A spokespig for Stop the AVN said that Brown’s “manifest cowardice” in using Parliamentary Privilege to, “rattle off every crackpot, debunked and discredited conspiracy theory linked to vaccines – including the cause of AIDS – was one of the lowest points in Australian political history”.
The naked spokespig with wings, appeared to be made of cast iron and carried a copy of The Skeptic. He quickly handed out sections of a 1997 Tasmanian State Parliament discussion on vaccination policy recorded in Hansard to reporters outside Parliament House (see below).
Asked whether this was a case of sour grapes over The Green’s long standing criticism of iron mining, or mining industry opposition to the carbon tax, the unusually handsome spokespig bristled, insisting:
My constitution has absolutely nothing to with the evidence on the subject of vaccination. And that evidence shows that Brown was wrong then, and his comments left undefended on record, are even more ridiculous today. I might be a Cast Iron Flying Pig but would suggest the evidence for vaccine efficacy and anthropogenic climate change are subject to similarly irrational opposition.
The spokespig went on to say that he was definitely not a climate change sceptic, but an “evidence seeking skeptic”. It was thus axiomatic that Brown should be able to judge the integrity of information and that his 1997 comments actually made a mockery of his so-called “scientific understanding” of global warming. “As a trained medical doctor he makes a very good doorstop”, intoned the spokespig.
When one reporter pointed out that Cast Iron Flying Pigs actually WERE doorstops, and that her elderly grandmother had one, he maintained that he was thus highly qualified to judge.
“The problem is that without verification, (then) Senator Brown cited the AVN’s magical “300 Reports of Serious Adverse reactions from vaccines, [of which they claim] not one was reported from the doctors involved”. Today 14 and a half years later, the AVN are yet to produce one of these properly verified reports, the spokespig announced to gasps of disbelief.
All Australians have a right to clear, unambiguous feedback on matters of public health, insisted the spokespig. “Bob Brown has failed in that respect, and his smokescreen of reasons for resignation can’t hide the fact that he’s now running scared from Stop The AVN”.
Bob Brown did not return phone calls this afternoon.
Hansard pages 8725 and 8726 covering Bob Brown’s bizarre November 11th, 1997 anti-vaccination diatribe:
One constant theme that Meryl Dorey has kept up since the OLGR revoked the AVN fund raising authority (the decision is under appeal) is that it was entirely due to the, now removed, HCCC warning.
On February 24th the NSW Supreme Court upheld the Australian Vaccination Network appeal against the HCCC. Justice Christine Adamson found that the HCCC acted ultra vires in conducting an investigation, publishing a public warning and ordering the AVN to post warning notices online alerting consumers that they are antivaccination.
In this case ultra vires, meaning beyond powers, was a technicality of acting outside jurisdiction. The HCCC was deemed to have done so under Section 7 of the HCC Act: What can a complaint be made about? It had not been sufficiently demonstrated to the court that Section 7(1)(b) – a health service which affects the clinical management or care of an individual client, applied to the AVN. Simply, the HCCC needed actual information that Joe or Jane Bloggs had not vaccinated because of the AVN, before it – the HCCC – could act.
So, how does this relate to the OLGR appeal?
The AVN wanted certiorari granted in relation to all HCCC findings. This would have rendered the HCCC findings null and void and legally the findings would be considered quashed. This is quite different to having been found to have acted outside jurisdiction as a result of those findings.
Dorey also submitted that the Minister for OLGR was obliged to take into account the Public Warning as part of his duty under the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991.
The plaintiff argued that the Public Warning was, as a matter of practical reality, a matter that the Minister for Gaming was obliged to (and in fact did) take into account in determining whether to revoke the plaintiff’s authority to raise funds under the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991. When asked to identify the discernible legal right which was affected, counsel for the plaintiff said:
“The damage to its reputation by being labelled a public risk to health and safety.”
[The AVN] submitted that its rights were not only directly affected, but also altered, by the HCCC’s decision to issue the Public Warning and that certiorari is accordingly available. It argued that the decision directly exposed it to a new hazard of an adverse exercise of public power (having its fundraising capacity revoked).
However, the plaintiff could not point to any provision in the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991 that made the Public Warning a mandatory relevant consideration in the Minister’s decision whether to revoke the authority.
Accordingly there is no basis on which I could find that the Minister for Gaming is legally obliged to take into account the Public Warning. For these reasons, certiorari does not lie.
If certiorari does not lie the findings remain. The HCCC conclusions are not incorrect. The AVN has not been found to be acting in the public interest. The complaints have not been found to be without foundation. What happened was that the HCCC did not convince the court it could act further in exercising it’s powers based on the initial findings.
More so, implicit in the above wording, is the failure of the AVN to show that the HCCC Public Warning was taken into account by the Minister for Gaming on legal grounds. Nor is there any provision in the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991 to support the AVN contention that the Minister was obliged to take the Warning into account when revoking authority.
So in the case of AVN vs HCCC the Supreme Court made no order at all affecting the OLGR’s revocation of the licence to raise funds.
