Category Archives: Anti-Vaccination Lobby

AVN: Australian Vaccination Nut-jobs?

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, General, Legal, Scam by

When we had a measles outbreak this organisation pushed it around that it was a major conspiracy to push the vaccine

– NSW Minister for Fair Trading, Anthony Roberts, speaking on 2UE –

As you may be well aware the Australian Vaccination Network is confronting the reality of its deceptive name.

One possibility in view of the order to change its name within two months or face deregistration may at least save on logos and letterhead acronyms. In an interview today on 2UE NSW Minister for Fair Trading, Anthony Roberts observed that such groups were “nut-jobs” (a technical term he assured listeners) who frequently also offer the benefits of positive vibes and living on fresh air.

Yes, we’ve noticed.

Perhaps not endearing in the eyes of some but Australian Vaccination Nut-jobs is certainly a darn sight more accurate than any title conveying expertise.

Let’s face it. Anthony Roberts may be firm, but he’s also fair. The AVN could become The AVN. Which would also work for the “Hate Group”, Stop The AVN.

© – Tracey Spicer and Tim Webster interview Anthony Roberts on 2UE.

AVN name misleading

“The Northern Star tried to contact the AVN but it did not return our calls”

GAVI Alliance: the success continues

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Human Rights, Science by

One of the most impressive speakers I’ve had the pleasure of hearing is Seth Berkley.

Seth is CEO of the GAVI Alliance. The incredible life-saving machine known as “the GAVI model” has prevented over 5 1/2 million future deaths through the immunisation of 370* million children since 2000.

* – May 2012 projection

GAVI’s mission encompasses a bold, compassionate vision, effective strategies, education and commitment. GAVI has pulled together very specific dynamics of international development, finance organisations, donor governments, the pharmaceutical industry, developing countries, WHO, UNICEF, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank into a single “decision-making body”.

This uniquely complex approach allows the central part of the GAVI vision to be realised:

Saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries

GAVI has every right to be proud that its model has permitted “a single-minded focus to the urgent task of closing three critical gaps in the provision of vaccines”:

  • between children for whom immunisation is a given and the 19 million children worldwide with no access to vaccines;
  • between the introduction of a new vaccine in rich countries and the average 10-15 years required for the same vaccine to reach low-income countries;
  • between the need for new vaccines in developing countries and the lack of research and funds to provide them.

In 2009 UNICEF reported that more children are being immunised than ever before and this is “directly attributable” to the success of the GAVI model. With the support of GAVI, 18 developing nations had begun to introduce the pneumococcal vaccine by mid-2012. Better still this vaccine will soon be part of routine programmes in half of GAVI-eligible countries. Pneumonia is the cause of 18% of child deaths in developing nations.

Another 18% of deaths in children is due to diarrhoea, primarily caused by rotavirus. By the end of last year 20 GAVI-eligible countries had been approved for support in implementing vaccines against rotavirus. It’s wonderful that by the end of last month Sudan was joined by Rwanda, Malawi and Ghana as the first African nations to see GAVI help roll out rotavirus vaccines.

Consider for a moment, Ghana. The first GAVI supported country to introduce both rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines together, Ghana can now directly address and prevent the cause of 36% of childhood fatality.

GAVI have excelled in meeting demand. In the middle of 2011 more applications than ever before were made to GAVI for both new and underused vaccines. Late last year two thirds of GAVI programmes met demand for both rotavirus vaccine (representing a nine fold increase) and pneumococcal (representing a doubling of demand). The diagram below indicates how GAVI commits funds to specific purposes.

Meanwhile in the developed world we continue to enjoy the luxury of faux “vaccine injuries” and other hoax reasons proffered as cause to deny children immunisation. This itself is an indicator of, and direct result from, the success of mass immunisation. Vaccine induced immunity and herd immunity protecting the unvaccinated, remains out of reach in poorer nations wherein one child dies from a vaccine preventable disease every 20 seconds.

Where vaccination regimes have been successful such tragic suffering is forgotten. Indeed, subtracting the impact of vaccine denial, there’s virtually no evidence of it in our midst. But this does not mean we may have cause for complacency – no matter how strong both specific and herd immunity might be. Influenza pandemics remain a serious threat to humanity. It’s been estimated that the likelihood of such a Massively Fatal Discontinuity, able to kill up to 100 million people in the next 50 years, is 100%.

