Category Archives: Anti-Vaccination Lobby

Meryl Dorey fights to keep misleading title

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Legal by

I have seen evidence that there was even an attempt to have me deported from Australia via complaints to the Dept of Immigration…

– Meryl Dorey adds another angle to her profile as a Freedom Fighter –

Not for the first time, a salient point was serendipitously driven home on the Facebook page Stop The Australian Vaccination Network.

Last Friday night a young lady unleashed some criticism that highlights the cunning purpose of the Australian (anti) Vaccination Network’s name.

Apologies for the overt racism in there. This is far from the neatest example but it does show how persuasive first impressions can be. No doubt this has been Meryl Dorey’s intent all along. To divert attention away from her role as an antivaccine lobbyist.

Simply claiming to not be antivaccine is rather pointless however. Years ago (circa 2005) the proud antivaccine conspiracy group Vaccine Truth made a mockery of the USA NIIC phrase. Meryl took the opportunity to lift the same phrase straight from them.

Before becomming the Australian Vaccination Network in 1996, her group of antivaccine lobbyists was the Vaccine Awareness Network. Thus I was slightly amused to see an AVN contributor suggest to Meryl they switch to “Australian Vaccine Awareness Network”. More amusingly this was supported by Meryl’s most vocal Pit Poodle.

The misleading name has secured media attention and a cornucopia of false balance. Genuinely concerned and in-need parents have been fooled. People have donated money believing advanced safety testing of vaccines was an AVN priority. They scored a Charitable Fundraising Authority. Life was quite comfortable until Stop The AVN formed and exposed schemes, scams, fraud and theft.

This led in part to an investigation by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission. It found that the AVN website:

  • Provides information that is solely anti-vaccination
  • Contains information that is incorrect and misleading
  • Quotes selectively from research to suggest that vaccination may be dangerous

Under the Health Care Complaints Act 1993, the HCCC had recommended the AVN put an unambiguous disclaimer on its website to convey:

  • The AVN’s purpose is to provide information against vaccination, in order to balance what it believes is the substantial amount of pro-vaccination information available elsewhere.
  • The information provided by the AVN should not be read as medical advice.
  • The decision about whether or not to vaccinate should be made in consultation with a health care provider.

Whilst the AVN insist that the HCCC findings were “overturned” on appeal, this is not the case. A Supreme Court ruling found the HCCC had acted outside it’s jurisdiction in posting a public warning. Ms. Dorey’s aim to have the findings abolished was firmly rejected. The HCCC public warning was removed.

The AVN disclaimer is available here, which essentially covers the points sought by the HCCC. There is thus no doubt. The AVN is an antivaccination lobby group. They are antivaccine, against vaccination, purport to offer alternatives to vaccination and falsely claim to posses a “data base” of vaccine injuries.

Recently as Dorey promoted her latest conspiracy-themed seminar series there was renewed focus on the salient point in question. What Jane McCredie has referred to as:

This country’s most prominent anti-vaccination group, the confusingly named Australian Vaccination Network…

Medical Observer recently reported under Anti-vax lobby rejects AMA call for a name change:

Australian College of Midwives executive officer Ann Kinnear told MO her organisation forwarded an email invitation to an AVN event to about 1400 NSW members before angry midwives told her the Health Care Complaints Commission had in 2009 declared AVN an anti-immunisation lobby.

“Subsequent information that’s come to hand has made me realise it’s a mistake,” Ms Kinnear said. […]

“If a major health organisation understandably is taken in, members of the public would have little hope of realising that they were not accessing independent, credible advice,” AMA (NSW) CEO Fiona Davies said.

Dr Brian Morton, chair of the AMA’s council for general practice, said AVN’s name was “duplicitous, it confuses the public, they are anti-vaccination and they certainly don’t report the evidence”.

Last weekend a suitably tabloid themed heading from the Sunday Telegraph carried some further developments. Doctors unite to smash the anti-vaccine group:

NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner and Fair Trading Minister Anthony Roberts have been urged to force the change on the NSW-registered group in a letter signed by Associate Professor of La Trobe University Dr Ken Harvey.

His call is backed by experts from the Australian Medical Association and the University of Sydney.

As the AVN is registered with the Office of Fair Trading the government can in fact order a name change.

Dorey of course continues with the line the AVN is not antivaccination but “pro-choice”.

