From the very beginning in 1994, the AVN has always been a membership and donation-driven organisation, relying on the support of our members… All memberships include a subscription (either hard copy or digital – your choice) to the AVN’s magazine, Living Wisdom. (Meryl Dorey – AVN president)
Is The Australian Vaccination Network Australia’s leading Charity Fraud?
In 2009 a small group of concerned Aussies began to raise dissent with health authorities about a group of vaccine conspiracy theorists known as The Australian Vaccination Network. It very quickly became apparent that something much darker was unfolding behind the locked and censored doors of the leader of this cult-like group, Meryl Wynn Dorey.
The AVN was like a black hole for money and their Charitable Fundraising Authority was the Event Horizon. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were sucked into their two bank accounts as promise after promise and scam after scam was presented to members. It seemed that every remote issue related to vaccination was cause for a new fund raising drive.
The vital need to test vaccines, the need to protect health workers from vaccination, the need to save school girls from HPV vaccines, the need to allow unvaccinated children into childcare, the need for $52,000 seemingly just to have and to hold from this day forth. The need to advertise about vaccines and autism, the need to help a family “on the run from vaccination”, a competition to beat a $500 donation, the need to fund legal fees for another family in court (over $100,000). On and on and on came the demands for money.
Yet no project ever eventuated. No family received so much as one cent. They were abandoned to the courts with the AVN nowhere in sight. No feedback on any of this money has ever been provided.
Then the little group discovered the AVN’s false use of business names. AVN members were paying to fund AVN material to be produced and passed to new mums under the auspices of certain businesses. Except the businesses had never heard of this and recoiled at the mention of the AVN. It was a complete scam to fleece members. Then came the “information packs” being sold. Except they were full of stolen copyright material. Once again, scam after scam going on and on with excuse after excuse.
The totality of fraud is mind boggling and after a couple of initial jaw droppers, I’ve only returned to writing about it recently.
As you’ll see in the video below the text at the top of this article is misleading. Dorey’s genius is in picking a passing demographic. Expectant parents will be drawn in to her scams, subscribe, join and then be overwhelmed by the reality of a new family or a new child. Few will chase up the one or two hundred dollars that nice lady took. Like all scams, embarrassment and red tape, with the possibility of more expense to get back much less inhibits victims from taking serious action.
Consider the 205 professional members I can glean from Meryl’s listing at present. One can pay up to $1,500 for a Gold Professional. It includes:
Gold Professional Membership to the Australian Vaccination includes a Subscription to Living Wisdom Magazine for 1 year
Now, this is curious. Some ordinary members have asked why there was only one magazine out of the nine promised from the start of 2011 to the middle of 2012. They were told if they weren’t so stupid and actually read the announcement Meryl published they’d know that “6 magazines per year” now just meant “6 magazines… when the AVN is good and ready”.
Yes the new Join Us page has no mention of any time limit you silly members. Then again it isn’t very clear in explaining that you may need to leave the subscription to your grandchildren:
Membership includes 6 editions of Living Wisdom magazine (either hard copy or digital or both if you choose) and there are discounts available for 12 and 18 issue memberships.
Eighteen issues?! At the present rate that’s going to take twenty seven years… and counting.
So, why are Gold Professionals still being sold yearly subscriptions as above? Indeed, what of professionals who bought annual or three year memberships because of the frequent and regular exposure promised in the Living Wisdom magazine? Gold and Silver Professionals were promised:
A Healthy Choices ad in Living Wisdom magazine for 3 issues – value $450.00
So whether professionals paid $275 for one year or $700 for three years, let’s check what they relied on in making that decision.
A free listing for your business or practice in Living Wisdom magazine and on the AVN website.
6 issues of Living Wisdom magazine in the printed format. At one issue per 18 months that’s going to take nine years.
The magazine covers the most up-to-date news happening around the world involving vaccination.
6 issues of Living Wisdom magazine in the digital format
Digital magazines are the way of the future, with a simple click of a button you can have a magazine downloaded to your computer to read at your leisure.
A link will be emailed to you every time we have a new magazine ready for you to read. All you will need to do is click on it and you will have all our great articles at your fingertips.
10 free issues of Living Wisdom online magazine to give away to clients or colleagues.
A 10% discount on books, CDs, DVDs, etc. from the AVN shop. AVN Books, DVD’s and CD’s etc are available for free all over the internet or at much less price than the AVN want.
Advance notice of seminars, webinars and workshops around the country and, in many cases, a membership discount.
Access to the AVN website. This contains pages and pages of great news articles on vaccinations and childhood immunizations collected over many years.
Discounts and premiums from some of our other Professional Members. These include specials on everything from homoeopathic and chiropractic visits to purchases at retail shops. 1 occupational therapist, one physiotherapist, one Bowen therapist, one herbalist, one TCM practitioner etc, etc… and 135 anti-vaccination chiropractors.
Arguably, there are plenty of reasons for victims to not want to draw much attention to themselves after being tripped up by self-confessed “rabid, idiotic fringe dwellers”.
