in the motorcade route”

“Something has happened in the motorcade route”

Friday November 22, 1963 Sam Pate, a reporter for KBOX Radio describing President Kennedy’s motorcade

——————

I was struck by recent tweets from Australia’s most troublesome, and arguably troubled, antivaccinationist.

In a splendid example of the transcendental world view that conspiracies are everywhere Meryl Dorey retweeted and commented on a pro-chemtrail tweet. Not just any pro-chemtrail tweet. This came from an account so packed with conspiracy tweets it’s almost suffocating to read. Ample antivaccine waffle, false flags, a comment on the strange absence of accents from Orlando shooting witnesses, the Sandy Hook “actors”, GMO, depopulation, etc, etc.

“TheMatrix” hashtag worked overtime and happened to accompany the tweet that caught Ms. Dorey’s eye.

Dorey_chemtrails2

This prompted a number of replies criticising the lack of thinking behind the chemtrail conspiracy theory. Meryl offered one critic:

Dorey_chemtrails

Understanding conspiracy theorists and the role implausible fallacy plays in their thinking is not as simple as accusing them of being crackpots. As individuals, they come from any age, race, socioeconomic status, education level, occupation, gender, political viewpoint. Uscinski and Parent wrote the 2014 book American Conspiracy Theories. They note on page 11 that laboratory experiments that induce loss of control and anxiety prompt subjects to draw conspiratorial explanations and see nonexistent patterns.

Such agenticity and patternicity are intuitive human qualities. Left unchecked they are qualities that steer one toward justifying the world as filled with interconnected events. Events that happen for a reason. Despite the evidence void, intuition can shape transcendental conspiracy thinking to believing the reason behind such events is generally one of malignant control.

Empiricism lacks the intuitive quality of transcendentalism. The empiricist accepts that coincidence and random events are part of reality. Any belief thus requires evidence. In this way skeptics are not prone to conclude based upon unchecked intuition. A simple but worthy example is the well used truism that correlation is not causation. For so many claims of the antivaccination movement (say, so-called vaccine injuries as opposed to genuine injuries) there is no evidence – just a claim based upon correlation.

These claims resonate with intuition. But subject to empirical examination and scientific skepticism we find these injuries (as opposed to genuine injuries) do not exist. The evidence supports another cause. With no evidence to the contrary and the inability to accept reality, we find the antivaccine lobby will cry conspiracy. Indeed there are a great many false claims kept in circulation by this lobby that are defeated with scientific evidence. Rather than accept the consensus the group cries conspiracy.

In March ABC Minefield produced Is the truth still out there? Why do conspiracy theories still exist? It’s an excellent episode. Hosts Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens discuss the persistence of conspiracy theories with guest, Patrick Stokes. Enjoy.

© ABC

Vaccines and autism: A thorough review of the evidence

The following post is an exceptionally detailed review of the evidence, and scientific consensus, specific to the persistent claim of a link between vaccination and autism.

Those familiar with the integrity of the scientific method and its value in examining this particular issue will be grateful for both the quality and extent of this review.

Use of the seven tiered Hierarchy of Scientific Evidence provides an excellent device by which to gauge the value of evidence, and as such, introduces one to a reliable tool for similar endeavours.

I trust you find the article a valuable resource.

Hierarchy of Scientific Evidence

© thelogicofscience.com

Fallacy Man's avatarThe Logic of Science

One of the most common concerns that people have about vaccines is that they might cause (or exacerbate) autism. This idea is perpetuated by celebrities and innumerable websites, and it has become one of the cornerstone arguments of the anti-vaccine movement, but is there any truth to it? Perhaps unsurprisingly, both sides claim a superiority of evidence. Indeed, you can find numerous websites presenting lists of papers that they claim provide evidence that autism is caused by vaccines (such as “124 research papers supporting the vaccine/autism link“). Conversely, those who support vaccines also have lists of papers which they present as evidence that vaccines do not cause autism (for example, here and here). So which is correct? The internet is full of misinformation on this topic, so I want to cut through that crap and talk about the actual studies themselves rather than simply tossing lists around…

View original post 17,466 more words

So-called “research” in anti No Jab, No Pay submissions

A casual review of anti-vaccine submissions pertaining to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (No Jab, No Pay) Bill 2015, reveals a striking repetition of unsubstantiated or demonstrably false claims, mixed with more of the misguided beliefs that have brought Australia to this point in the first place.

The most prominent theme backed by deceptive pseudoscience or distortion of genuine science is that vaccines are harmful. More so they are either not needed due to the wonders of modern snake oil or have never had the dramatic impact on the scourge of vaccine preventable diseases, that they have indeed irrefutably had. Vaccines are however, capable of causing the diseases the public is deceived into believing they prevent, and go on to enable their spread.

A while back I touched on the triumphant antivaccinationist claim of “having done my research”. I suggested a lack of critical thinking and cognitive bias left a great deal of these “researchers” incapable of discerning reputable source material from nonsense. That the unwary reader is presented with huge volumes of championed material, yet lacks the rather vital tools of cognition to identify and trust the genuine expert. This is a fast track to accepting opinion (or worse) as fact.

Tim Harding tackles this problem in more depth and with far more care than I, in his article How Dr Google spawned a new breed of health ‘experts’. Harding identifies key elements contributing to this phenomenon. Under the heading Misunderstanding democracy, he writes;

Reducing the influence of experts is sometimes mistakenly described as “the democratisation of ideas”. Democracy is a system of government — it is not an equality of opinions.