Predictably Ms. Dorey has afforded her critics ownership of the term “smash”, despite it appearing only in the headline of the story.

She must have been delighted. In a rambling, stumbling diatribe Dorey included:

They would have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to date trying to “Smash” our small, volunteer-run organisation… We are David to their Goliath and because we stand for truth, freedom and democracy… […]

The idea that a group of doctors can unite to SMASH an organisation that questions a medical procedure sounds more like economic protectionism than true concern to me.

Wait. Economic protectionism? As in restriction of international trade? Subsidising locally produced goods or produce? Taxing imports via the application of tariffs? I think, comrade, that Meryl has been hanging out with her fellow freedom fighters at Conspiracy Central a bit too much.

Which gets to the reasons a name change has become more and more an issue of public safety. The AVN has become less and less about opposing vaccines and merely spreading fear and confusion on the topic. This is the result of a hard working group of volunteers, concerned GPs, medical organisations, certain journalists, reputable parenting forums and the self sabotage of the AVN by Meryl Dorey herself.

Today Meryl Dorey can be found on conspiracy podcasts playing laser tag warriors with some of the more unhinged members of society. If not skepgoating individual skeptics as part of an organised hate group, it’s absurdities such as the above claim that, “hundreds of thousands of dollars” has been spent targetting her alone.

The constant criticism of conventional medicine is commonplace, as is quite evident in this “media release” . Setting out to send a message of defiance on name change, it again squeezes in the notion of being “under attack”.

Let me choose one example to drive home how antivaccine Ms. Dorey really is. Here’s an ABC article warning on the dangers of co-sleeping, including Baby Talk audio. On July 6th, the ABC also reported criticism from the Victorian coroner regarding inconsistent warnings. Almost half of all sudden infant deaths involve co-sleeping. The coroners criticism was welcomed by experts in the field.

Here is Meryl Dorey advising a member of her group in November last year:

Yesterday Meryl sought to encourage another member to contact the families of SIDS cases to “find out if the children were vaccinated before their death”.

Dr. Ken Harvey would appear to be completely correct in his observation that, “The deceptive name of the organisation has potentially deadly consequences”.

Quite so, and this is simply one example that carries a single insight into how far out of step Dorey is with safe advice. More so, the AVN is less and less representative of adherents to alternatives to medicine and even genuine vaccine opponents. As polarising as certain choices clearly are, few Aussies accept there is a war to be fought or that General Dorey is their leader. Added to this is the reality that many new parents are now well aware of the AVN’s lethal, conspiratorial approach.

I’m not sure what the AVN should be called. Something in ancient Sanskrit maybe? Just don’t dare suggest they’re antivaccine.

What would ever give you that idea?

The day Meryl Dorey sent me porn

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

One of the manufactured devaluations of those who ask the AVN and Meryl Dorey for evidence is that of death threats, family harrassment and worse.

A splendid technique in Meryl’s repertoire of skepgoating, there is virtually no end to what these monsters will do. They seek to force vaccines upon you, regardless of your suitability. Prevent any type of alternative to medical care and hide the negative aspects of vaccination. You know, like these aspects. Or these. Or even these aspects.

It isn’t just death threats Dorey accuses the Australian Skeptics, Stop The AVN and unseen sinister “people who have a vested interest in making sure vaccination is the done thing” of regularly perpetrating. Just recently she told antivaccination supporter David Collins of Wollongong’s Vox FM Breakfast show (Monday and Wednesday), of “incredibly violent pornography being sent to myself and to members of my organisation”.

Responding to a query on cited criticism about her stance on vaccines below, Dorey immediately attacks The Australian Skeptics. Falsely claiming they are linked to Stop The AVN (a non skeptic Facebook page), she then diverges into skepgoating rather than answer the question. The MP3 is here, or listen below.

Do note if you are an AVN member and have been sent porn please pursue this to the full extent of the law.

Dorey was asked last December by Tiga Bayles as to why the police do nothing. Good point, I thought. They’re corrupt Dorey ventured. They don’t care. An indigenous Aussie justifiably not trusting of police, poor Tiga was being scammed like a kid at a carnival.

I do accept a renegade Facebook wanderer stooped to sending Dorey one porn image, well over 2 or more years ago. Yet that is based on the fact Stop The AVN sought said person out and ensured they were removed from any association with organised criticism of the AVN.