Back in February 2010 Seth Berkley looked at the importance of vaccines to human health, and our survival.

Wise words.

HIV and flu — the vaccine strategy (TED Talks)

Source – GAVI

Complementary medicines’ problem with evidence

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Big Placebo, Science by

Evidence aplenty for complementary medicines-by ex-head of the AMA-Take THAT Friends of Science-enemies of truth!

Anti-vaccine lobbyist Meryl Dorey seizing legitimacy from Dr. Kerryn Phelps

Last week Dr. Kerryn Phelps wrote an article for The Australian defending the view that alternatives to medicine are in fact, a type of medicine.

The article’s heading, Evidence aplenty for complementary medicines itself touched on a unique feature of the massive Wellness Industry. Semantics. We have witnessed natural medicine become alternative medicine become complementary medicine become integrative medicine or more frequently complementary and integrative medicine. These are semantic costume changes designed to market integrity. To divert attention away from the fact that evidence for the efficacy of alternatives to medicine is lacking. Simply put, this is not medicine.

Dr. Phelps criticised Friends Of Science In Medicine [FSM], suggesting their “agenda was a declaration of war”. Yet I would conclude FSM are providing a long overdue and organised response to the rise of demonstrably non efficacious and potentially dangerous practices gaining undeserved academic credence. These have always shared a hostility toward evidence based medicine and science itself.

FSM president Professor John Dwyer writes:

We strongly support sound research to determine the effectiveness or otherwise of any biologically plausible areas of ‘alternative’ interventions. We do not seek to prevent consumers from making informed choices about alternative interventions, but wish to see the public better informed and therefore protected from false claims.

I do not doubt for a moment that Dr. Phelps and many other GPs who support alternatives to medicine are above reproach. Nor am I suggesting that all naturopaths and chiropractors (for example) are incapable of establishing a meaningful patient-focused reciprocal relationship with conventional medicine. What I am suggesting is that they are a minority and it is thus in error to suggest alternatives to medicine are generally based on evidence. Dr. Phelps’ insistence that these practices “compliment” or effectively “integrate” with conventional medicine is simply wishful thinking.

I strongly agree with Kerryn Phelps in that individuals taking more responsibility for their health is positive. I support and defend the right of patients to have more choice in managing their health. What I find deeply troubling is that once these two conditions are met, patients and wellness consumers are faced with bogus claims, unnecessary expense and a cornucopia of charlatans. That this is in no small part due to paper tiger regulation reflects that the system itself is broken and failing Australians.

That 19 of Australia’s 39 universities offer courses in scientifically implausible practices is alarming. The role of FSM in highlighting the perils of affording academic credibility to these practices is vital. It can be argued, as Dr. Phelps has previously, that universities will ensure rigid standards are met. Or as now, that FSM should support “an increase in university-based education for practitioners”. Sound reasoning to be sure. Until one considers that these very practices depend upon denial of the scientific method and graduates often emerge highly defensive of an ideology.

There is also an inescapable convolution of practice, integrity and accountability. A belief system associated with one modality may open the way for increasingly absurd practices. The anti-science, anti-medicine, post modernist culture so crucial to new age chiropractic is conducive to opposition, not integration.

This convolution raises the question of where the line is drawn. Few understand what constitute homeopathic principles beyond assuming they provide a “natural” therapy. Yet I would be surprised and disappointed if Dr. Phelps agued it had a role in medicine beyond placebo. Basic chemistry confirms there is no ingredient at all in homeopathic products, beyond expensive sugar. For those who seek to understand more about this “informed choice” there await increasingly bizarre claims most often concluding quantum physics will one day reveal all. This is the same mechanism behind theta healing – even remote theta healing.

For the purposes of this post it’s important to focus primarily on Dr. Phelps’ defence of chiropractic. But what type of chiropractor? John Reggars is past president of the Chiropractors Registration Board of Victoria and present vice president of the Chiropractic and Osteopathic College of Australasia. Focused on science, he is concerned by the rise of “ideological dogma” and the anti-scientific fundamentalist training that FSM have identified as problematic. In a paper by Reggars published in May 2011 he notes that in Australia the 1990s saw a resurgence of “chiropractic philosophy” and with it the belief in VSC, or Vertebral Subluxation Complex.