At this point the Public Warning carries no weight. The HCCC findings have not been quashed. Justice Adamson has rejected the AVN submission that the OLGR revoked the AVN’s authority to raise funds because of the Public Warning or their claim of an obligation to the Public Warning. Nonetheless the next day Meryl Dorey wrote on Facebook [bold mine]:
For those who have been asking about our chariity (sic) status, hopefully, I will have more information on that early next week. The HCCC decision did not automatically give us back the authority, but I am hopeful that we will get it back since the OLGR relied completely on the HCCC warning to revoke the authority. Therefore, since the warning was invalid, the revocation may be too. Anyway, I will let you know as soon as I have the information myself.
Yesterday writing in her Living Wisdom email of April 8th Meryl noted that whilst they would be reimbursed for expenses against the HCCC they would not be reimbursed for expenses against the OLGR [bold mine]:
… but hopefully, we will soon have our authority to fundraise reinstated since the OLGR have verified that the HCCC’s warning was the sole basis of that revocation. Now that the warning is no more (the HCCC removed it from their website the same day the decision was handed down), we should be granted a charity authority again.
Interesting. There was a Directions Hearing for the appeal on March 27th. I can’t be sure but it strikes me as unlikely the OLGR would “verify” that a defunct warning was the sole basis of the licence revocation at a Directions Hearing. What else has the OLGR said?
Minister for Gaming and Racing, the Hon Kevin Greene MP, has revoked the fundraising authority formerly held by the Australian Vaccination Network Inc (AVN).
An investigation by the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing, a division of Communities NSW, found that AVN had breached charitable fundraising laws and potentially misled the public. […]
The OLGR investigation also took into account the findings of the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) which established that the website operated by AVN provided information that was solely anti-vaccination as well as information that was incorrect and misleading.
The HCCC has published a public warning stating that AVN’s failure to post a disclaimer on its website may result in members of the public making improperly informed decisions about whether or not to vaccinate posing a potential risk to public health and safety.
This fairly clearly states that the OLGR investigation found the AVN breached charitable fundraising laws and also took into account the HCCC findings. These findings have not been quashed. They note the HCCC public warning and the risk to public health and safety.
If they also took the HCCC findings into account then there would be other factors at play. Indeed their findings included breaches of the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991 that are of no business to the HCCC:
NSW Hansard indicates OLGR concerns and investigations go back to August – October 2009
Under Section 31 of The Charitable Fundraising Act 1991 the reasons for revocation can be found. In fairness to Meryl we should consider what may be the reason for her insistence that the HCCC Warning influenced the revocation. On October 14th 2010 Meryl published this via email to members:
Approximately 2 hours ago, I received a notification from the OLGR that they would, effective Wednesday, October 20th, be revoking the AVN’s charitable status. They have sent me a letter listing the reasons for this revocation (those reasons are reproduced below) and also the announcement that is being Gazetted today.
(a) that any fundraising appeal conducted by the holder of the authority has not been conducted in good faith for charitable purposes
The Organisation has failed to publish a disclaimer on its website as recommended by the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC). This has resulted in an unacceptable risk of potential donors to the Organisation being misled when making a decision whether or not to make a donation, which has led to appeals not being conducted in good faith.
(c) that any fundraising appeal conducted by virtue of the authority has been improperly administered
The Organisation’s website is misleading in that it may lead people making donations to believe that they are donating to a cause which promotes vaccination whereas the Organisation adopts an anti-vaccination position. When requested by the HCCC to publish a disclaimer on its website the Organisation failed to do so.
(f) in the public interest, the authority should be revoked.
The failure of the Organisation to comply with the HCCC recommendation resulted in the Commission publishing a Public Warning on 26 July 2010 advising that this failure “poses a risk to public health and safety”. In this circumstance it is in the public interest to not permit the Organisation to conduct fund raising appeals under the Act.
This is an accurate account of the OLGR correspondence as reproduced elsewhere.
I can understand concerns about section (f) which, worded that way, appears to rely only on the HCCC Public Warning. Section (c) appears quite valid when stripped of reference to the HCCC. Furthermore the OLGR cited HCCC findings in conducting their investigation, and these findings have not been quashed. Thus Section (a) and (f) derived from HCCC findings, not recommendations, would potentially still stand.
Nonetheless, in terms of the revocation (and only the revocation) these are the reasons listed by the OLGR. And they do carry an item by item reference to the HCCC, which in turn apparently gives credence to Ms. Dorey’s repeated claim. Given the number and type of breaches of the Act, the OLGR could seemingly have cited other aspects of Section 31.
Certainly when the matter reaches court the defence of Sections (a), (c) and (f) will become far more complex. To this we should add the judgement of Justice Christine Adamson as noted above. An attempt to set a precedent that the licence to raise funds was revoked only due to the HCCC Public Warning was rejected on interpretation of The Charitable Fundraising Act 1991.
All considered it’s a likely simplification to claim the revocation is based entirely on the HCCC Warning. We should remember the OLGR stated it “also” looked at HCCC findings in it’s statement of revocation. Although on examination I can understand Ms. Dorey’s penchant for doing so. After all it drives attention away from other aspects of the OLGR investigation.