The death threat/harassment claim is without foundation. Actual threats. Not anonymous warnings that could be from Dorey herself or frustrated comments from those who “wish they [the AVN] weren’t here”.

So, it’s time to stop repeating this accusation and discuss vaccine science.

Which, as I recently explained, is where skepgoating comes in. Far better to accuse than discuss scientific consensus.

Strange then that yesterday Meryl sent this Tweet smack bang onto my browser page.

Innocently, I clicked the link. Suddenly, my innocence was violently assaulted.

Oh the shock, the horror. I checked again. I double checked. Triple checked. After 10 minutes or so I was convinced. But, focused on evidence, I chose to check some more.

Yes. It was Dorey sending porn to her members and any who may be passing. So not just any publication. We’re talking publication with full penetration. I followed the publishers link. Surely it was an impersonator. What did I find?

Oh my. The October avatar in July – a dead giveaway. This was getting hard to accept. I mean, more difficult to accept. The twitter handle? Check. Surely the subscribers details would be from some Russian sex slave trader. Dorey would be vindicated – like Wakefield!

Nope. No vindication there. Exactly like Wakefield, then. This was worse than any stuff up in mammary… er, memory.  I chased up the tweets in the Vaccination Network Daily. Did they match Dorey’s tweets? Please let it not be so. Vindication would be hers!

Oh. The shame. The bear, naked shame dear reader. Vindication had slipped away like a well oiled breast, to use a turn of phrase I have no idea why I feel the need to.

Seriously. What the hell is this trash. Huff Po’ Love Letters. 850,000 people “ONLY looking for casual encounters”. Sue’s Rendezvous? Dare I? I dared… More naked ready and willing women. And the text;

The Legendary Sues Rendezvous has been open over 35 years of the best adult entertainment, where you can meet at any given night some of the famous faces from music, movies and sports.
The hottest dancers in the tristate area The top D J’s in the industry. Special events, contest, bachelor parties. Free buffet every night

Fail.

Anyway. After skeptics alerted Meryl to her error – yet again saving her butt (no pun intended) – she finally managed to remove the offending material – a day later. Another favour Dorey owes to the skeptic community.

I may as well spell out the obvious. Dorey has sent porn – and invitations to shows, sexual encounters and associated filth with no apology to her members or casual readers.

It’s disgusting and cowardly. No amount of skepgoating can assuage that.

Kerryn Phelps’ support for vaccination is timely and welcome

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Big Placebo, General, Health, Human Rights, Scam, Science by

On January 30th this year Radio National Breakfast aired a lively discussion between Professor John Dwyer, co-founder of the newly formed Friends of Science in Medicine and Professor Kerryn Phelps, President of the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association and prior AMA head.

As it so happened the AVN were delighted with the interview, discussing it on February 3rd. They immediately set to work sculpting an armour for Dr. Phelps to wear into battle for “Health Freedom”. The AVN had no doubt. If you support alternatives you would never vaccinate, their president reasoned.

In answer to an anti-medicine anecdote, Meryl Dorey commented at the time:

It just shows you [redacted], that people will pay for health but you can’t give them sickness for free no matter how hard you try. Doctors hate the competition. They know that people like yourself have left mainstream medicine because you have found something that works better. But that can’t be allowed so the scientocracy that we live in will try to control the situation so you no longer have the choice. This is what we are fighting against and it has to be all of us – healthcare consumers and healthcare organisations. If you use a natural health practitioner, get in touch with them and ask them to find out what their national organisations (CAA, ATMS, etc) is doing about this situation. It’s not the time to sit on their hands and hope it goes away. It’s time to fight!
MD

The day Dr. Phelps and Dwyer were on air Dorey published on healthcare choice, falsely accusing FSM of seeking to shut down alternatives to medicine and drive consumers into the prison of her imagined Scientocracy. I didn’t expect to revisit this article so shortly. Nonetheless… In what may be mistaken for a description of Mordor under the whip of Sauron she began:

There is an organisation in Australia which hates every natural therapy. They hate the healthcare practitioners and they hate the healthcare consumers who ‘turn their backs’ on Western medicine in favour of a range of other modalities which put no money in their pockets and take away their prestige. Worst of all, they hate anyone who chooses not to use vaccines! That is the ultimate heresy, as far as they are concerned.