Reggars is highly critical of such chiropractic pseudoscience, pointing out misuse of diagnostic treatment, schemes to “double your income”, selling the notion of lifelong chiropractic care “to an ignorant public” and locking patients into contract plans. He also writes:

For the true believer, the naive practitioner or undergraduate chiropractic student who accepts in good faith the propaganda and pseudoscience peddled by the VSC teachers, mentors and professional organisations, the result is the same, a sense of belonging and an unshakable and unwavering faith in their ideology.

Belief in the unseen VSC is accompanied by the insistence all disease – including infectious disease – has its origin or cure in the spine. Chiropractic is the invention of 19th century magnetic healer Daniel David Palmer. Perhaps nothing reinforces the value of Friends Of Science In Medicine better than this modern scam of chiropractic. Represented in Australia by the Chiropractor’s Association of Australia [CAA] its aim is:

To achieve a fundamental paradigm shift in healthcare direction where chiropractic is recognised as the most cost efficient and effective health regime of first choice that is readily accessible to all people.

In other words they seek to displace the GP as the primary care physician. It is impossible to broach the many areas of medicine or do the same with the many pseudosciences chiropractic endorses to elaborate on this. Yet from vitamin therapy to homeopathy new age chiropractors have a positive word. Efficacy matters not. The CAA seem to instill fear and confusion about conventional medicine as a key mechanism in their “fundamental paradigm shift in healthcare direction”.

When we understand what seeking to usurp the family doctor entails, we can see that FSM can scarcely be accused of declaring war. The article Recent Controversies in Chiropractic and RMIT courses/clinic provides exceptional insight into the very concerns FSM seek to address with quackery in universities. Palmer argued humans have “a god-given energy flow” which when disrupted leads to illness. Exhuming such nonsense and contending that the doctrine is “evidence-based education and practice”, as suggested by Dr. Ray Myers, head of RMIT University’s School of Health Sciences is shameful.

One area the CAA has chosen to immerse itself in is the anti-vaccine movement. Many graduates emerge convinced that vaccination is a toxic medical trick. As one put it, raging on Meryl Dorey’s anti-vaccine Facebook page; “Of course we don’t support vaccination, it’s the biggest medical sham since bloodletting!”. The reason for his outburst was the article Doctors accuse chiropractors of selling anti-vaccination message.

To better understand why we must travel back over 100 years. In 1909 D.D. Palmer’s son, Bartlett Joshua (or B.J.) Palmer wrote (Ref; 2003), (Ref; 2014):

If we had one hundred cases of small-pox, I can prove to you where, in one, you will find a subluxation and you will find the same conditions in the other ninety-nine. I adjust one and return his functions to normal… . There is no contagious disease… . There is no infection… . ♠

Herein lies a major problem for Dr. Phelps who is under no such illusions about vaccination. As seen above Meryl Dorey has hitched a ride on Dr. Phelps’ reputation. On another email list Dorey simply copied the entire article and sent it off with the opening line, “If only we could get her to look at the vaccination issue as well… <sigh>”.

As well?! Dr. Phelps opined in The Australian about the “us and them” attitude. Yet these two words reflect just how rusted on and integral to many who entertain alternatives to medicine the “us and them” mindset is.

Some months back Dorey was also using Phelps’ prior role as AMA president, in the AVN attack on all conventional medicine. I wondered if Dr. Phelps knew of her unofficial patronage.

Past president of the CAA, Simon Floreani, has promoted homeoprophylaxis, showcasing Isaac Golden. Anti-vaccine activist and “paediatric chiropractor” Warren Sipser went as far as testifying in the family court against the immunisation of a five year old girl. Sipser informed reporters at the time “there is credible evidence they [vaccines] may do more harm than good”. Nimrod Weiner of Newtown Chiropractic ran anti-vaccine workshops using information garnered from the same AVN to whom Dr. Phelps is “diametrically opposed”.