During the course of the inquiry evidence of possible breaches of the Charitable Trusts Act 1993 was detected in relation to the following specific purpose appeals conducted by AVN. :
1. Fighting Fund – to support a homeless family, allegedly seeking to avoid a court order to immunise a child with legal and living expenses. The appeal ran for a short time in 2008 and raised $11,810. None of the funds were spent on this purpose.
2. Advertising Appeal – initially this was an appeal for the specific purpose of raising funds for an advertisement in the Australian commencing in March 2009 and concluding July 2009. The specific purpose was changed during the course of the appeal to fund advertisements in Child magazine. This appeal raised $11,910. None of the funds were applied to the specific purposes. It is noted that AVN did spend some $15,000 during the period December 2009 to July 2010 on various forms of advertising.
3. Bounty Bag Program and Vaccination Testing – for a number of years AVN has solicited for donations generally in a manner where, despite it not being AVN’s intention, one specific purpose was created in that donations could only be spent on one or more of four purposes, including funding the provision of AVN material in the Bounty Bag program and testing of vaccines. No funds raised have been spent on these two purposes.
There is evidence that funds donated for the above specific purposes have been applied to other purposes including the running costs of AVN. Accordingly these matters have been referred to the Department of Justice and Attorney General, the Department that administers and regulates the Charitable Trusts Act 1993
In answer to that question I do not know if the OLGR did base it’s revocationentirely on the HCCC recommendations, nor whether or not it has verified anything of late. I do know one Supreme Court judge has rejected this notion on legal terms and I conclude there are many more valid reasons as to why the AVN should never be allowed to raise funds as a charity.
For an excellent and well laid out article I recommend visiting reasonablehank‘s consideration of exactly the same question.
I do hope however that when this matter gets to court the OLGR brings forth the bulk of their findings and uses them to prevent the revocation being overturned.
When I was a kid, my mum had a sure way of finding out what we meant when describing something as “funny”.
“Funny Ha Ha or funny strange?”, she’d ask, and when suitably availed of an answer could turn her attention to following whatever enormously important point kids tend to make. Looking around today however, “funny strange” is thoroughly outdone by the eerie normality with which faith and belief in demonstrable and dangerous fallacies pass us by.
Using “funny” as our proxy description of weirdness, one may consider the present day feverishness with which cognitive bias is clung to, literally hilarious. In what passes for our first generation and more to have lived in the Space Age, there is an abundance of not just unscientific, but viciously anti-scientific beliefs to choose from. So ubiquitous, so easily tolerated, so poorly regulated is this tsunami of irrationality that one cannot miss that we live now in a new age of hilarious ritual and superstition.
In this Age of Hilarious there are some undeniable and durable trends. From hip healers, to AIDS denial, to scheming chiropractors, to cancer cures, to creationist museums to vaccine denial merchants and even the screaming lunacy of the freedom and conspiracy lovers, one enemy glues them together. Science. Without rattling off the volumes of anti-science movements – many of whom claim to be immersed in science – the same thought justification applies. Science is bad, evil, unnatural, open to unwholesome thinking, an unwelcome intruder upon the family, upon motherhood and upon health.
Its agents are intent on hiding the truth and in exploiting our species. It has destroyed the planet and wants to destroy us. It has permeated so much of our lives that to those worshipping in the Age of Hilarious it’s axiomatic as to how malignant Science is. To use Science – or something tainted with its touch – in thinking or in decision making draws mockery and derision is many circles. It is at once corrupt and the vehicle for the corrupt to continue their corruption. Nonsense has become normal to the point where presenting facts earns inane insults. From Pharma shill in citing undeniable facts on vaccination to Zionist or Jew Boy for querying the logic of 9/11 as an inside job.
Yet despite the pointy ends of these beliefs, the hub from which it all comes probably tells us much about human nature. Those who embark on evidence denial often challenge critics or defend their illogical meandering with the unwarranted observation that Science doesn’t know everything… it can be wrong… the universe is infinite… there’s more to discover… I say “unwarranted” criticism, because no-one knows this better than those who understand science. Nothing else adheres to these observations as strict rules but the Scientific method itself.
I tend to hear this challenge more as a plea. Those who deny evidence with little thought hold to an ideology wherein they want to live in a mysterious universe. Alienated by the ordinary and mundane everyday explanations and foregone conclusions in the Age of Hilarious, they have essentially no notion that so much of what we take for granted now, was once never so. Perhaps a total mystery, a brutal fact of nature, an expensive time wasting ritual of ignorance or a serendipitous discovery.
Today there are so many millions living with so much explanation that the human needs for mystery, discovery or the urge to conquer intellectual fulfillment must certainly go unrealised. Is it so unusual then that an instinctive response may be to create the “unknown” or perhaps do this by denying what is known? To use the term conveniently, if we accept that humans have spiritual needs, nothing defines the denial of evidence and advancement of belief via ignorance better than the Creationist/Intelligent Design movement.