But it’s OK – because they have a plan and they have the money and media backing, they think, to bring this plan to fruition. This group, the Australian Skeptics, has been instrumental in setting up the organisation, Stop the AVN.

Now, they are working on a new initiative – and this one is more ambitious then just stopping a small, parent-run community support group. Now, their goal is to stop anyone in Australia (today Australia – tomorrow the world as far as this bunch of ratbags is concerned) from learning about or using natural therapies. Their mad campaign is getting plenty of publicity too!

They have just set up a new front group called Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM) which is behind the new effort to outlaw the teaching of any natural medicine course in University. This organisation ultimately wants to shut down homeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathy, herbalism, ayurvedic therapies and on and on. In their unspeakable arrogance, they claim that there is no evidence for therapies which have been used safely and effectively, in many cases, for thousands of years. Instead, they say, we should all be forced to exclusively rely on mainstream medicine with its dreadful record of poor safety and effectiveness!

By February 17th, Dorey was using Kerryn Phelps as a proxy figurehead for this nonsense. As someone who uses the term “alternatives to medicine” and cringes at the “integrative” semantics, I don’t agree with Dr. Phelps on many non conventional medical issues. Yet Dr. Phelps’ Uclinic is unmistakably professional. Was Dorey serious or just ripping off Dr. Phelps’ image? Was a prior head of the AMA honestly backing Dorey’s new attack on FSM? On conventional medicine? On vaccination?

I tweeted, and seven minutes later received an honest, slightly baffled reply:

Oops. Rather tactless of me. But, as Meryl had written on February 8th:

Excellent observation. It continued to come true.

Predictably, Meryl Dorey had forged a fiction around Dr. Phelps’ role as President of the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association. It must have chafed somewhat to be reminded Dr. Phelps is a GP, supporter of vaccines, proponent of necessary vaccination rates and “diametrically opposed” to the activities of the AVN.

A close follower of the #StopAVN tag, this must have shattered Meryl’s very black and white world view of health care and practice. One is either against the evil of medicine or a skeptic and actively involved in a plot to enslave humanity to illness. At least that’s the battle cry we see in place of actual evidence to challenge evidence based medicine.

Could it possibly get any worse for Dorey? Dr. Phelps wouldn’t retweet anything from strident Dorey critic, that nasty Mia Freedman would she?

Oh.

Poor Meryl has to absorb someone with extensive experience could be a GP, proponent of non conventional medicine and conventional medicine, opposed utterly to the AVN whilst actively supporting and promoting vaccination. Still Dorey peddles homeoprophylaxis and is fanatical about the long dead association between autism and vaccination.

Last night Dr. Phelps happened to tweet in conversation:

@Havenr64 is convinced vaccines do cause autism and took umbrage to an article Dr. Phelps had written in Medical Observer ♣. Entitled It’s time we objected to conscientious objectors, it is a splendid article with excellent timing. Most importantly however is that Kerryn Phelps is a real doctor, with actual research and a life time of genuine experience backing her.

Health consumers who are cautious of conventional medicine or interested in “alternatives” would do far better to seek similarly well balanced advice. Those questioning vaccination, and not trusting their GP, would also benefit enormously from seeking advice through the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association.

The last person to trust is Meryl Dorey or her Australian Vaccination Network. Dorey profits from ensuring you will not trust vaccination. In truth your “health freedom” or choice is abused from the moment you make contact. If you believe the path to making sound choices on vaccination is to donate money to fund a “fight” between imagined forces, you have been conned handsomely.

Nicola Roxon and Jenny Macklin announced the Stronger Immunisation Incentives last November. It was a poor read of the antivaccination movement. Dorey seized immediately upon the option of conscientious objection not being promoted as the primary variable by the government. Claiming details weren’t present at all in Roxon’s announcement, they were actually prominent in the centre of the text. Still, today Dorey has exhaustively promoted how to receive the immunisation incentive without having children immunised.

Kerryn Phelps writes:

HOW far are you prepared to go to engage with so-called “conscientious objectors” to childhood immunisation?