Weiner informed pregnant mothers at a public talk that homeopathic immunisation (water) was superior to regular immunisation. That Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent paper attempting to causally link MMR to autism was “scientifically good”. Last July Dr. Phelps tweeted:

WIN News Wollongong recently aired a comment from Meryl Dorey claiming that “all vaccines” are linked to autism in the medical literature. This is complete opportunistic nonsense and is now quite properly the subject of a complaint to ACMA. As Jonathon Holmes observed on Media Watch “there’s evidence and there’s bulldust” and that “Dorey’s claim about the medical literature linking vaccination and autism is pure, unadulterated baloney.”

Quite right. Which raises my point on convolution again. Where do we draw the line? Of the 222 listed professional members of Dorey’s anti-vaccine group over 60%, or 135 are chiropractors. The next largest is homeopaths with 16 members, or a comparatively small 7%. Naturopaths number 15 members. Then kinesiologists, then acupuncturists with 5 and 4 members respectively. Aside from one physiotherapist and one occupational therapist, all “professional members” sell alternatives to medicine of some description.

A US study published in Vaccine showed that parents who deny their children vaccination are four times more likely to see a chiropractor as the primary care physician. When Floreani was CAA president his chiropractor wife wrote of their newborn son’s pertussis. Including [bold hers]:

We performed chiropractic checks on our baby daily and utilised a whooping cough homeopathic. I dosed myself with an array of vitamins to boost his immunity via breast milk and kept him hydrated with constant breastfeeding. Whooping cough is often slow to develop and may respond well to conservative management, including chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, herbs, acupuncture or acupressure.

Magically, it resolved within two weeks. Which means it wasn’t pertussis but a self limiting infection and all that woo did nothing but correlate to the illness. But I am sure Dr. Phelps would be the first to agree herbs, acupressure, homeopathy and so on would do nothing to manage pertussis. It is very dangerous misinformation with potentially fatal consequences.

So not only are unvaccinated children more likely to see a chiropractor and be subject to such abuse, but by not seeing a GP they are unlikely to become a recorded notification. Officially whilst only 5% of 0-4 year olds in Australia are not fully vaccinated for pertussis they make up 27% of cases. Thus, this figure may well be conservative. Dr. Phelps must ask herself; If vaccine deniers will choose chiropractors, might chiropractors influence parents to reject vaccination? The above rubbish is by Dr Jennifer Barham-Floreani – B.App.Clin.Sci, B.Chiropractic after all.

Australian Doctor wrote in part about the study in Vaccine:

Are naturopathic and complementary healthcare providers reinforcing parental concerns and ‘anti-vaccine’ opinions or promoting exemptions, or are they providing healthcare without emphasizing vaccinations?

I hope Dr. Phelps is asking herself that question also. As I stress above I’m sure Dr. Phelps and her colleagues are above reproach. But that’s not the point. The larger message being advanced here is that alternatives to medicine not only complement but “integrate” with conventional medicine. Not only does available evidence show this is not true but to generalise is to lend credence to dangerous charlatans.

This post has focused primarily on chiropractors, because they not only serve as a hub for health focused pseudosciences, but also seek to replace the family GP. I will contend that my point on convoluted overlap is valid. Once a patient is referred to one pseudoscience how does the referring GP control for pollution as it were? More material on the dubious ethics of new age chiropractic, including catastrophic neck injury and paediatric “improvement” by parental proxy can be found here.

St. John’s Wort seems to be trotted out in almost every article claiming alternatives to medicine have an evidence base. What is forgotten is that hyperforin, the antidepressant extract of St. John’s Wort, and other extracts are both inducers and inhibitors of P450 cytochrome enzymes. These liver cytochromes are involved in the metabolism of over 50% of marketed medication.

In the case of opioid pain relief studies have demonstrated a decrease of blood plasma levels of oxycodone of up to 50% and reduced half life of 27%. In the case of alprazolzm (a benzodiazapine), prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks a doubling of clearance rate has been documented.

Chronic pain is associated with depression and depression with anxiety. Opioids and benzodiazapines are causally linked to respiratory depression overdose death. Hence the clinical significance of any “integration” of serious pain management with a herbal choice for the depression it may cause is likely to be anything but “complementary” for the patient. Many patients choose not to inform their GP of herbal supplements.

