Category Archives: Immunisation

Judy Wilyman – unedited TV interview

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, General, Health, HPV Vaccine, Human Rights, Judy Wilyman, Legal, Science by

Some thoughts on vaccine conspiracy theorist Judy Wilyman’s misleading “TV interview” which was published on YouTube on August 16th, 2018.

Viewers are being mislead by Ms. Wilyman’s constant and repetitive referral to “university research” and the allusion to an existing “scientific debate” on vaccination. The science on vaccination is settled and there is certainly no genuine debate. Only anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists constantly seeking to create the impression there is a debate and that the truth is being suppressed.

One wonders. What is the “objective and evidence based university research (approved by the University of Wollongong)” of which Ms. Wilyman speaks? What was the study design? What was the sample size? By what methodology were vaccine ingredients causally linked to chronic disease? Which ingredients were shown to cause chronic disease or pathological changes? By what mechanism do which ingredients cause pathology? How did the study control for other variables? What methods of analysis and statistical verification were used?

Where was this research, “approved by the University of Wollongong [UOW]”, published? Has it been reproduced? How many unsuccessful attempts to falsify the research have there been? Certainly Ms. Wilyman has not published any original research or data. Indeed apart from startlingly unverified claims gleaned frequently from dubious sources, Ms. Wilyman is yet to produce the basic outline of any study design. Rather Ms. Wilyman has joined the ranks of those who misrepresent the purpose of package inserts, and why certain information is included for legal purposes. Not as an indication of what vaccine recipients should expect.

Some Australians are aware that Ms. Wilyman was awarded a PhD from UOW Humanities Department on the basis of a literature review that sought to criticise the Australian Immunisation Schedule and the safety of vaccines in general. Ms. Wilyman has no qualification in health, medicine, public health, epidemiology, vaccine science or any qualifications relating to immunisation at all. During this interview Ms. Wilyman contends, whilst failing to cite any supporting research that vaccine ingredients are causing chronic disease in Australian children.

All Wilyman cites appears to be her own literature review, in which she mistakes correlation for causation. More so, the references cited by Ms. Wilyman in her thesis are firmly biased toward her anti-vaccine theory, and blatantly so. Because of this fact Wilyman has reinforced the fact there is no scientifically reputable debate on the safety and efficacy of mass vaccination at all. In cases where a debate on any topic could be mounted the author of a literature review would present bipartisan sources, review and critique the value of each then finally argue a conclusion based upon the material reviewed.

However the scientific consensus from peer reviewed material addressing vaccine safety and vaccination schedules is one that demonstrates absolutely the safety and success of vaccines. Ms. Wilyman is unable to demonstrate a scientific consensus in peer reviewed literature that suggests widespread chronic disease as a result of mass vaccination because such a consensus does not exist. Ms. Wilyman underscores the intellectual paucity of her stance by insisting that “it has not been proven that autism is not linked to the vaccines”. It has indeed been demonstrated over and over again that autism is not linked to MMR or any vaccine.

One finds it more than disturbing that someone awarded a PhD from an Australian university is incapable of understanding the vast body of work dismissing any link between autism and immunisation. More so, Wilyman goes on to falsely claim there have been deaths and widespread harm causally linked to vaccines. There have been no deaths linked to vaccination in Australia for close to 45 years. On November 21st, 2015 The Social Services Legislative Amendment Bill (No Jab, No Pay) in Brisbane was informed serious reactions to vaccines occur from zero to five times per year in Australia.

These figures reveal Ms. Wilyman’s claims of frequent death and disability from vaccination as bogus. Her abuse of the right to freedom of speech is significantly disturbing as she consciously presents demonstrably false information with the ability to cause community harm, harm to infants and children and the sabotage of public health. For over 17 minutes Judy Wilyman pushes the standard anti-vaccine conspiracy theory, and at one alarming point suggests the Australian Vaccination Schedule with the added incentive of No Jab, No Pay is a breach of The Nuremberg Code.

Let’s clear up what the purpose of the Nuremberg Code is. Following the Nuremberg trials and the conviction of Nazi doctors for human experiments on concentration camp prisoners, the Code was introduced in August 1947. It seeks to give clear instructions and rules as to what is legal when conducting human experiments. There are ten points to the Nuremberg Code.

Comments (below) in response to the video are predictably from the conspiracy theory handbook. The first observes that the government wants to hide what is in a vaccine. You may have noticed above that I linked to vaccine ingredients on this Australian Government Dept. of Health Fact Sheet. The second comment notes “government or doctors” don’t read package inserts. Deaths and serious sickness is covered up.

The harm caused by this misinformation – which is being constantly pushed (and certainly not corrected) by Judy Wilyman is not something one can take lightly.

YouTube comments;

  • “It’s very very suspicious when a government and the AMA want to hide the truth from the public about what is in a vaccine. The whole idea of vaccines is to sterilise the population and polysorbate 80 is in all of them. Obviously that idea has come from the minds of psychopaths”.
  • “All those who promote the lies of the safety of vaccines are equally responsible as BigPharma for the poisoning and maiming of their own people, (sic) They should recall the Nuremberg Trials and the consequences of those who experimented on the innocent people. The risks of vaccines are listed on the Data sheets of the vaccines and also the Package inserts, which are not studied by government or doctors, and the deaths and serious sicknesses are covered up.”

Ms Wilyman would be wise to stick to humanities it would seem.

 

Update: Note; Reference to “scientific debate” on vaccination above refers to the contention of the anti-vaccination lobby that the risk/benefit ratio of vaccines is something that is still being debated or a topic that warrants debate. The benefit of vaccines far outweighs the extremely small risk of harm.