Everyone has a line they will not cross. The line for informed consent gets very blurry when it comes to the proxy consent provided by parents on behalf of their children. […]

As GPs we are convinced of the merits of immunisation against the vaccine-preventable infectious diseases that were so feared by previous generations who did not have the benefit of effective treatments or prevention. […]

I hesitate to even mention groups such as the Australian (Anti-)Vaccination Network.., but… I feel I can mention the harm they are doing to public health with their misinformation campaign aimed at scaring parents away from immunisation.

Parents have been encouraged through various government incentives to have their children fully immunised before starting school.

However, from 1 July the system changes. The PIP incentive for doctors has been scrapped and parents will need to document that they have fully vaccinated their child in order to receive the Family Tax Benefit Part A Supplement of $726.35 per child. […]

If parents want to claim the money, they have to demonstrate that their child is fully immunised, or have their doctor complete documentation that they are a conscientious objector.

One of my colleagues told me last week that she intends to be a conscientious objector to conscientious objectors. I must say the idea appeals to me.

When parents request that she fills in the government form indicating the child is exempt on the basis of parents being conscientious objectors, she will politely indicate that is against her principles and advice, and will refuse to provide the documentation. […]

It is a convincing argument. Ethically doctors wish to support their patients’ choices. Yet with vaccination, rejection of this nature is not a choice, but a clear mistake. A cursory grasp of the manipulation at play to scare parents off vaccinating their children is alarming. An understanding of the entire abusive scam should be regarded with concern and disgust.

Presently parents are objecting because many feel there is this attack on their freedom of choice. A read of Dorey’s material finds the same theme over and again. Forces seek to control. Why is the default position vaccination? You are being told what to do. Health fascism. Loss of health choices… etc. It’s an appeal to emotion, not intellect. Vaccination is cast as a mockery of individuality, of democratic freedom.

Fortunately Dr. Phelps is a voice of reason at a time when false dichotomies are used to fool those who seek more natural choices, to also fear vaccination. A wedge has been driven into Meryl Dorey’s fictional scheme. No longer is it simply “us and them” as her members pay dearly to hear. False balance need no longer be the only choice.

This isn’t unique. Most natural therapy organisations recommend conventional vaccination. Chiropractic and homeopathy are two that mislead clients about vaccination. What we certainly lack is a public voice bridging the unnecessary gulf between vaccination and non conventional medicine. It is certainly time to detach the choice of alternative medicine from refusal to vaccinate.

I for one am very grateful to Dr. Phelps for making her views known.

– ♣ Subscription to Medical Observer is free.

A Mother’s Choice, Fear and Confusion

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

In April and May 2009 channel Seven’s Sunday Night programme looked at the activities of The Australian Vaccination Network.

Following the first programme – A Mother’s Choice – the producers held a live audience forum entitled Fear and Confusion.

Both episodes are below, with a final credit scroll examining the activity of anti-vaccine GP, Giselle Cooke, which led to a NSW Medical Tribunal hearing.

Dumb and Dumber: Making antivaxxers look good

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

Sometimes what may seem like a good idea can backfire horribly because well, it really wasn’t much of an idea at all.

So it was with a post headed Australian Vaccination Network Seminars on the irreverent and uniquely themed blog, JABS, Loonies – Justice, Awareness, Basic Support and Mind Blowing Stupidity. Keep that last bit in mind – mind blowing stupidity.

Now, I get this blog. No problem. It’s giving voice to no-nonsense criticism using colourful language. The author, Rebecca Fisher or just Becky, set out to post a daily comment from JABS to reflect the tenuous grip on reality we see accompanying top shelf antivaccination beliefs. Then, to Becky’s horror JABS seemed to moderate the “loonies”. Enter Age of Autism and The Australian Vaccination Network. An excellent choice, I concur.

Becky sprinkled the above post with plenty of swearing and foul ridicule. If you know how Becky writes and appreciate her style, it may well be quite funny. I personally enjoyed the description of Greg Beattie’s book. Not that I’d describe it that way, but because Beattie is a smug, attention seeking liar happy to profit from the harm he inflicts on other Aussies. His book is banally deceptive dreck, the title of which is not worth repeating.

So, “used bog roll” does suffice although I would query the ultimate value of additional swearing. After all, describing the real Greg Beattie is far more shocking, sickening, disgusting and of course hilariously funny, than any colourful delivery could hope to accomplish.