Proper diagnosis following treatment with medication will be hampered by St. John’s Wort. Excessive doses of actual medication may be prescribed. Should a patient cease St. John’s Wort whilst on opioid, benzodiazapine or both medication regimes a spike in blood plasma of the active metabolites will ensue. More likely, as St. John’s Wort is improperly regulated and dose concentration varies widely a patient may unwittingly expose themselves to respiratory depression and possibly death with no change in their daily medication/St. John’s Wort routine.

In short whilst the concentration (dose) of actual medication is stable, the drug interaction outcome due to St. John’s Wort mimics an unstable medication dose. Patients may easily find themselves unsuitable to drive, work, operate machinery, bathe or sleep without potential for disaster. Consequently many medication regimes may be deleteriously effected by St. John’s Wort.

Thus the wider picture of evidence pertaining to St. John’s Wort is not quite the basis for “integration” proponents of alternatives to medicine would have us believe.

My response to the ongoing insistence that placebo effects derived from acupuncture constitute evidence is likely to be here in Acupuncture: essential facts about a major scam. Over and again it emerges that subjects who think they are receiving acupuncture, whether they are or not, demonstrate a response.

Findings aside, how would Dr. Phelps explain meridians, invisible forces, chakra or vital energies? It is too easy to point to apparently positive findings when the mechanism by which they arise is implausible, unknown or assumed to be related to endorphin release. The technology to manufacture acupuncture needles did not exist until the 1600s and the only nation to seriously try to ban acupuncture was China under the Chinese Nationalist Government. Western marketing has done much for this “traditional” Chinese medicine.

What of naturopaths who insist on Black Salve [2]? Or who use herbal balls from China with high levels of elemental mercury, arsenic and lead? What of poor hygiene and bacterial infection from acupuncturists or masseurs? The astonishing story of Monika Milka and non-sterile syringes used in biomesotherapy, leaving her patients seriously infected with mycobacterium chelonae?

Tragic cases like Penelope Dingle and Isabella Denley indicate that the notion of integration or proper supervision is seriously flawed. One point raised repeatedly by FSM is that whilst ill patients waste time being exploited by pseudoscience acting as a health choice, the chance of genuine care, full recovery or even survival is lost.

These are the real issues Dr. Phelps could constructively help Aussies understand before raging at FSM. How is it that so many various practices have come to exist that are beholden to ideology, not evidence? How is it they can convince parents to withhold treatment from their children and in doing so undermine the health of our entire community?

FSM exists to address an unacceptable situation in our educational institutions. They have taken a stand because those in a position to defend academia seemingly chose to act unethically. When it comes to “informed choice” there is an excess of non evidence based, expensive pseudoscience. It is pervaded by a combative, arrogant anti-science and anti-medicine mindset. It is amply equipped with scams.

This madness must stop and Dr. Kerryn Phelps is most welcome to clearly state just what aspects of non conventional medicine are high risk ideology and what is safe, effective and backed by evidence. Real evidence that can be trusted alone.

Presently, there appears to be a scarcity.

♠ This quote has been attributed to D.D. Palmer. However in 2013 the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, cited the author as B.J. Palmer.

A fact sheet should have facts

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Judy Wilyman, Science by

There are only two organs in the human body where we know the cause of cancers that effect them.

One is the liver, which has shown a definite link between the hepatitis B [HBV] virus and liver cancer. The other is the cervix with an irrefutable link between human papillomavirus [HPV] and cervical cancer. As we have vaccines to prevent infection with these viruses, HBV derived liver cancer and cervical cancer may thus be considered “preventable cancers”.

In the case of the HPV vaccine, anti-vaccine lobbyist and University of Wollongong student Judy Wilyman continues to deny its success. A cervical cancer “fact sheet” on her web site contains irrelevant or misleading snippets of misinformation. Designed to create a fiction, the item is anything but a “fact sheet”.

It begins with the confusing claim that the HPV vaccine Gardasil was not trialled against cervical cancer. Rather it was trialled in 16-26 year old women against pre-cancerous lesions. Wilyman criticises the age group because women therein rarely present with cervical cancer. She criticises the focus on pre-cancerous lesions because most do not lead to cervical cancer.