“Sacrificial Virgins”: Misinforming viewers about the HPV vaccine

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Health, HPV Vaccine, Human Rights, Judy Wilyman, Legal, Meryl Dorey, Scam, Science, Vaxxed by

Recently the Australian Vaccination skeptics Network (AVN) announced via email that it intends to run a “Sacrificial Virgins tour” from QLD to Victoria. This, we are told, follows on “from the incredible success of last year’s tour of VaxXed; from coverup to catastrophe“.

Vaxxed has been comprehensively debunked, fraudulent tricks such as the manipulation of the so-called “whistleblowers” phone call audio exposed and the far reaching dishonesty of conspiracy theorists who promoted that venture is clear. It appears we can expect the same once again with another fraudumentary from the creative folk at SaneVax and UK Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters – Sacrificial Virgins: Not For The Greater Good.

Whilst this conclusion can be drawn from researching reputable source material and understanding the AVN’s misuse of the USA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), Australians have a unique means by which to judge the AVN.

A public health warning about the AVN from the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission was published in 2014 and includes;

The investigation found that AVN provides information on vaccination that is misleading to the average reader because it is either incorrect, inaccurately represented or because it has been taken out of context. Specifically:

  • AVN makes specific assertions about the efficacy of the Gardasil vaccine used to prevent cervical cancer caused by the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). It states that:
    • the connection between HPV and cervical cancer is tenuous at best and incomprehensive at worst
    • the vaccine contains only four of the 100 strains of HPV and therefore its use is a “shot in the dark”
    • it is an experimental vaccine with no proven record of safety or effectiveness.
  • AVN does not qualify that:
    • Gardasil contains the four strains of HPV that have the greatest potential to cause cancer
    • the link between HPV and cervical cancer has been established beyond reasonable doubt
    • significant research went into assessing the probable safety and efficacy of Gardasil before it was ever used in humans
    • since its use, extensive worldwide data on its safety and efficacy has been collected supporting its safety.
    • […]
    • AVN uses data from the United States Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) on its website, without qualifying that no cause-and-effect relationship has been established. This is because VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination and it is specifically stated that any report of an adverse event to VAERS is not a causal link that a vaccine caused the event.

By running a “tour” the AVN also stand to make a profit. Rather than inform members and followers that they could watch the film for free on YouTube, the AVN will charge $25.00 per head and follow up with a Q&A session. Meryl Dorey is the founder, past president, spokesperson and ever-present driving force of the AVN. Her anti-vaccination fervor and singular ability to deny the scientific consensus that upholds evidence based medicine has persisted for decades. These qualities are matched only by her focus on making money from an unsuspecting public.

If one cannot attend any of the seven screenings of Sacrificial Virgins, “(or even if you can), you can also help with a sponsorship – no matter how small – to assist the AVN in providing these sorts of high-quality events into the future.” More to the point any gathering of similar minds encourages attendees to spend. In this case to purchase anti-vaccine material and possibly AVN membership. Although the AVN, and particularly Meryl, insist they/she are/is not anti-vaccine.

Then again, recently on Twitter (Meryl = @nocompulsoryvaccines)…

Could the video be anti-vaccine?

The email included;

IS THIS DOCUMENTARY ANTI-VACCINATION?

No. This documentary presents information from scientific experts about known risks of this medical procedure. It simply suggests that in order to make a vaccination choice, all available information should be made available to parents and those considering taking the HPV vaccine.

Which brings us back to the source of their information. The reason you haven’t heard of these “sacrifices”? In an AVN email yesterday promoting today’s “vaccination conference”, The Censorship of the Vaccination Debate in Australia Today unverified contentions in the form of questions were included.

Originally posed on the “conference” site they are;

Why can’t we talk about vaccines?

Why are the media, pharmaceutical companies and industry lobby groups dictating government vaccination policies?

More importantly can mandatory vaccination policies actually protect our health?

This is utterly ridiculous, offensively misleading and completely inline with the earning of a public health warning. It therefore says much about Australia’s larger anti-vaccine lobby and particularly those who spoke today. They were;

  1. Australian INDEPENDENT vaccine policy expert, Judy Wilyman PhD. (I kid you not)
  2. Brian Martin, Emeritus Professor, University of Wollongong.
  3. Elizabeth Hart.
    Author of the website ‘OVER-VACCINATION. Challenging Big Pharma’s lucrative over-vaccination of people and animals.’
  4. Jamie Mcintyre
    Author of ‘The Great Vaccine Con.’
  5. Meryl Dorey AVN
    Founder of ‘The Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network,’ 1994.
  6. Helen Lobato
    Author of ‘Gardasil: Fast-Tracked and Flawed.’

So back to our question. Why haven’t you heard of these “sacrifices” at the end of an HPV vaccine needle? As the second question above ludicrously suggests, the media in part “dictate” Australian vaccine policy. Apparently we can’t talk about vaccines but do have, so-called “documentary” screenings attacking vaccines and vaccine schedules. Also this sentence in the email promoting Sacrificial Virgins. Bold mine;

2019 will be the year of the seminar so your help today will ensure that we are able to bring this message to as many locations in our huge country as we possibly can.

It seems it’s more a case of not being able to talk about vaccines in the way the AVN would like. Which includes spinning the conspiracy that the media and lobby groups “censor” this imaginary “vaccine debate”. Back to the email promoting Sacrificial Virgins;

Unintended adverse reactions have blighted and even ended the lives of girls, young women, men and boys around the world. Despite this fact, pharmaceutical manufacturers and many health authorities have refused to acknowledge there is a problem and the medical community continues to aggressively market this vaccine.

We must ask, where do these agents of deception get off rocking the stones to so casually pin together this many lies about one of the world’s safest vaccines? Many will parrot the nonsense spread by identities such as the six above who erroneously believe vaccine policy discussion is censored. Yet consider the example below, which in various forms, has for so many years fed the notion that VAERS provides the truth that mass vaccination is “a problem”.