Finally the dots linking Science to Satan were joined. The Discovery Institute’s “anti-evolution” Wedge Strategy for “renewal of science and culture” begins with the breath taking lie:
The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West’s greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.
Apart from its beaming intellectual revulsion, what strikes me most about the Wedge Strategy is its timing. Ideas from The Enlightenment (1650-1790) helped shape the most famous democratic documents in history. The intellectual forces it released have sustained reason and humanity above many attempts to counter Enlightenment philosophies. Although intellectual resistance began as early as 1800 the Industrial Revolution had already seen science secure its place as indispensable. After the two World Wars of the 20th century, then the Cold War, and the control of polio, science and democratic rights eventually opened the way for the quality of life that provided the luxury to be… well, stupid.
The timing was perfect to have Creationism – later renamed Intelligent Design – introduced as a new scientific area. Or rather, as ancient myths brought to life under the authoritative and credulous banner of Science. Thanks to godless communism and Billy Graham, Pentecostal, Baptist and Evangelical movements were well established. Biblical literalism was (and is) quite absurd but it did not want for believers. At the same time, the space race and the Apollo 11 moon landing succeeded in opening our eyes to new scientific wonders and understanding.
Punctuating this clash, and now forever in history, is the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast of 1968. The first astronauts to orbit the moon took turns to read from the book of Genesis, sending lunar images back to Earth.
By the time the sexual revolution and self discovery of the 1960’s and 70’s had passed, traditional religion offered cold, boring irrelevance. Confidence in mystery, cosmic wonder and supernatural interference had been blasted with knowledge, understanding and explanation. Faith was no longer a noble virtue. It was the absence of evidence and reason. Rather than a scattering of giant intellects condemning the folly of belief, it was an established widespread fact. Even worse the damage and perversion linked to religions was becomming manifest.
Science continued to do amazing things, spitting out new disciplines and knowledge as computer power took its place. Medical science wiped out smallpox in developing nations and extended the human lifespan in developed nations. Alien abductees and spoon benders were being challenged by these chaps known as Skeptics, but it was soon clear a new irrationality had taken root. Suddenly Noah’s Ark was discovered. Then again and again. The Age of Hilarious was upon us.
The ever increasing “natural” alternatives to medicine demanded more respect. Unable to provide evidence to back claims, denial of evidence and attacks on science began. Faith and high risk belief once again offered noble qualities. The alienated could belong. The challenge of ones character that led to such horrors during the middle ages: “How strong is your faith?”, underscored the rising anti-vaccination movement and its many “healing” cousins that in truth, do nothing but delay healing.
On another level the lessons learned from Intelligent Design proponents were being employed deftly by both climate change denialists and those with a vested interest in discrediting climate science. Except in this broadband age the change around from acceptance to denial occurred at breath taking speed. They too have their own “science” – a Global Warming Curriculumdesigned to undermine genuine science. Rather than the Discovery Institute befouling evolution and biology it’s the Heartland Institute generously funding a violent attack on climate science.
These factors aside the sheer numbers of people that now reject climate change, their high priests and the well established conspiracy language used is compelling stuff. Certainly it resonates well with anti-Enlightenment identities like Miranda Devine, products of The Age of Hilarious, who proceed to damage the field of discourse irreparably. So rigid are her anti-climate devotees a great number sprang to her defence when she blamed the London riots on equal rights and same sex union. The woman writes predetermined right wing vengeance, yet “great piece”, “wonderful article”, “blah blah”, flow across Twitter regardless of topic, as she insults critics with her baton of misplaced importance.
There are the Creationists who speak of climate science in the same tone I speak of war crimes. To confuse the mix other enemies of reason accept climate science not because they have the skill to choose a valid source, but because they are beholden to their misconception of “natural”. Yet far from potential allies in managing the fallout from climate change they contribute to delayed action on their own field of play. Destruction of GM crops. Misguided animal rights. Spreading misinformation about vaccination as a means to population control. It’s not smaller healthier and wealthier families they see emerging to bring developing nations out of poverty. It’s “human culling” via vaccine.
A common factor in all beliefs held by enemies of reason in the Age of Hilarious is the misconception of “research” and “conclusion”. We hear this with so many pseudo-scientific endeavours and particularly with climate denial and vaccine denial. People claim to have spent time researching vaccines, for example, only to follow on with the “conclusion” it’s best not to vaccinate their children. Yet whatever they have read has all the accuracy of that which leads others to deny evolution announcing, “If we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys around today?”. Or to quote Kent Hovind, he hasn’t seen “a squirrel give birth to a pine cone… a dog give birth to a non dog”.
Vaccine denial relies on the towering ignorance of the over-confident or the thunderous immorality of the callous and cunning. One can accept that it is surely impossible to properly study immunology and that they must trust the scientific consensus. Or alternatively one can crave the nobility of faith, the piety of belief and insist on not being “a sheep”. In truth no amount of reading without evaluation and practice justifies the often heard claims of superior intelligence.