Later Wilyman observes that cervical cancer takes 8-25 years to develop answering her own concern about lower rates of cervical cancer in the sample group. With respect to pre-cancerous lesions her thinking is disturbing. Cervical cancer develops from these lesions and the trial demonstrated a reduction in development by almost half.  Unsurprisingly Wilyman then notes the death rate is 1.9/100,000 – “a very low risk to Australian women”.

We’re informed, “there are more than 15 high risk strains associated with cancer not covered by the vaccine”. Strange. Now Judy has a sudden concern for cancers caused by HPV? No. She’s omitted that 70% of cancers are caused by HPV strains 16 and 18 and that Gardasil also targets HPV 6 and 11, responsible for 90% of genital warts. The vaccine is almost 100% effective against these strains.

We read that, “the duration of this vaccine is unknown as it has only been tested in adults for 3-4 years”. I’m sure Judy means the duration of immunity. Perhaps she overlooked the role of antibody response and concentration in predicting immunity. The reality is that whilst research is ongoing, close to 100% protection remained after five years. Protection shows no signs of weakening. Whilst the need for a booster has not yet been established it appears to be unlikely that it will.

  • “We don’t know how long vaccine protection will last”, is regarded as a Myth by the Australian Cancer Council.

Further criticism of trials include the observation that, “in young women pre-cancerous lesions have a high clearance rate and do not always lead to cancer”. This completely ignores the necessity to vaccinate before the onset of sexual activity and exposure to wild HPV. Vaccines are preventative, not curative. It is a most strange complaint from a “PhD candidate”, failing to understand the very aim of the trial.

Five separate references to trials being conducted and funded by drug companies are listed. This assumed conspiracy is frequently cited by Wilyman in regard to all vaccines without making any links to, or cogent arguments about, inefficacy or unsound trials. Conflict of interest and the influence of drug companies should be, and is, taken very seriously by relevant sections of the scientific community. But accusatory assumption without evidence is unacceptable.

Wilyman seems to deliberately mislead by documenting as a “concern” that 94 deaths and 21,635 adverse reactions are associated with Gardasil. Citing anti-vaccine lobby group S.A.N.E. she then notes that only 10% of reactions are picked up by the passive surveillance systems that produced those figures. What does this mean?

When authorities talk of under-reporting in passive surveillance they refer to minor events – soreness, redness, swelling, a bit queasy post influenza jab etc. These are so minor as to be inconsequential to the recipient, thus never reach the vaccine provider for reporting to the system. Her intent is to insinuate close to 950 deaths and well over 200,000 adverse reactions are possibly/probably associated with or causally linked to Gardasil.

Of reactions that are reported there is no evidence of any link. Great efforts are made to convey causality has not been demonstrated. All that’s known is that the event occurred sometime after vaccination. Also, reports remain on the database no matter how unlikely or ridiculous. Despite easy access on how to avoid the trap Judy Wilyman has set, she has chosen to obfuscate the reality.

These reporting systems exist to highlight trends from which likely adverse reactions are chosen for follow up study. It’s the findings of these studies that provide any evidence backed conclusions on adverse reactions. When links are shown to not exist the reports still remain on the database.

We may confidently dismiss her figures of 94 deaths and 21,635 adverse reactions. Conclusions cannot be drawn from unverified reports.

The “fact sheet” also includes claims that the aluminium adjuvant is, “known to cause allergies/anaphylaxis and auto-immune reactions in humans”. This claim has been criticised with regard to many vaccines. With 65 million doses of HPV vaccine given safely in over 100 countries, rates of serious allergic reactions are being recorded at about three per one million doses.

Nonetheless a paper cited by Wilyman does speculate on a possible role of adjuvants in auto-immune disorders. It must be stressed that in this review vaccine adjuvants alone have not been identified, nor is there any robust research behind the proposition. Possibly, Wilyman has not read the material.