This “problem” is created in part from the abuse of self reported adverse reactions to VAERS and non-established side effects. More so, serious conditions, including death, that have not been established as side effects are misrepresented in a quantifiable sense. For example the unverified claim that Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is triggered by the HPV vaccine, may be followed by a verified claim that side effects occur in “four out of five HPV vaccinations”. Without proper explanation a casual reader may conclude that 80% of HPV recipients go on to develop a serious, disabling, chronically painful neurological condition. Similarly unverified claims may be made for Premature Ovarian Failure (POF), and/or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS).

So what has the anti-vaccine devotee done to mislead readers? As we see in Question 8 of this NCIRS FAQ sheet;

Overall, there is no strong scientific or epidemiological evidence to suggest that the HPV vaccines can induce POF, POTS or CRPS. These diseases of unclear aetiology, unfortunately, do occur in adolescents and young people, whether they are vaccinated or unvaccinated, and there is no evidence that they occur more frequently in HPV vaccinated populations.15,21,32-35

Whilst evidence doesn’t support the HPV vaccine as a cause or trigger or likely toxin for these conditions it is true that four out of five HPV vaccines produce a side effect. What are these side effects? Bold mine;

All medicines, including vaccines, can have side effects. The reactions people have had after the HPV vaccine have been similar to reactions after other vaccines.

The most common side effects of vaccination are pain, redness and/or swelling at the site of injection. These symptoms occur after around 4 in 5 vaccinations but are temporary and show that the immune system is responding to the vaccination. These symptoms can be treated with a cold pack or paracetamol if needed.

Side effects such as anaphylactic reaction are very rare occurring at around three per one million vaccinations.

Antivaccinationists really have no excuse to continue to abuse VAERS to form their constantly shifting narrative against vaccination. If you are baffled by the power those against vaccines have imbued to vaccine package inserts, you’re not alone. In Understanding VAERS the FDA include;

VAERS scientists look for unusually high numbers of reports of an adverse event after a particular vaccine or a new pattern of adverse events. If scientists see either of these situations, focused studies in other systems are done to determine if the adverse event is or is not a side effect of the vaccine. Information from VAERS and vaccine safety studies is shared with the public. Throughout the process of monitoring VAERS, conducting studies, and sharing findings, appropriate actions are taken to protect the public’s health.

For example, if VAERS identifies a mild adverse event that is verified as a side effect in a focused study, this information is reviewed by CDC, FDA, and vaccine policy makers. In this situation, the vaccine may continue to be recommended if the disease-prevention benefits from vaccination outweigh the risks of a newly found side effect.

Information about newly found side effects is added to the vaccine’s package insert that lists safety information. Newly found side effects also are added to the Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) for that vaccine. If serious side effects are found, and if the risks of the vaccine side effect outweigh the benefits, the recommendation to use the vaccine is withdrawn.

Also included is a succinct explanation of how an adverse event becomes a side effect. What is crucial, and constantly ignored by the anti-vaccine lobby, is that adverse events may or may not be caused by a vaccine. Significant follow up, research and investigation is needed before the event can be coupled to a vaccine in the form of a side effect.

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration has a thorough explanation for visitors to the Database of Adverse Event Notifications.

So, returning to the video. What about the name – Sacrificial Virgins? In his September 2017 piece, Another antivaccine film disguised as a documentary, this time lying about HPV vaccines, Orac correctly notes;

Anyone who’s followed the antivaccine movement can guess immediately which vaccine this is about, namely the HPV vaccine, which is administered to preadolescent girls. That age is chosen because it is before the vast majority of girls become sexually active, and HPV is primarily a sexually transmitted disease. So the best time to achieve immunity is before girls (and, according to the latest recommendations, boys too) become sexually active. The term “virgin” is clearly designed to play on this timing. If a woman is immune to the proper serotypes of HPV before she becomes sexually active, then the cervical cancer caused by those serotypes can be prevented. That’s how HPV vaccines work, and they are very effective.

I recommend reading the entire article. There is an excellent example of abusing VAERS to push fear of Gardasil. HIV/AIDS denialist and board member of Rethinking AIDS, Christian Fiala, offers;

Officials report that there have been 17,500 or more “adverse” incident reports that have been made over the last few years because of the use of the vaccination.

Actually anyone can report adverse incidents and whilst VAERS is the official reporting system, until extensive trends and further research establishes a side effect linked to a HPV vaccine, Fiala’s claim is simply meaningless.

One target of antivaccinationists is summed up in this sentence from the AVN email;

Originally released as a method for preventing cervical cancer in women, its use has since been expanded to include young men and boys despite the fact that its effectiveness as a cancer preventative is medically unproven.

Others have noted this pointless argument as disingenuous, and I’d agree. Not enough time has passed for those initially vaccinated with the HPV vaccines for valuable data to be gathered on changes in cervical cancer epidemiology. Still, it makes a nice straw man if your goal is to convince others that the real aim is to make money and the only demonstrable action is many thousands of adverse reactions.

I’d also recommend reading Gardasil facts – debunking myths about HPV vaccine safety and efficacy, by Skeptical Raptor for further insight into the vaccine’s efficacy.

Earlier this year the HPV vaccine was improved to cover more strains of HPV. Readers may remember Judy Wilyman for criticising the vaccine because it targeted an insufficient number of HPV strains. No doubt she will soon acknowledge this change. In September 2017 the ABC wrote;

Doctors are hailing the development of a new vaccine as an important victory in the fight to protect women against cervical cancer. The vaccine is an improved version of Gardasil, which already protects women against some strains of HPV, the virus that can cause the cancer. The new formula of the jab has been shown to prevent 93 per cent of HPV strains.

“It’s a real bonus, whereas we previously had protection for cancer-causing types, which were 16 and 18, which made up 70 per cent.”

Professor Garland said the other benefit of the new vaccine is that it only requires two, instead of three doses.