The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs when incompetent people not only fail to realise their incompetence, but consider themselves much more competent than everyone else. Basically – they’re too stupid to know that they’re stupid
Complicating this further is the in-group thinking that accompanies the anti-science crowds. Consider the Chiropractic Association of Australia. The Australian Homeopathic Association. The Australian Vaccination Network and other organised conspiracy movements. All these groups and many more exhibit a lack of any skill to discern the value of information. Ideology and belief is what drives them. Today, claimed intelligence and the accumulation of knowledge do not make for good decision making.
The sheer volume of information means we are better served by developing the skill to choose what sources to trust. Though I imagine for some they are at an extreme disadvantage. The constant urge for intellectual risk in the supposed realm of the unknown, once served by genuine mysteries, is a cognitive detriment. Hearing someone like Meryl Dorey talk, sets off warning bells like reading a scam Nigerian email offering me untold wealth in the worst grammar possible. Yet for others she is the cult figure that completes the circle of irrational belief.
It seems we develop intellectual tools in the absence of any skill to use them. No doubt that goes for all of us and highlights the importance of critical thinking. Vaccine denial appears in many cases to be justified by stories of cognitive dissonance that are resolved to an eventual cognitive bias which is then fed to the point of a splendid Dunning-Kruger effect. Intellectually the inability to use certain tools most often results in failed comprehension. But combined with the inability to gauge risk the anti-vaccine movement is overseeing a resurgence of disease. Consider this comment approved by Meryl Dorey on The Australian Vaccination Network Facebook page.
Inability to understand risk-benefit is a feature of The Age of Hilarious
The developing world is for those of us in the Age of Hilarious much like where a time machine would take us if we went backward and forward to gather information of vaccine preventable disease (VPD). Today, one child dies every 20 seconds from a VPD. Pneumonia and diarrhea are the biggest killers in developing nations whilst these are prevented by Pneumococcal and Rotavirus vaccines. As the AVN’s Judy Wilyman rails against the HPV vaccine, dismissively citing developed nation levels of cervical cancer the reality is 270,000 women die of HPV related causes annually – 85% in developing nations.
The smallpox vaccine saves $1.3 billion annually – 10 times the cost of the original program. Typhoid kills 200-600,000 per year and in developing nations congenital rubella syndrome still claims 90,000 lives annually. The cost to a family of a disabled child or adult often combined with the loss of a mother is to us, incomprehensible. Vaccination allows for improved health and growth. Children go on to attend and finish school. They contribute to family life and when eventually employed raise the family income to levels usually not dreamed of.
The more children vaccinated the more that live and the more that live the less that must be “produced” by parents to compete with the present law of attrition. In countries with high VPD one doesn’t expect to see children grow. Rather one hopes against the odds enough will grow to sustain a bearable quality of life for the family. With vaccination quality of life improves dramatically. Families, villages, districts and even nations can be pulled from poverty.
The GAVI Alliance – previously Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation – fund 97% of pneumococcal vaccination in developing nations. In the last decade they have pushed hepatitis B vaccination in China above that in Australia and placed a virtual halt on liver cancer.
Yet comfortable in their scientifically endowed lives, fully vaccinated as children and content with two kids, vaccine denialists in developed nations insist the reduction in family numbers and misery is planned genocide. They ridicule charities and sabotage attempts to raise money for, or educate about, the success of vaccination in less fortunate nations, as yet free from the Age of Hilarious. Which raises the question: what are they free from?
A typical example is that recently Mia Freedman wrote an article about the self appointed experts of the anti-vaccine movement. Mia shreds the AVN ticking all the boxes about their false “choice”, the farcical name, the pretend expertise… in fact the truth. One quote I like which applies because the benefits of vaccines are irrefutable is, “In fact there aren’t two sides and there is no debate. On one hand there is science and there is no other hand.”
Dorey went berserk, summoned her flying monkeys and actually had them writing to Mia “from the other side”. The attacks were typical. “What a bl**dy parasitic moron journalist!” commented one. Her article was likened to eugenics, she was a moron, and idiot. She was an ignorant douchebag, rude, self-righteous, uneducated and hateful…. One can only imagine the emails out of the public eye.
Mia tweeted:
To which Dorey shot back “What threats? How about listening to parents of vaccine damaged kids to learn about the other side if (sic) vaccination? YES-2 sides!”. Which is terribly ironic as many have asked to see these crowds of vaccine damaged children that Dorey so liberally exploits. At the same time anyone presenting evidence was banned and their posts deleted – as usual. One member managed to remain leaving:
Mia writes engaging articles with compassion, empathy and humour. Many, many commenters on MM disagree with her position on many issues but as long as they’re not abusive, the comments stay. That’s why she has such a vast audience. You should try it, Meryl. You might find your audience grows instead of shrinking away and hiding on closed websites and Facebook pages.
And (to the author of the above Facebook comment – but not in response to that comment):
… why are you being so mean? You do realise that lots of people – genuinely curious people – will come to this page after reading Mia’s column? If I were you I’d be using the traffic to make a reasoned argument in a friendly forum. Mocking and insulting a well loved and popular writer (even if you disagree with her) is not doing your cause any good.