Like the other person Becky ridicules, Meryl Dorey, he denies the origin of HIV/AIDS in favour of the notion it’s a vaccine wot dunnit. When Dorey’s “invitation” to genuine medical practitioners to present at these “seminars” was knocked back, Beattie “volunteered” to take the place of high caliber professionals. Managing in the same offer to personally sneer at another doctor. In accepting this mockery, Dorey cut her potential attendance figures significantly.

Jane Hansen admirably describes the Greg we all know and love in action at Lismore:

In the absence of a balanced debate, anti-vaccination author Greg Beattie says he is going to try to convince everyone that vaccinations are great. He confesses he did a 15-minute Google search on the benefits. “We see these recurring themes ‘vaccines saves lives, medical miracles, diseases used to kill children’,” he says, but his tone is dripping in irony. […]

He’s done a lousy job of explaining the benefits of immunisation. We did not hear, for example, that diphtheria – the biggest killer of Australians in the early 1900s – has virtually vanished. Or that the 150 deaths in Australia in 1963-64 became zero by 1998, or that the only recorded death recently was that of young woman from Queensland who was not immunised as a child. Her immunised boyfriend carried the disease back from an overseas trip. She died, at 20.

It’s plain from the petulant lead up and the reality described by Hansen that all Dorey’s propaganda on pro choice and respect for medical advice – she called one aspect “a crock” – was forgotten for what is essentially deceit. No doubt Becky is well aware of this, and in her unique way summed up Dorey’s sociopathic and narcissistic personality disorders by labelling her f***ing evil.

What Becky might not realise is that Dorey and her minions live for this very type of insult. In fact, whilst writing “in character” if I may employ a phrase, it’s easy to “hear” the tone in which it’s intended to come across. It may resonate like Penn and Teller. Or well known stand up comedians who leave us doubled over in tears, merely capable of nodding in agreement.

But the gamble is, will your audience always appreciate it? Well no, and I’m sure Becky is not that gullible nor rightly gives a toss for prudish criticism.

The problem we arrive at however is that Dorey will use this “attack”, as her personal academic-in-waiting documents such criticism, to garner sympathy with the very people Becky was hoping to persuade against tolerating such seminars. The bigger problem is that it’s a kick in the guts to those who have been tackling the AVN for years. Whilst it’s true antivaxxers use a similar template, AVN in-group management is a strictly coordinated affair.

Recently the AVN has been caught with little more than false tales of persecution. Turn up the brightness on this mess and it can be seen that their manufactured dissent is truly ridiculous, whilst a quick tally of vile outbursts, scams, intimidation and bullying puts the AVN in a league of it’s own. For the first time in two years, Dorey has not invented stories of being hassled and threatened by “the skeptics” prior to her seminars.

Well, now she doesn’t have to. The reaction to Becky’s post was swift. Cunning from the outset, notice Dorey doesn’t (or can’t) refer to herself. She claims the post is “attacking someone who believes in informed vaccination choice…”. No. It attacks only Dorey and Beattie. But almost exclusively Dorey. There’s some weird depersonalisation issues at play in that troubled, dangerous psyche.

Someone has just sent me a link to this blog Dorey announced on Facebook. And:

 – which is the foulest, most vile piece of rubbish I’ve yet to read from the pseudo-sceptics. This blog is written by a person who can’t seem to write a sentence without both attacking someone who believes in informed vaccination choice and calling them a 4-letter word.

Great. “Pseudo-sceptics” is Dorey-code for actual skeptics, science advocates and devotees of scientific skepticism. In using the term Dorey makes a mockery of herself because the definition encompasses AIDS denial, vaccine denial, indeed evidence denial in general:

Pseudoskepticism, by contrast, involves “negative hypotheses” – theoretical assertions that some belief, theory, or claim is factually wrong – without satisfying the burden of proof that such negative theoretical assertions would require.

RationalWiki take it further such that one almost expects to read Meryl Dorey’s name as a famous pseudoskeptic. In effect, Dorey has confused notions from Hume’s philosophy of True Skepticism with a Facebook post an antivaxxer made one day using the term. Dorey delightfully called it “a keeper”, and along with her inability to research the rest is history.

Yet, as incredibly wrong as she is, her response to Becky’s post indicates a shift toward blaming her regular critics for being vile and foul mouthed attackers. Horribly she gets a free kick for that appallingly misleading “informed vaccination choice”, to describe the lockstep of vaccine conspiracy.