From the NCIRS HPV FAQ document;

  • Why has the HPV vaccine been replaced in Australia? What is different about the new vaccine? (Page 2)

There are many HPV virus types, some of which are considered to be ‘high-risk’ because infection with these types is associated with the development of cancer (HPV types 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59 and 68),1 and some of which are ‘low-risk’ because they result in less serious disease like genital warts (HPV types 6 and 11).2 The high-risk HPV types can cause a variety of cancers in both males and females, including cancers of the vagina, cervix, anus, penis and head and neck.3 In unvaccinated people in Australia, HPV types 16 and 18 account for about 77% of HPV-positive cervical cancers, and HPV types 31, 33, 45, 52 and 58 for another 15%.4 […]

The new 9vHPV vaccine, available in Australia since early 2018, protects against all the 4vHPV types plus an additional five high-risk HPV types, 31, 33, 45, 52 and 58.

It is well worth reading through the NCIRS FAQ document. It covers a large amount of relevant information and already covers many of the deceptive themes that are found in Sacrificial Virgins.

  • How do we know HPV vaccines are safe?

Overall, the HPV vaccines have an excellent safety profile, similar to that for other vaccines routinely used in the National Immunisation Program. Monitoring done around the world in millions of people across many countries has found no credible evidence that there is any illness that occurs more frequently among people who have had HPV vaccine compared to those who have not.15,16 […]

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), to date over 270 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed worldwide, with many countries monitoring vaccine safety post-licensure (i.e. after the vaccine is in use).17

Clinical trials have shown that the 9vHPV vaccine is safe and there are no significant concerns regarding its safety in Australia. Studies have showed that the 9vHPV vaccine has a similar safety profile to that of the 4vHPV vaccine and that it is generally well tolerated in adolescent girls and boys as well as women and men.

The document goes on to address whether the vaccine causes autoimmune disease (No), cancer (No), fainting, CRPS (No), POTS (No), POF (No) or infertility (No). It is not a genetically modified vaccine. Questions include whether Gardasil addresses enough strains of HPV, or as cervical cancer is rare, whether it is necessary at all. Data specific to the importance of HPV vaccination in Australia is very promising. Can we trust vaccine trials sponsored by manufacturers? Why is their information claiming the vaccine is dangerous, if it isn’t? And so on.

No doubt Sacrificial Virgins will prove somewhat interesting. The difficulty for antivaccinationists is that the evidence refuting their claims is available in abundance. More so it continues to grow pushing the chorus against the HPV vaccine further into the realm of conspiracy theory.

Further reading:

Isaac’s Golden Moment

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Big Placebo, Chiropractic, Health, Immunisation, Legal, Scam, Science, Skeptic by

Three weeks ago I attended a public lecture entitled Medicine and Homeopathy.

The latest from Melbourne University Health Initiative, the lineup included homeopath Isaac Golden and chiropractor Simon Floreani to present the argument for homeopathy. Public health physician and medical activist Dr. Ken Harvey and GP Dr. Stephen Basser, one of Australia’s most accomplished critics and analysts of alternatives to medicine, held the fort for medicine.

All but Stephen Basser feature in this video examining claims made by Isaac Golden about homeoprophylaxis. I was confident Golden would pull off a pleasant well meaning presence and equally confident Floreani would flounder and fall. As it turned out he never arrived, leaving Golden to retrace the tired old footsteps he’s been doing for years all by himself.

There’s a few things that I found novel. Golden was quick to label the Cuban homeopathic immunisation study (see video above) as “an intervention”, not a trial. This in one swipe silenced many a prepared question including my own over how the “immunised” demographic returned to levels of Leptospirosis infection similar to those found elsewhere in Cuba (non “immunised”). The “intervention”, which is quoted by homeopaths as hard evidence of efficacy is often criticised for poor methodology, lacking a control group and inexplicably failing to randomise subjects.

So by renaming it an “intervention” Golden could proclaim to have “evidence” and dismiss questions raised about its veracity being flawed due to poor trial practice. Throughout the “intervention” paper the rest of Cuba (RC) is presented where and how a control would normally be presented in a trial. Defenders of the caper point to RC as a quasi-control when it suits the need to convey comparative difference. Thus, Isaac has invented a nifty escape clause from defending poor methodology.

Another point (in fact an inexcusable failing) was Golden’s inability to address what is at once one of the least complex problems, but perhaps the most important. The entire Cuban scam is not Hahnemannian homeopathy. By no means am I the first to note this. It’s more of what I call Supercalifragilistichomeoprophylaxis.

During the evening Isaac Golden made much of remaining true to Samuel Hahnemann’s Law of Similars and Law of Infinitesimals. The Law of Similars is sometimes known as “like cures like” and states that a mother tincture should be made from a substance which produces symptoms similar to that produced by the disease.

Yet in the Cuban study they used four dead – completely inactive – strains of Leptospira bacteria to make the mother tincture. The paper refers to “highly-diluted strains of inactivated leptospiras”. However the paper title is, Large-scale application of highly-diluted bacteria for Leptospirosis epidemic control. Plainly that is misleading in itself.

So I pointed out to Isaac that in view of his insistence upon the law of similars, and noting that the Cuban mother tincture didn’t contain a substance that could produce any symptom like those experienced with leptospirosis (the bacteria were always dead), he had a problem. Confident, he responded that no, it’s not like a traditional vaccine.

Another audience member ran it by him again. Isaac was confused. Ken Harvey explained the problem also. Then I spelled out the obvious. Without the Law of Similars, there’s no Law of Infinitesimals. But he didn’t hear. Clearly stumped, his mind was cranking over. Eventually he produced the claim that the dead bacteria still had the “energy shape” or “energy signature” and were thus still viable. Quickly he turned and selected another questioner.

I was delighted. Isaac Golden had just told me an “energy shape” could produce similar symptoms to live bacteria. But even better, he’d made it up on the spot. After earlier signing his name to the Law of Similars, he then denied its necessity. I still wanted to press the point as this excuse couldn’t explain the “blood, puss, discharge, urine, flesh, causal organisms…”, and other organic goo used in highly dilute nosodes.