Certainly, Judy Wilyman selectively cites trial methodology. Ignoring use of saline placebo in safety trials [page 4], she zeros in on AAHS because it’s “not a true placebo used to test safety”:

The manufacturer funded clinical trials used the adjuvant, aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulphate as the placebo in the unvaccinated group: a chemical known to be linked to adverse events including autoimmune diseases

One cannot stress enough that aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulphate is not “known to be linked” to ADRs or autoimmune disease. Five months later the authors write in The Rheumatologist:

Taking it all together, it seems that enigmatic but nevertheless common and often disabling complaints can coincide in many individuals diagnosed with siliconosis, MMF, GWS, or postvaccination events […]

Moreover, genetic links observed in animal models, and in the human disease MMF, bring about the notion that the adjuvant effect promotes the appearance of an adjuvant disease in subjects who are genetically susceptible or in those who encounter an additional trigger…

At best this is speculation. At worst the authors are attempting to coin a new syndrome based on review and suggest it be used to label challenging diagnoses. Examining their contention nonetheless, it’s clear they refer to a rare and individualised pathology.

Wilyman also cites anti-vaccine lobby group Immunisation Awareness Society, N.Z. in claiming that juvenile, rheumatoid and osteoarthritis are caused by Gardasil. As recently as January this year another study found no evidence of this.

  • “The vaccine has serious side effects that aren’t being reported” is considered a Myth by the Australian Cancer Council.

No attempt is made to mention the Australian HPV Register and its role in ongoing assessment. A large portion of Wilyman’s so-called fact sheet seeks to demote the risk of HPV infection, relegating it to developing nations or to a small promiscuous section of our community.

The rest seeks to spook readers into feeling that 200 cervical cancer deaths annually and unnecessary genital warts is acceptable collateral damage.

It is a biased and misleading document.

Judy Wilyman: What price a life?

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Human Rights, Judy Wilyman by

A radical conspiracy theorist who once reasoned infant and childhood mortality was a necessary price to prevent fictional “genetic deterioration” she blames on vaccines, has added up to 200 Australian women per year to her body count.

University of Wollongong student Judy Wilyman responded to the release of a Victorian Cancer Council advertisement (below) by republishing misleading information about HPV, and the HPV vaccine Gardasil as part of her ongoing anti-vaccination campaign. The advertisement targets cervical cancer and the importance of pap smears. Judy is unhappy that the Council correctly observe that women “only need to have sex once to risk cervical cancer”. Wilyman writes [emphasis hers]:

This statement is not reflective of the risk of cervical cancer. The majority of women in Australia are not at risk of cervical cancer even if they are infected with HPV 16 and 18.

Yes, cervical cancer makes up only 1.6% of cancers that Aussie women face, leading to about 750 diagnoses annually. The main cause of cervical cancer is HPV – human papillomavirus. Genotypes 16 and 18 are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. As late as 2007 mortality from cervical cancer was 1.9 per 100,000. Looking at ABS population figures for 2007 this translates to something like 200 women and teens – minus young females.

Wilyman plays semantics with the reality that HPV 16 or 18 “rarely” progresses to cancer. I accept this is important and comforting knowledge. Just as I know road users will “rarely” drive into telegraph poles or be “rarely” hit with severe force from behind. Wilyman then lists what is in the Gardasil vaccine in a typical attempt to scare.

Whilst there’s a lot to pick fault with in both the article and the so-called fact sheet, what I found compelling is the insouciance with which Judy Wilyman regards the death of others. Deaths that can be prevented by vaccine and are thus accepted collateral damage in her war against this aspect of public health.

Using the figures above we can see that 53% of cervical cancer cases are terminal. Put another way a woman may need only have sex once to have about a 50/50 chance of dying from cervical cancer. This would be notably rare. Yet it would also be vastly more probable than the one in a million chance of anaphylactic shock or severe reaction following MMR that Wilyman presents as a near certainty. It would be incalculably more likely than the never substantiated deaths from vaccination.

It seems Judy Wilyman can understand risk-benefit when it suits her. She writes:

  • HPV 16/18 is a common infection in women in all countries but 90% of infections do not progress to warts or cervical cancer
  • In 2004, before the vaccine was introduced, the death rate from cervical cancer in Australia was 1.9/100,000 women. This represents a very low risk to Australian women

It’s just too bad if you’re in the 10% or one of the 200 Aussie women to develop cervical cancer each year. But this isn’t Wilymans only stint at suggesting death should take precedence over vaccination.