For impact Dorey copied in Becky’s list of top search results, then continues:

Notice the addition of “small hate group”. Suddenly Becky is a hate group? No. Dorey may follow this up with a letter blaming Stop The AVN and The Australian Skeptics. Directly pointing the finger for suppression of free speech, threats and footnoted with Dr. Brian Martin’s “research”. It’s vintage Dorey, twisting anything to her advantage and tutoring her minions to the nth degree.

Suddenly she’s gone all patriotic. One day Australia is a Health Fascist Scientocracy. Next we have our American loiterer, hell bent on destroying Australian public health, actually telling Aussies what the RSL stand for. Incapable of independent thought the flying monkeys screech into action:

Until then, Dorey hadn’t been urging her minions to write to the RSL or other Services clubs. Perhaps however, other diligent health advocates were in touch with various venues. Perhaps directing them to various accounts of Dorey’s first effort and her vicious ranting screeds in response to criticism.

Now these same clubs or individuals will read the far more offensive and pointless attack against Dorey, and associate every cautionary warning with that outburst. Those making the decision are unlikely to know the first thing about antivaccination deceit. They are far more likely to be the type of prudish critic Becky would not attract to her blog initially.

Dorey will win the sympathy vote and the persecution meme is off and running again.

The flapping, swooping and screeching actually gets worse. In this thread is a “Chris Savage” who earlier lied heroically:

I am an ex-Sgt of Police after 20 years in Queensland. Every SIDS mother told me their babies were healthy prior to vaccines and then deteriorated and died after.

So Dorey’s Darlings – and particularly stalker, poor Liz Hempel – are grabbing screenshots. Hempel has stalked one woman who jokingly said she’d throw fruit, found out she is a police communications officer from her blogger profile and urged for a complaint. Sergeant SIDS likes the idea and has chimed in with the details on where to lodge a complaint.

Now, I think that’s as pathetic as everyone else does. On a positive note it helps my steadily increasing dossier on how AVN members are demonstrably attacking people well outside of any “debate” that Dr. Brian Martin purports to be documenting.

I’ll spare you any more of the thread. It’s full of fawning and worship. At one point Meryl is likened to a giraffe and Becky’s post to a skinny, malnourished, barking chihuahua.

Whilst Meryl’s head is certainly in the clouds the problem with Becky’s post is not the suggestion to forewarn venues and certainly not the points listed. Meryl is indeed a liar, thief, scam artist, criminal and so disturbed on so many levels she appears to not care if children live or die or are brain damaged for life.

All these points can be made on merit. Not with abuse. Abuse only feeds into Meryl’s diversionary tactics and tend to lend credence to her schemes by lowering the tone of her opposition. Dorey has no evidence and that is plain. All evidence on vaccination shows her to be dangerous and all evidence on herself bears out what I just described above.

Now however, a very good opportunity to at the very least have her scrutinised at these venues has either been lost or markedly tainted. The tiresome and scratched record of persecution and abuse gets a new lease of life. Every audience will now hear of this “most vile piece of rubbish”. Every attendee will be told this is how all of her critics behave.

Personally I have no problem with Becky’s post. I think it’s entirely proper to place irrational enemies of reason in their proper place. That does include ridicule and free speech makes that everyone’s prerogative. What I am concerned about is the outcome, which was entirely predictable.

So what’s been achieved? Nothing. Backward steps. Unless one has personal contacts within the RSL it would be damaging to now write to them. Letters critical of Dorey will be associated with a senseless foul mouthed rant. The “loonies” Becky wants to launch into have a new lease on life and have bonded splendidly, reinforcing their beliefs. That is exactly what we don’t want.

There’s no doubt that abusing someone over their beliefs reinforces those beliefs. This holds true for onlookers and is actually helping Dorey. That’s bad for upcoming generations. It’s also true Dorey exploits abuse and criticism by injecting it with a dose of fiction. I doubt she’s finished with this one yet.

Doing the right thing for people that the Dorey’s of this world have abused – many of them now “loonies” themselves – doesn’t require mockery and ridicule. Garnering support and protecting children and future generations from the damage these creatures do is something that can, if not must be done on merit. Meryl Dorey might be cowardly, cruel and callous, but she still knows how to score points.

That’s no joke.