No Law of Infinitesimals either with no Similars. We never really made it to discuss that point. But I already had my answer in that he had no answer. For the record, the beaker for the most dilute agent was washed out 9,999 times. On the 10,000th refill it was called a homeopathic immunising agent. That’s not highly diluted – that’s washed away. The less potent (less dilute) was washed out 199 times.

It was Supercalifragilistichomeoprophylaxis if ever I’d seen it. Remember dear reader a nosode is a homeopathic dose. Golden had earlier used the term. Its definition – in this case – demands “causal organisms”. Energy shape just didn’t make it. The audience member who helped Isaac understand wrote, “Get out of jail free” on his notepad and slid it my way. I had to agree. We know homeopaths make it up as they go along, but it was really nice to be there to see that actually happen.

It was truly a Golden moment.

Other points deserve a mention. Already referring patients to conventional doctors, Isaac came across as keen to extend conventional connections and is striving to make something of a research base. He does not entertain the “us and them” combative mindset of the Monika Milka’s and anti-vaxxer types we know and love, and appeared genuinely keen to reciprocate with bilateral trials. One concern was his allusion to conspiracies, when it was pointed out that if efficacy was truly and constantly demonstrable that widespread use and marketing would already be apparent.

One couldn’t miss however that the totality of discourse and questioning was biased toward examining the claims made by Isaac. He did after all kick off by stressing he heals the “entire person”. This means mental, physical, personal, spiritual and probably “quantumal” for all I know. This was “natural medicine” to Isaac. Getting the human healing abilities to function on these levels.

We were promised lots of evidence but regrettably a few excuses related to third parties were raised. Aside from the Cuban standard, Isaac brought in the Swiss “study”. Written by pro-complementary medicine interests for governmental review and favouring popular demand it was a poor choice as the material is known to be highly selective in favour of homeopathy. Isaac appealed to popularity and use as equating to efficacy a number of times.

Dr. Stephen Basser’s deconstruction of why homeopathy is so widely used, sought after and applied by medical professionals was excellent. It highlighted the factors outside of efficacy that drive uptake and continued use of demonstrably non efficacious options. Patient request or demand, choice of placebo, doctors’ role in monitoring complex patients, marketing, what it’s actually used for and the context of these figures.

I’ve noted here before how chiropractors boast how many Aussies per day use chiropractic – after signing them into treatment contracts. Purchasing 100 doses of a homeopathic preparation doesn’t support it being entirely used. Nor do uptake figures represent clearly articulated failures – and dissatisfaction. What is regular? What is novel or first time? And so on. In short there is no association between popularity and efficacy. Or between demand and documented efficacy.

Ken harvey brought up the point I’d have guessed most would have asked at question time. Golden claims to have completed his PhD successfully in homeopathic immunisation. In Golden’s abstract we read:

The effectiveness of the program could not be established with statistical certainty given the limited sample size and the low probability of acquiring an infectious disease.

This didn’t stop Golden from then claiming:

However, a possible level of effectiveness of 90.3% was identified subject to specified limitations. Further research to confirm the effectiveness of the program is justified.

Despite defending the semantics on the night, it’s clear this air guitar of a PhD has only mused over a possibility.

One thing agreed on at the beginning was to not discuss the mechanisms of homeopathy. In other words, to avoid raising the fact it is physically impossible. This did allow the discussion to move forward. In essence, Golden was awarded a huge concession with respect to reality. Something of a microcosm of the larger homeopathic industry perhaps.

All up it was an interesting night given that no new evidence popped up to support homeopathy. Like many homeopaths Isaac really believes in it.

He just needs to conclude that ones belief is not truth.

Meryl Dorey’s Great “Vaccine Testing” Swindle

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Immunisation, Legal, Meryl Dorey, Scam, Social Media by

It doesn’t take much digging and delving to discover that Meryl Wynn Dorey is committing fraud and always intended to commit fraud.

In what will be the first post to examine fraud capers perpetrated by Meryl Dorey we’ll have a look at the false promises and schemes used to mislead members about the always imminent “vaccine testing”. One may wonder, where is that money now?

Charity fraud is known to be the choice of cowards. The callous, the cruel, the weak. Fines are so puny as to render the prospect of prosecution remote. The maximum fine for an offence (regardless of it’s size) that can be imposed upon the guilty is $5,500. Little wonder then that in NSW the OLGR has prosecuted one person in seven years. Jesse Phillips informed us of this last July 24th, when writing Why Charity Fraud is The Softest Crime.

He also noted:

Gaming and Racing Minister George Souris has pledged that investigating charity fraud will be a priority and that he will initiate prosecutions where appropriate. […]

Reports of bogus charities were rare but all complaints about suspicious charities were investigated, he said.

Last year the office cancelled the fundraising authorities for Solutions to Obesity Problems and the Australian Vaccination Network.

Solutions to Obesity Problems had its charity status revoked following publicity from radio presenter Ray Hadley while the AVN’s charity status was revoked after it was found to have breached charitable fundraising laws and potentially misled the public as its appeals were not done in good faith.

Neither was prosecuted.

I suggest checking The Charitable Fundraising Act 1991 (NSW Legislation) for a better understanding of “fundraising appeal”, “participating in a fundraising appeal”. etc. Do note however that Section 10 Participating In Unlawful Fundraising states:

A person who participates in a fundraising appeal which the person knows, or could reasonably be expected to know, is being conducted unlawfully is guilty of an offence.

So let’s ease in to the “vaccine testing” swindle with a generic gimme ya money appeal, that sort of morphed into having a partially stated purpose of vaccine testing. Around June of 2006 Meryl was availing her members with a magazine called Doing The Rounds. In this first issue Meryl opines that the catchy themed “$26 donation from every member donation drive” has yielded a puny $1,700.