While the right of free speech prevents governments from suppressing opinions, it does not require citizens to treat all opinions equally or even take them into account. Equal rights do not result in equal knowledge and skills.

[…]

Deakin University philosopher Dr Patrick Stokes has argued the problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that it has become shorthand for “I can say or think whatever I like” without justification; and that disagreement is somehow disrespectful.

Dr Stokes suggests that this attitude feeds into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse.

The truth and import of Dr. Stokes’ observation of false equivalence between experts and non-experts is a reality I feel we should readily accept. Skeptics and science advocates have experienced and will continue to experience such when it comes to the anti-vaccination lobby.

In recent weeks this lobby has accused its critics of being worse than Nazis. They have launched a concerted attack against the families and grieving parents of infants lost to pertussis. They have produced memes likening vaccination to rape – and defended criticism of this. Whilst less insulting but no less ludicrous they’ve insisted democracy in Australia is dead.

Yet they never doubted their democratic right to swamp the No Jab, No Pay Social Services Amendment process with submissions accommodating a host of patently ridiculous, fallacious and time wasting material.

Some don’t know they are parroting nonsense. Meryl Dorey’s old trick attacking pertussis vaccine efficacy pops up here and there. 1991 was the first year for compulsory notification of pertussis cases, which were recorded by the National Notifiable Surveillance Diseases System. 1991 was a different time. Not all health professionals were logistically prepared to diagnose, much less report pertussis cases. Sensitivity of diagnostic equipment was magnitudes less than today. This was five years prior to the Immunise Australia campaign, launched by Michael Wooldridge.

So the deception runs that in 1991 with only around 71% of 0-6 year olds vaccinated, there were only (according to one submission) 347 cases. In fact there were only that many cases reported. NNSDS pertussis figures for 1991 still creep up at about five per year. 1991 notifications in 2012 are 332. This year to date: 345. The same submission goes on to report that in 2011 with a 95% pertussis vaccine uptake in 0-6 year olds, “there were 38,725 cases of whooping cough”.

Notice the age of vaccination is the 0-6 years cohort, but the pertussis notification figure is Australia wide. This includes overseas visitors, workers and new arrivals who brought the infection with them.

And of course by 2011 it’s not that PCR testing can detect Bordetella pertussis in samples hundreds or thousands of times smaller. And days older. Or that practitioners are constantly on the lookout for signs, or that documentation of notification is meticulous. Or sciencing in this field is better and faster.

Or that it is therefore significant that last year’s total of 11,866 (approx. 700 more than 2005) is comparatively low, and the high figures collated for 2009 – 2011 reflect the national outbreak that is reported as beginning in Meryl Dorey’s backyard. NB: article uses a number of media sources.

Nay. It’s the vaccine whatdunnit, dear reader, and Meryl Dorey has been peddling that lie and tripping up people who “do their research” for years. She never has replied to my January 2012 email wherein I step by step showed her how she pulled off this trick.

Vaccines it is argued, still cause autism. One may read that “autism-like symptoms” are in fact autism. That the US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has compensated cases of autism arising from vaccination. This is most certainly untrue. The VICP continue to deny ever having compensated any individual for autism caused by vaccination.

Whilst terms such as “autism-like symptoms” are used the Compensation Program at no time refers to anything like “autism arising from vaccination” or “autism as a result of vaccination”. The Pace Law School scandal is deconstructed here. Meryl Dorey’s fraudulent addition of the word “[Autism]” to the US Court of Federal Claims case file dealing with the case of Bailey Banks is documented here. Sadly it is not realistic to think these claims have not influenced opinion in some.

Across the internet the false tale of 83 vaccine induced autism cases, compensated by the US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program will pop up. It refers to a paper written by Pace Law School Students entitled, Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A review of compensated cases of vaccine induced brain injury.

I wrote in 2011;

Reading the document reveals ample use of terms such as “settled cases suggesting autism”, “language that strongly suggests autistic features”, “published decisions that used terms related to autism”, “payment of vaccine injured children with autism”, and not – as Seth Mnookin pointed out – “because of their autism”. More so, the authors spend some time arguing why there should be no distinction between autism and autism-like symptoms. This is a major concession they award themselves.

The paper includes caregiver opinion, parental opinion, phrases from doctors who gave evidence at hearings and provides a case table of “Language suggesting autism or autistic-like symptoms”. A notable concern is referencing The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine and a Manmade Epidemic [2010] by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill.

This issue of insisting “autism-like symptoms” should be accepted as autism may have an intuitive feel to it but would ultimately reap an injustice on individuals involved. If we consider patients who have experienced brain injury from head trauma, stroke, near drowning or drug overdose, each may present with near identical symptoms. However the mechanism of brain injury is different and demands specificity of treatment.

So it is with autism. Diagnosis, treatment and prognosis are not opinions one can choose. Other erroneous opinions we find as a result of anti-vaccine research lean towards the legislative change being an abuse of rights and freedoms. It is an abuse of our constitution. Vaccines, being poisonous and responsible for chronic disease in children will reap harm because natural is best whilst chemicals and toxins are bad.

In fact the submissions rejecting No Jab, No Pay appear to be a cornucopia of all anti-vaccine misinformation. The authors have indeed “done their research”.