At an Australian Vaccination Network seminar at the W.A. State Library in mid 2010, Wilyman told the audience that “it is known” that vaccines switch on otherwise dormant genes. “This is called predisposition to disease”, Wilyman continued without providing evidence. “Things like autism, diabetes and asthma”.

This has been refuted in reproduced studies across the globe. The Australian Immunisation Handbook lists these three conditions along with SIDS, inflammatory bowel disease and MS as conditions in which “research has constantly replicated no link”. Wilyman, who wrote to Australia’s federal health minister in November 2011 contending incentives to immunise are a “crime against humanity”, defends this falsehood with two criteria.

Firstly she conveniently dismisses scientific consensus and reputable government backed advice as part of a “conflict of interest” conspiracy driven by profit. This includes the media for publishing reports of fatalities from vaccine preventable disease and even the parents of deceased infants. The practice of accusing grieving parents of being paid to promote vaccination or even to not blame vaccination as the cause of their child’s death is common within the AVN. Despite public claims to the contrary it is a practice sanctioned by AVN president, Meryl Dorey.

The second criteria Wilyman exploits is the misrepresentation that environmental factors that may influence DNA include vaccines. Wilyman asserts vaccine components have “synergistic, cumulative and latent effects” on both health and DNA. Well aware that components are not present at toxic levels, Wilyman set out to scare her W.A. audience:

Your doctor will say “oh yes but they’re only in trace amounts”. I say to you, what is a trace amount? How much is a trace amount? It sounds minute, it sounds small but it’s all relative. And I’ll say to you, what is a safe level of a safe amount of a trace amount in an infant? How does a trace amount of mercury combined with a trace amount of aluminium adjuvant react in an infants body? They don’t know. It is counterintuitive to suggest adding toxins to infant’s bodies makes them healthier. It doesn’t make them healthier. Black is not white.

Source W.A. Audio  (at 26min, 06sec)

Wilyman then goes on to misrepresent a 60 year old quote from Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet. Burnet notes that infant and childhood mortality is (to be blunt) a way in which seriously defective genes are removed from the gene pool. He observes that preventative and curative medicine may have an impact on this. Wilyman quotes Sir Frank:

In future years we may have some hard thinking to do. It may be that we will have to realise that mortality in infancy and childhood in the past has been the necessary price that had to be paid to prevent genetic deterioration and that some of our modern successes in preventative and curative medicine, may on the longest view be against the best interests of the state.

A rather challenging ethical and moral dilemma to ponder indeed. Fortunately in the sixty years since Burnet apparently made that statement the science of genetics, modern medicine and our grasp of what it means to be human have marched forward. So much so that we now seek to enrich developing nations with the same advances that have dramatically improved our lives.

We cannot ignore either that modern successes of that time are now long passed. We’ve pursued and realised preventative and curative medicine Burnet could only have dreamed of. Today the hard thinking we have to do surrounds our potential to select genetic perfection.

Yet Wilyman is either so deluded as to see what isn’t there or so deceptive as to bend its meaning to suit her own fantasy. I strongly suspect the first. Whilst Burnet’s comment can be seen in proper context, there’s no doubt Wilyman selected that passage to convey that vaccines inflict such “synergistic, cumulative and latent effects… epidemics of genetic diseases“, that it’s time to realise infant and childhood mortality is arguably a necessary price.

“Today”, she offered publically, the “overall health of children in the 21st century would appear to be supporting Burnet’s prophecy”. Genes, the environment (vaccines) and timing “interact together in the occurrence of disease.”

The intellectual paucity of her so-called reasoning is truly stunning. There is absolutely no evidence that “the chemicals” in vaccines are deleteriously effecting children’s health so as to be placing our genome at risk of deterioration. That the research Wilyman wants to see is deemed unnecessary by experts, does not by default validate her wild speculation.

This is a fiction of her own making. The scale of paranoia and delusion driving her belief in conspiracy has already made way for the callous abuse of others and a career of deception. That the lives of innocent women and seemingly infants and children rate lower than adherence to an ideology is perhaps not surprising.

Judy Wilyman is supposedly “researching” to complete a PhD under the auspices of anti-vaccine academic, Brian Martin. To date no actual research has been produced.

One hopes the University of Wollongong will ultimately address this matter ethically.

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