Unfortunately, the $26 from every member donation drive has been floundering. After a flurry of donations and pledges in the first days of our appeal, the not-so-grand total to date is just over $1,700. Considering the fact that we have over 2,000 AVN members and another 800 or so readers of this email who have never joined but are reading this information, I hope that this tally can be lifted substantially in the next week or so. If you haven’t donated yet, please do so and if you are not a member, have a think about joining. Also, remember to forward our information on to friends, family and acquaintances who you think might be interested in joining.

Nothing like a bit of flounder to get an Aussie interested. By issue two of Doing The Rounds the total was $6,016 – “a fantastic start” Meryl enthused. We also learn there’s a total goal of $52,000. The detective in you has spotted that 52,000 divided by 26 suggests 2,000 members. And Meryl has put the guilt trip on another “800 or so readers”.

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Also great news! Meryl has announced “Our First Project With These Funds”. She has arranged with an independent laboratory to test two different vaccines for the presence of heavy metals. One will be a “supposedly mercury-free shot”. Also this money should now be going into a trust account with a stated purpose.

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Issue 3 of Doing The Rounds brought more updates. Another 2 grand had hit the target, but there was $48,000 to go.

As you no doubt remember, we are looking for total donations of $52,000 which equated to a donation of only $26 from each one of you. Since the last newsletter, we have raised an additional $2025 in donations which is lovely but means that we still need more than $48,000 to get to our goal.

And there was a graph headed “How Close Are We Getting?” to prove it:

Next came Doing The Rounds Issue 4. Since July 1st $3,114 had rolled in. One generous donor had given $2,000. Two things also happened in Issue 4. The promise of putting the $2,000 toward testing vaccines for heavy metals “such as mercury” was made. This now locks the AVN into certain conditions laid out in The Charitable Fundraisng Act 1993 (NSW Legislation).

  • Division Three: Application of funds raised

20 Proceeds of Appeal

(1)  Any money or benefit received in the course of a fundraising appeal conducted by the holder of an authority is to be applied according to the objects or purposes represented by or on behalf of the persons conducting the appeal as the purposes or objects of the appeal.

21 Investment

(1)  Money received in the course of a fundraising appeal which is not immediately required to be applied to the purposes or objects of the appeal may be invested only in a manner for the time being authorised by law for the investment of trust funds.

The Charitable Trusts Act 1993 notes:

In this Act:

charitable trust means any trust established for charitable purposes and subject to the control of the Court in the exercise of the Court’s general jurisdiction with respect to charitable trusts.

Effectively money raised toward “vaccine testing” must go toward vaccine testing, or into a charitable trust. Other monies not earmarked for vaccine testing, but raised from the $52,000 donation drive must be invested in a charitable trust as money raised in the course of a specific appeal.

Also, The AVN had applied to be a tax deductible gift recipient. Perhaps being over confident of success changes were made to their constitution. It all got confusing when they accordingly opened a new bank account called Australian Vaccination Network Inc. Gift Fund. Although the AVN’s application “to be a tax deductible gift recipient” was, to this day, never accepted (like say, with Charities), the practice of switching between these two accounts remains a feature of this and future scams.

Click to embiggen

Next up is Issue 5 of Doing The Rounds. There’s $8,541.59. $2,500 has been “set aside” for testing vaccines for the presence of mercury. I do hope you have no liquids in your mouth dear reader, because it was also announced that a new goal of submitting the “results of these tests for publication in a mainstream medical journal”, had been established.

Click to embiggen

So to date there should be one trust account holding $8,541.59 as the total so far of the “$52,000 donation drive”. And another trust account holding $2,500 for vaccine testing. The confusion with money going into Australian Vaccination Network Inc. and the meaningless Australian Vaccination Network Inc. Gift Fund bank accounts should also be corrected.

Things go a bit quiet on the Vaccine Testing front for 15 months, until January 2008. Members are then told about Your Donations At Work. Or rather, it seems their donations are not doing much work at all.

No more gushing detail about totals is forthcoming. Indeed members will never hear of any financial total related to vaccine testing again. They will also never hear of the fate of the $52,000 donation drive. Exactly how that $11,000 in total of theirs in the above screenshot is to be (or was) spent is a mystery. The fate of that money is never mentioned again.

Oh, never fear though. There were other feverish donation and fundraising drives in the meantime. Girls were being savaged with “mandatory HPV vaccination”. Only an “urgent $2,000” could save them. Legal action was to be launched by the AVN to save hospital employees from immunisation. I’ll cover those later. But in January 2008, Dorey had cranked up ye olde “vaccine testing” myth again.

You see, the donations aren’t at work because the AVN now needs a “couple of people with expertise in [vaccine testing]”. Perhaps a Laboratory Scientist, a Research Scientist, a Graduate Scientist or a medical or healthcare professional previously involved in research. They still “plan on submitting it for publication in a medical journal”.

Then came February 2008. Can You Help With Raising Funds For This Project? Suddenly donations weren’t at work anymore. In fact, they apparently weren’t even enough anymore.

I don’t have a problem with total donations not being enough to test vaccines for heavy metals. In truth the entire hoped for $52,000 would have delivered little in that respect. It’s the way this phoney caper is presented that’s concerning. And we see more polish to AVN’s standard conspiracy laden scheme of them saving members from the danger of vaccines.

The call for money blurb was:

In 1999, the Australian government ordered the removal of mercury from all childhood vaccines. It was several years however before the old mercury-laden vaccines were actually used up and in all that time, children continued to receive mercury – a known killer of brain cells – in their shots.

Recent vaccine tests conducted by HAPI (Health Advocacy in the Public Interest) indicate that many if not most childhood and adult shots may still contain this toxic heavy metal. Independent testing is needed!