Dorey has at least ceased using the title “Australia’s leading vaccination expert” as she amusingly used to bill herself.
But Australia’s leading charity fraudster is sounding pretty good about now.
Paul; your writings are amusing, but you have only 183 followers! My 14 year old daughter has three times that on a silly facebook page!
In the spirit of genuine laziness and as one of the “waspish witch-hunters of political medicine”, I’ve reproduced my response to a comment on the About page written by a giant in the art of selective topic pertinence.
Keith. Mate!
Your daughter has a bigger number than mine. On Facebook! Well, I’m sure that every one is a dedicated and true friend engaged in a deeply meaningful personal relationship. Or… maybe quality isn’t what matters, if I’m to take the meaning.
Yes I agree chiropractic will be around for years to come. Chiropractors will tweak and change to keep in line with shifts in superstition and trends in gullibility to ensure they maintain a large slice of the health scam market. They will also fight and defend like skilled con artists and fraudsters to hold onto the empty title of “doctor”, being only too aware of the psychology that drives the gullible to their doors. Mimicry of actual medicine and misuse of technology is vital to the illusion.
Also I agree on the history. Palmer certainly wasn’t the first person to rattle and dance, poke and prod whilst intoning godly laws about the human body and human health. He was however the first to market his touchy brand of magic as “science” and made liberal use of the most modern tools at his disposal.
I note your journey to last century to exhume the Wilk case. A splendid diversion. Yet since then, not only was your daughter born but chiropractic shifted into a fundamentalist ideology that denies every rule of medical science and the very laws of nature itself. Of its own accord it has become the “go to discipline” for glowing appraisals of alternatives to medicine and solemn condemnation of conventional medicine.
More so, it has again of its own accord inserted itself in serious health debates way beyond the beliefs ensconced behind the battlements of its extra-dimensional reality. The vaccination issue. Pre natal, neo natal and extended post natal proclamations designed solely to scare vulnerable and gullible new parents to sign those lucrative “treatment contracts”. Paediatric chiropractic – perhaps more amusing than you realise if not for the conclusive demonstrations of inefficacy.
To my knowledge the only scheme to actually provoke symptoms of Munchausens Syndrome By Proxy it is responsible for creating nervous wrecks and genuine psychological patients of innocent parents. The invention of “syndrome” after “syndrome” and the terrifying warnings of what awaits those who do not succumb to regular “maintenance”.
SCIENTISTS spent $374,000 recently asking people to inhale lemon and lavender scents to see if it helped their wounds to heal. It didn’t.
The National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the US also outlaid $700,000 to show that magnets are no help in treating arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome or migraines.
The centre spent $390,000 to find that old Indian herbal remedies do not control type 2 diabetes and $406,000 to prove coffee enemas do not cure pancreatic cancer.
It’s the same story around the globe. One by one, weirdo treatments are being exposed as bunkum.
Why are people so gullible, handing over their hard-earned cash for unproven alternative therapies? […]
Latest research says dietary supplements and megavitamins, acupuncture and chiropractic are of little use – and may even be harmful. […]
Chiropractors have now been discredited by every reputable medical organisation from the Royal Society down, yet people still spend up on these bone-crunchers and state and federal governments seem unwilling to shut them down.
Recently I reported on two experts on alternative medicine who reviewed all the evidence and concluded chiropractic was “worthless”.
“Harmful, worthless, discredited by every reputable medical organisation from the Royal Society down”. Keith, mate! And that’s coming from proponents of alternatives to medicine.
Like all magical claims chiropractic has been sternly examined and found wanting. Claims of efficacy crushed under the simple application of RCTs and its claims of safety evaporate before a monumental collection of research into death, permanent injury and disability or injury and complications with frequent cases of lengthy recovery. To be sure this happens in medicine also but to those already on death’s doorstep, significantly ill, disabled or in need of life saving surgery. And they are well informed of the risks that apply to a strictly evidence based choice.
That chiropractors scheme and trick people who are absolutely perfectly healthy – indeed many fatalities in robust health, the prime of life – to believe they need attention is itself a grave insult to common altruism and a thunderously immoral application of psychology. That healthy and vital people can be killed or injured and experience levels of morbidity that equal high impact vehicle accidents is a statement about chiropractic no-one can ignore.
Again addressing your mine’s bigger than yours argument I note the “fast-dwindling group of activists” reference. Of course nothing could be more inaccurate. Advocacy for science based medicine and skeptical defence and examination of consumer rights in health and beyond, is at an all time high. But it is not quantity that matters, and your obsession with quantity reveals your lack of appreciation for quality.
It is evidence that matters. Including evidence explaining what drives the interest in so many health scams we have seen rise up of late. The search for Truth is indeed vital, but skeptics and other scientists will accept the evidence as it comes. This happens to include that which explains the manipulation of individuals to believe the equivalent of magic is fact. Should the evidence indicate an increase in the future this too will be sought for further elucidation.