All in all it continued on for some time. I was riveted at how far the antivaccination movement – or is it just Dorey’s mob – had fallen. I could not find any arguments or attempts at discourse beyond vicious, wailing ad hominem abuse. Dorey wrote her usual scathing personal reply seeming to latch onto two sentences that distort Mia’s intent:
I’m certainly not suggesting we become a flock of sheep or suspend critical thought. But I don’t need to ‘do my research’ before I vaccinate.
Dorey used this to accuse her of being a sheep proffering, “Well duh! If you don’t do your research first Mia, may I suggest you open wide and say baaaaaaaaaa!”
But the full paragraph is clearer:
I’m certainly not suggesting we become a flock of sheep or suspend critical thought. But I don’t need to ‘do my research’ before I vaccinate. Or before I accept that the earth is round and that gravity exists. Scientists far smarter than me have already done that research and the verdict is unanimous, thanks.
Therein lies the impact of Mia’s article. Cries of “I’ve done my research” just don’t cut it with something as irrefutable as vaccination. From a safety viewpoint, it is open to abuse and argument less than regulation of the aviation industry. I would also argue, one needs the skill to discern a reputable source rather than embarking on piecemeal “research”. And in this Age of Hilarious it’s plain that Meryl Dorey is a source of dangerous nonsense.
To top it off Dorey made her seventh appearance on Friday at Conspiracy Central Airwaves aka Fairdinkum Radio. I’ve snipped 3 minutes of grabs below [or MP3 here]. It opens with Leon Pittard criticising science and the “technocracy” we’re moving into. It continues with Big Pharma terror then Dorey attacking Mia Freedman who “is a product of the governments health policy [which is] everyone must vaccinate and we need to fear and hate those who don’t do it”. That’s right dear reader – that’s government policy according to Dorey. Just like racism she contends.
Despite knowing the pertussis vaccine gives dubious immunity and no vaccine is infallible Dorey can’t seem to grasp Mia’s argument that an unvaccinated child is a risk to all Australians, vaccinated or not. Meryl should read this post from a mother whose vaccinated daughter caught pertussis from an unvaccinated child and three months later, “is prone to chest infections, pneumonia, and more susceptible to viruses and Influenza.”
In the same program Dorey again repeats the myth that no children died of pertussis in the ten years to 2009. Reasonable Hank deals with it splendidly. Why she keeps insulting her hosts and listeners like this I don’t really know, only to politely assume it’s linked to the pitfalls of cognitive bias above. Between 1993 – 2008, 16 children under 12 months died from pertussis. Dorey is well aware of this. And so her cult-like cycle of bald faced untruths continues.
French atheist, philosopher and author, Michel Onfray suggests the coming century will be the century of religion. He is probably right, but exactly what form the religions will take and what passes for belief and faith might be hard to recognise by its end. Consider Scientology for a salient example.
Whatever the case it seems that for a number of reasons from human psychology, to arrogance to simple power and profit the Age of Hilarious will persist for a while yet.
Coincidence is not science – Judy Wilyman, June 30th 2010
According to conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine lobbyist Judy Wilyman, it is a “scientific fact” that “the chemicals” in vaccines and vaccines themselves have “synergistic, cumulative and latent effects”.
Most of us are familiar with the latent effect/s of vaccines. Prevention of disease and death spring to mind. Combined? Prevention of multiple diseases, passing them on to tiny babies or those who cannot be vaccinated. Yet Judy is pushing a barrow of malignancy. Cumulative effects are the cause of many ills, Judy claims. With vaccines widely used for 80 years, her evidence then, must be compelling. She states:
There is no measure of delayed responses of vaccines or long term health studies of children monitoring the combined effects of vaccines. That’s the hard evidence that we would need to say this programme is safe
Wilyman claims diseases were reduced before vaccination and health department records show a rarity of adverse reactions. But of course, “often this link is denied”. Her evidence then, must be compelling. Nah – just kidding.
I previously wrote a little on the W.A. Woo Fest that Professor Fiona Stanley described as “bizarre” and ”so misinformed that it is scary”. I stuck to question one of the two that Judy reckons define “the context and the ethics” of immunisation programmes.
Did vaccines play a significant role in controlling and reducing infectious diseases?
What is in a vaccine?
No doubt the ghastly constituents of vaccines will be equally misrepresented. “This generation of children is the unhealthiest yet”, Judy intones failing to offer a definition of chronic illness or any insight into the massive leaps in diagnostic technology and paediatric medicine.
Obesity is a major chronic health problem in today’s children and it alone ushers in many more complications. Poor diet and restricted activity have a permanent effect upon the development of the endocrine system, in turn effecting fat and sugar metabolism. Unsurprisingly diabetes is more common.
Prolonged periods of sitting (including recreational choices) can lead to problems from chronic constipation to poor perfusion and oxygenation of peripheral tissues to the rare but steadily increasing incidence of childhood thromboses. Increases in long distance travel have brought an awareness of the importance of regular leg movement in adults. There is a delicate balance between haemodynamic pressure, lymphatic function and venous flow related to movement. Vaccination is not to blame.