The Australian Vaccination Network is planning on testing every currently-licensed vaccine for the presence of toxic heavy metals. Funding is required to perform these tests properly. Without proper independent tests, Australian children and adults may continue to be poisoned by the failure of the government to ensure the removal of toxic ingredients from vaccines.

This continued on for four more months. You can check in Doing The Rounds March, April and June 2008. Of course it’s entirely bogus. Whatever amount was needed was never conveyed. Clearly they were not consulting, or knew it was financially prohibitive. Whatever total was raised was also never conveyed. It was a crude grab for dollars. Nothing less.

Nobody ever heard of this “scheme”, any respondents to the request for research help, the proposed medical paper or a single cent related to it again. Nonetheless every AVN publication during and since 2006 have provided options for donating, getting slicker and more bold over time.

To the delight of AVN watchers however, Meryl Dorey did make one other attempt to keep the “vaccine testing” scam afloat. Heavily weighed down with donor dollars Dorey was off to the USA in October 2010. Donors had paid for multiple iMacs, iPads and countless flights around Australia. Why not a trip to good old USA? Why not indeed?

Exciting Times Ahead! gushed the October 2010 edition of Living Wisdom/AVN newsletter. Meryl was off to the Freedom For Family Wellness Summit in Washington. Just in case you were wondering what Meryl was doing jetting off to the USA almost 5 years after first promising to spend your money on Vaccine Testing you got this *:

Of course no feedback followed and no-one was kept up to date with what is essentially the last entry (to date) in the sorry saga of Meryl Dorey’s promised vaccine testing.

Just this one example indicates that the up to 25 breaches of The Charitable Fundraising Act uncovered by the OLGR were not “minor”. Indeed the most basic requirements have not been adhered to. No member has a clue where any money is, exactly what it has been spent on, or in this and other cases at what stage, and indeed how likely, the fruition of certain projects are.

All that is constant is the ongoing siphoning of money from a rapid turnover member base. Rather than accusing her critics of libel Ms. Dorey would do well to address the damning evidence that comes from her own hand. That is published under her own name.

In closing one can only be drawn again to consider the many claims of threats and harassment Dorey claims comes her way from Stop The AVN or members of various Skeptic groups. It’s a tired old line and few believe it. Her critics work from evidence not emotion.

However, if it were true I’d be worrying about the thousands of members schemed and lied to for financial gain.

Maybe someone really wanted vaccines tested.

* I’m indebted to an alert AVN watcher for knowing where to recover this text.

My personal request of Meryl Dorey

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Health, Immunisation, Media, Meryl Dorey, Scam, Science, Skeptic by

We (antivaccination lobbyists) are the real Australian skeptics

Meryl Dorey Jan. 4th, 2012

As many of you may have noticed, the rapidly rising pertussis epidemic in W.A. was reported by the ABC today.

This predictably sent Meryl Dorey of the AVN into histrionics. One of her ridiculous claims is that pertussis has increased “10,000%” with a 25% increase in vaccination. If you choose the figure of 332 from the very first year – 1991 – of compulsory reporting (which actually reflects sloppy reporting, gradual awareness and slow administrative changes) and compare it to today’s epidemic figure as Dorey does, it’s a dodgy trick.

A Stop the AVN member snapped this tweet from a cast iron flying pig that appeared on ABC News Breakfast

Because the “25% increase” comes from a 70% vaccination coverage in 1991 and a 95% coverage now. Strange, because a decade later in 2001, vaccination was only 70.6% and the figure of notified cases is 9,541. Sure we do have an epidemic figure for 2011 of over 36,000. But choosing a different year shows an increase of 3.8 times – not 10,000% – despite almost an identical increase in childhood vaccination.

I’ve laid it out all below. The entire method Meryl uses, and offered it back to her as actually showing a decrease of over 50% in 6 years. It’s her technique using her data sources. It’s rather silly as one cannot compare unrelated data sets. But in an attempt to draw some sense from Meryl on a fairly clear point I’ve (yet again) worked through the figures to seek a reply.

Meryl Dorey’s extraordinary claim about ABC journalistic integrity

I posted it twice today on the ABC News Breakfast Facebook page and also on Stop AVN. No “coward” stuff as Meryl alleged to Tiga Bayles. No “hiding behind anonymity” as Bayles suggested. No “suppression of free speech”. Just open and honest requests for a reply, based on evidence. Meryl’s claimed forte.

Originally I asked for a point by point response. Yet, I’m asking Meryl now, to respond to just one of my points. Just one. So far, there’s just silence. We shall see.

Summoning help, Dorey writes about: “…the rabid pro-vaxxers who would happily see all of our children dead or injured if they thought it would protect them or their families.”

Above Meryl you write:

…it’s all across Australia – why they chose WA I have no idea? (sic)

Well Meryl, whooping cough in WA has increased by almost 500% since 2009.

ABC News Breakfast

Also Meryl, WA has the lowest rate of child vaccination in the country. According to Julie Leask, senior research fellow at the National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases, “Delay might be due to [WA’s] adolescent vax policy”.

Julie Leask Tweet

As “Australia’s leading vaccination expert” I thought you’d know these things, Meryl.

Anyway, as on Facebook here’s the same request for a reply. All I’ve updated from Facebook is the NNDSS pertussis notification figures accessed now, at time of writing, and changed it to a first person address.

As I stressed Meryl, failure to address this surely indicates admission that your claim on pertussis is false. You may very well believe it, but if so, it must stack up to scrutiny. No agro, no bullying, just a golden opportunity to speak freely. So, excuses to not answer are thin on the ground.

I hope that’s not too annoying and I’d be delighted to have you. Fire when ready….

Here’s the original from Facebook.

Hi Meryl.

Could you address this point by point please. It’s the same post as above, but I reckon it’s about time you helped clear the air. If not, do I assume you agree that your claims on pertussis are invalid?