Judy would have fun explaining why Vaccine Preventable Diseases make the list of childhood diseases on the increase in developed nations, following reduction in immunisation. Or the success of the Hib vaccine in controlling that disease in just 12 years. Rotavirus is not linked to intestinal problems in infants. Despite telling her audience in W.A. that the influenza vaccine may be more dangerous than influenza itself, last September 115 deaths from ‘flu were reported in the USA. Wilyman:
In epidemics where there is only a small risks to individuals from the disease then the risk of the vaccine may be greater. Particularly if multiple vaccines are being used – and this is the case with influenza. Influenza is not a serious risk for the majority of children
Judy goes on to misrepresent thimerosal and other preservatives (formaldehyde) “which are known to cause neurological and immunological diseases”. Thimerosal is in only two childhood vaccines. Bemoaning formaldehyde exposure is as outrageous as it is ridiculous. A backyard BBQ burning old wood off-cuts or timber fixtures would produce many thousands of times that of a lifetime of vaccination. It’s typical misrepresentation of how much dose makes a poison.
Antibiotics which “we know are linked with allergies andanaphylaxis” are other terrible ingredients. The same with aluminium which is also “linked to auto-immune diseases”. Judy omits telling the audience that breast feeding over a 6 month period exposes an infant to 2.5 times the amount of Al from vaccination. Formula delivers 10 times the amount whilst Soy formula introduces 40 times the amount of aluminium.
Exactly how an infant can deal with ingesting 40 times the aluminium as via vaccination over the same period without being poisoned, is of no moment to antivaccine lobbyists. Presumably they imagine the hanky panky “natural” approach via digestion is a fail safe. Yet ingested Al certainly makes it to the blood stream and is excreted the same way as any source of Al – the third most abundant element and most abundant metal in nature. We excrete all but 1% that we’re exposed to over a lifetime.
Judy goes on to link “autoimmune diseases” such as diabetes, autism, arthritis, M.S., lupus and thyroidism to pathogens in vaccines. You see, the hanky panky digestion caper means pathogen proteins would naturally enter the stomach as amino acids. But injected these whole proteins produce auto-antibodies and cause autoimmune disease.
In case you missed it Judy has seemingly discovered that autism is an autoimmune disease, whilst the rest of the world’s researchers claim it has no known etiology. Which is also at odds to Dorey’s claim of acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis and other instances of encephalitis being the cause. Their unique impact is graphed below.
Judy also blames allergies and anaphylaxis on vaccination. Yet incidence of anaphylaxis is documented at 0.65 cases per million vaccinations. Larger studies have also found less than one case per million vaccines and no deaths attributed to the immunizing agent. However 500 cases per one million are attributed to eggs, tree nuts, cows milk, wheat, soybean, fish, shell fish, sesame, peanuts, latex, insect stings and anesthesia.
Allergies are also blamed on vaccines by Judy, despite greater intensity, duration and frequency already being linked to climate change. In fact everything is blamed on vaccines – even speech delay regardless of diagnostic criteria changing markedly in recent years. Other developmental delays include ADHD. Despite very few viable candidates for asthma, but many well known triggers that’s also squeezed into her discovery portfolio. All down to vaccine ingredients that parents are not warned about, according to Judy Wilyman.
The Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) has concluded that there is no association between administration of the hepatitis B vaccine and multiple sclerosis (MS). Since 1982, hepatitis B vaccine has been given to over 500 million people around the world. The hepatitis B vaccine is the first and only vaccine that prevents liver cancer by preventing hepatitis B infection.
It would seem Judy consciously rejects accepted material for that which is clearly baseless. Despite this mad scramble to blame almost every childhood ailment on vaccination, Wilyman has forgotten her hypocritical quote above. “Coincidence is not science”. In an evidence vacuum, her “synergistic, cumulative and latent effects” simply do not exist.
Despite the coincidences and claimed conspiracies, Judy Wilyman is yet to produce the science.
Yesterday I hinted at the cost to the AVN of Justice Christine Adamson’s ruling in favour of their appeal against the HCCC.
Whilst I postulated on what the HCCC could have done to ensure that the appeal was tossed out, the fact remains that Meryl Dorey – “Australia’s foremost expert on vaccination” – has to accept that she has (Ed: in respect of this ruling, arguably) been found to influence no-one. I’m sure being legally insignificant is not the pivotal aspect of the ruling Dorey will recount to members, unless she is grasping to deny the “anti-vaccine” label.
… I am just so pleased that the Supreme Court agreed with our original contention that the HCCC had no jurisdiction to investigate us based on the complaints which were not valid complaints according to the HCC Act. Justice DOES work sometimes.
Not strictly true. A major part of the original contention was that the HCCC acted outside jurisdiction because the AVN was not a Health Service Provider.