Thanks very much:

Contrary to your claims, the epidemic began in your backyard with low vaccination rates and spread out from there. From SMH, October 2010:

“The highest rates of so-called “conscientious objectors” to immunisation are in parts of the north coast – such as Byron Bay – where 12 per cent of children born between 2001 and 2007 were never immunised for any condition. […]

An epidemic of whooping cough in 2008 and 2009 began on the north coast. It quickly swept across the state driven by low vaccination rates in some wealthy parts of Sydney. Low-income areas in western Sydney also had less immunisation and were linked to outbreaks, Dr Menzies said.”

Now, let’s debunk your claim of high vaccination rates causally equating to high pertussis infection, using – not other information and techniques – but your actual tables and own technique.

You source your 95% from under 2 year olds in a 2006 table (as per Woodford slides on your blog). Also, here it is – http://i.imgur.com/w9I9g.jpg. This makes up one half of 1/18th of all age groups from your next source, a NNDSS table of whooping cough notifications: http://i.imgur.com/XOrUY.png

These are the 2 tables you sent to the NSW HCCC in September 2009 (see p. 6 http://www.mediafire.com/?dw32azbk97obakm) to whom you made the very same claim, in response to a complaint.

You only quote absolute figures about pertussis after all – not percentages, or age groups, or if a notification is asymptomatic, or was a tourist, or international flight attendant/maritime worker/business traveller/etc.

Here’s the NNDSS age groups showing the highest infection rate is between 40 – 65 years in 2007. Before the epidemic.
http://i.imgur.com/0eGTw.png

Although now, the three age groups up to 14 years show large increases, if we add up the notifications above this we see that most notifications still come from adults who have no immunity. It has waned and they need a booster. Their vaccination (booster) rate is 11.3% – not 95%. We need to increase this by about 7 times to reach herd immunity.
See p. 18 of Adult Immunisation Survey to confirm 11.3%.

You are using “unrelated data”. Just like the rise in driving licences is not causally related to the rise in road trauma, or that the best safety advice (according to your thinking) would thus be to abandon licence testing. You are wrong to quote these NNDSS figures in this way, because we know nothing about their vaccine status or immunity. All we know is that most are adults who have no immunity.

So, in effect they cannot be compared – but for the record I’ll continue on as if they can be compared.

We do know pertussis fatalities occur in the unvaccinated. Vaccinated can of course catch pertussis yet experience far milder symptoms and faster recovery. The claim that vaccination for pertussis is an impervious shield has never been made by health authorities. But the claim that it should be and if not, it’s useless, is being scurrilously made by yourself.

Okay, let’s use your method on another year.

We can see (using the same NNDSS data) that 2007 was the lowest year of infection on record since 1999 – http://i.imgur.com/XOrUY.png. It is also the 5th lowest year since records began.
Many discount the first recording years of 1991 and 1992 as very, very low anomalies that show a slowish start to new legislation requiring reporting of whooping cough. This would make 2007 the 3rd lowest ever. But I’m happy to take the 5th lowest year ever.

Rather different to your claim, no? But from your data source no less.

Now, looking again at your vaccination rate table (http://i.imgur.com/w9I9g.jpg) we see 2001 had only 70.6% vaccination. Infection was 9,541 Aussies. By 2007 – still using both your data tables we see 95% vaccination of babies and 4,864 cases of pertussis (http://i.imgur.com/XOrUY.png).

So, using your “technique” on merely another part of the same NNDSS table we can also claim vaccination more than halved pertussis notifications in a mere 6 years.

Your data, your method, the very same tables you quote from. Why then is this not your message? Why don’t you tell Aussies that these sources show a greater than 50% drop in whooping cough in just 6 years?

Because it’s selective statistical sleight of hand, is it not? We both can’t be right. It’s a simple trick – and I’m arguing that you know it is.

You are intentionally misleading Australians. This is why the NSW HCCC issued a public health warning that you “quote selectively from research to suggest that vaccination may be dangerous.”

Also, it’s strange that you cite 1990 vaccination coverage of 70% vs 2006 coverage of 95%, omitting to say it dipped to 61% in the mid 90’s and had only increased by 0.6% in the 10 years from 1991. Could this be because you want to create an impression? Perhaps.

It’s all in your table. Should you not address all figures? Why do you not address all figures?

Also, a good look at any NNDSS notification table shows rises and falls in infection. Contrary to your claim of a steady increase in infection as vaccine coverage rose, pertussis always rises and falls.

In fact the first 10 years when coverage went from 70% to 61% to 70.6% corresponds to notification levels similar to and greater than the second 10 years (http://i.imgur.com/XOrUY.png).

1997 is almost as high the 2008 epidemic year and vaccination coverage was under 70%. So, again we must ask – are you seeking to create an impression?

Epidemics are a different ball game. Once immunisation fell below a safe level in Byron Bay it took off like lots of little fires in low immunisation areas joining to create a massive bush fire.

So, low immunisation caused this outbreak not any problem with the vaccine. The answer? Get adults immunised and ensure babies get cocooned and immunised ASAP.

There’s nothing to stop me using the very same data and going around saying Australia had one of the lowest pertussis levels since notifications began, until your, Meryl Dorey’s lobbying against vaccination led to the 2008 epidemic (and cite Dr. Menzies, plus news reports etc to back me up).

But science doesn’t make leaps like that. We’d need better research. You really don’t use science, despite boasting of such – just tricks with scientific data hoping nobody will check. Please prove me wrong.

Let’s recap: I’ve used only your tables and your own argument style to a.) debunk your claims on pertussis vaccination = infection, b.) shown how it can be used to show a vaccine induced 50% plus reduction in only 6 years [2001 – 2007] and c.) pointed out some curious gaps in your coverage of the data that don’t seem to support your claims.

I look forward to your reply,

Thank you,

Paul Gallagher

(emailed to Meryl Dorey on Jan. 7th, 2012)