By Saturday the deception was tangible. Meryl Dorey posted:
For those who have been asking about our chariity (sic) status, hopefully, I will have more information on that early next week. The HCCC decision did not automatically give us back the authority, but I am hopeful that we will get it back since the OLGR relied completely on the HCCC warning to revoke the authority. Therefore, since the warning was invalid, the revocation may be too. Anyway, I will let you know as soon as I have the information myself.
MD
I’m not sure what game Dorey is playing here. She initially made this claim 16 months ago. There’s no doubt that she has constantly manipulated the flow of information to create the illusion that the OLGR revocation followed directly from, and was based upon the HCCC ruling. Initially in October 2010, Dorey emailed members citing only sections A, C and F of the notice she received from the OLGR and claimed:
As you can see, the OLGR based their entire decision on the HCCC’s demand for us to declare ourselves as being anti-vaccine and putting their disclaimer on our website…
Strange, because as far I can see the HCCC cannot possibly have had anything to do with OLGR findings of :
Fundraising without an authority
Unauthorised expenditure
Failure to keep proper records of income
23 breaches of the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991
On Saturday reasonablehank was quick to look for any substance and I recommend reading what is a complete demolition of this myth that the OLGR “relied completely on the HCCC”.
The holy grail of this HCCC appeal can be gleaned from Dorey’s erroneous claim. She wanted the OLGR decision overturned. But how? Certiorari is the legal term for an order given to set aside a decision. The decision is quashed and expunged from the record. Originally Dorey had named the Minister for Gaming and Racing as a second defendant. On July 5th, 2011 she discontinued proceedings against the Minister.
Dorey then sought to have the HCCC Investigation, Recommendation and Public Warning not only ruled as outside jurisdiction as per the HCC Act – ultra vires – but also sought certiorari to quash the HCCC determination to issue the warning. This would mean the decision was made unlawfully and not just outside jurisdiction as granted under the Act as it pertains to complaints. So what did the AVN put to Justice Adamson as unlawful? What rights had the HCCC abused? Adamson wrote:
When asked to identify the discernible legal right which was affected, counsel for the plaintiff said:
“The damage to its reputation by being labelled a public risk to health and safety.”
I realise it’s looking rather obvious but in plain speech this is where Dorey got to say, I’m not a risk to public safety and I deserve to retain my right to be a health charity. Adamson continued:
The plaintiff submitted that its rights were not only directly affected, but also altered, by the HCCC’s decision to issue the Public Warning and that certiorari is accordingly available… It argued that the decision directly exposed it to a new hazard of an adverse exercise of public power (having its fundraising capacity revoked).
However, the plaintiff could not point to any provision in the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991 that made the Public Warning a mandatory relevant consideration in the Minister’s decision whether to revoke the authority. Accordingly there is no basis on which I could find that the Minister for Gaming is legally obliged to take into account the Public Warning. For these reasons, certiorari does not lie.
The implications of this are huge. With denial of certiorari the linking of the AVN’s fundraising capacity revocation to the HCCC ruling has no basis. The court did not find that the AVN is not a risk to public health and safety because it also did not find that the HCCC erred in its conclusions or that the complaints are unfounded. The significance of Dorey’s clinically impotent insignificance is worth noting.
The AVN is left with the reality that the HCCC acted outside of jurisdiction in its Investigation, Recommendation and Public Warning. Because in this instance, the AVN in effect influences nobody in any significant way.
Also a lot of attention has now been drawn to this “anti-vaccination” group. This led Dorey to complain which led Fran Sheffield of Homeopathy Plus to comment on Dorey’s dishonesty, confirming that the AVN were anti-vaccine.
Fran then backed it up 45 minutes later with something that echoes point one of the HCCC’s pre-warning request, which read: The Australian Vaccination Network’s purpose is to provide information against vaccination in order to balance what it believes is the substantial amount of pro-vaccination information availableelsewhere. The other two points were (2) The information provided should not be read as medical advice and (3) The decision about whether or not to vaccinate should be made in consultation with a health care provider.
Sheffield wrote:
I think if the AVN placed a statement clearly on its website that people saw on first visiting – that it is providing the ‘missing’ information, or the information government and health departments should provide but don’t, then it would explain why weight of information the AVN carries makes it appear to be anti-vaccine.
In what must be one of the most hypocritical replies Dorey has ever managed, she then argued that the “AVN code of ethics” forbade judging anyone on their decisions. It might be harmful to their cause to openly say they were anti-vaccine. She “could not care less what others do” once the AVN have given them information doctors and the government withhold. Then amazingly Dorey herself echoes point one of the HCCC’s pre-warning request:
We provide information on the negative aspects of vaccination in order to balance the purely one-sided information given by the government and the medical community. We provide balance – we don’t tell people they should not vaccinate and we never will.
The spokespig went on to say that he was definitely not a climate change sceptic, but an “evidence seeking skeptic”. It was thus axiomatic that Brown should be able to judge the integrity of information and that his 1997 comments actually made a mockery of his so-called “scientific understanding” of global warming. “As a trained medical doctor he makes a very good doorstop”, intoned the spokespig.
Losing In The Lucky Country 