To comment on evidence gleaned from the methods that can be trusted to inform us of our world is not to be waging war. Much less a “self created turf war” as you put it. Of course people will continue to believe in fallacy and illusion. Magic has been a feature of our species for countless thousands of years, yet today we can discern the mechanics by which false displays are executed and the primary role of the believer themselves.
Many things will persist with health scams. Wars, cults, belief in the supernatural and our disposition to internalise superstitious belief to name a few. People are hard wired to believe in fantasy. Yet in a democracy I would not have it any other way for it reflects on my freedom. Your real concern should be with a.) the lack of evidence for chiropractic and b.) the ultimate goal of regulators.
Seeking to impede exploitation of fellow community members when evidence irrefutably confirms this, is the democratic right of skeptics and science advocates. When perpetrators of scams confirm malignant intent by misrepresenting evidence it becomes a moral obligation – a duty to our species.
Of course, with real freedom we find expression and belief should not be inhibited. In this light the freedom to be stupid is your democratic right.
I too have found great amusement in this exchange.
I fear however, your return to the lives of schoolgirls on Facebook is perhaps well justified.
An anti-vaccine lobbyist who contends that children should die from illness to prevent the “genetic deterioration” she believes is being caused by vaccination, made front page headlines today.
Judy Wilyman argues that vaccines contain proteins and poisons that have a “synergistic, latent and cumulative effect” ultimately causing autism, arthritis, anaphylaxis, ADHD, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, asthma, etc, etc. This generation of children is “the unhealthiestyet” whilst no evidence that vaccines prevent disease actually exists – anywhere – she has asserted.
41% of today’s children are “chronically ill” primarily with auto immune and neurological diseases that arise from vaccines, Wilyman claims, suggesting that “good science would be investigating all possible causes of these diseases“. Yet whilst Wilyman is well known for drawing conclusions from remote correlation and blaming conspiracies for the absence of proof, today it was the latter obsession that drew journalistic interest.
So corrupt is the pharmaceutical industry, she has long reasoned, that to support vaccination must involve financial incentives. Any claim that vaccines actually do prevent disease is a simple lie. It would be “a crime against humanity” to provide incentives for immunisation and the media (who have pharmaceutical interests) seek to coerce and educate the public through fear campaigns involving stories about children ill or dying from vaccine preventable disease.
UOW researcher targets grieving parents ran the subheading of the Illawarra Mercury. Wilyman is the student of AVN defender and anti-vaccination supporter Dr. Brian Martin, professor of social sciences at UOW. Beginning with a comprehensive rundown of recently made accusations against parents who had lost their daughter to pertussis, it continued to a double page spread.
Judy Wilyman, a PhD student and former Illawarra high school teacher, questioned whether Toni and David McCaffery had been paid to promote the whooping cough vaccine.
Ms Wilyman said the State Government was using four-week-old Dana’s death and “the mantra of seeing sick babies gasping for air” to push the vaccine.
Dana died of whooping cough, or pertussis, in March 2009. Her parents have since worked with health authorities to raise awareness about the infection and gave permission for their story to be used on a NSW Health Department campaign. […]
[Toni McCaffery said] “Dana is not an anecdote. We do not receive money for warning people about whooping cough. That is the most disgusting allegation.
“The money we received [from] the Australian Skeptics we donated to research to save babies from pertussis. Government has not ‘used us’ to promote vaccines in recent media stories. We agree to such interviews in our own time without any agenda other than to give people the warning we did not receive.”
Mrs McCaffery said Dana’s story appeared in a government brochure because “parents have a right to be warned about whooping cough and given accurate information”.
“We did not get that warning. It is up to parents if they want to vaccinate. It is also up to any parent to go public and speak to media. Do not use us against other families.”
The Mercury contacted Ms Wilyman who has so far declined to comment.
It was also another blow to the public face of the AVN who were correctly reported as hosting Wilyman’s letter to the Australian Human Rights Commissioner in which she also referred to the “mantra” of seeing sick babies gasping for air.
In W.A. in 2010 Wilyman used a 60 year old quote to suggest that infant and childhood mortality is a necessary price to pay in preventing the diseases she believes arise through interaction of genes, the environment and timing. By stopping vaccination which is switching on otherwise dormant disease-causing genes, and allowing vaccine preventable deaths we could improve “the overall health” of children, Judy Wilyman believes.
She informed her audience:
In 2010 it is known that environmental factors can switch genes on, that would otherwise remain dormant. This is called predisposition to disease. Resulting in epidemics of genetic diseases. Things like autism, diabetes and asthma.
I’ve got a quote from Macfarlane Burnet… 60 years ago. Macfarlane Burnet said:
In future years we may have some hard thinking to do. It may be that we will have to realise that mortality in infancy and childhood in the past has been the necessary price that had to be paid to prevent genetic deterioration and that some of our modern successes in preventative and curative medicine, may on the longest view be against the best interests of the state.
In the 21st century it is known that genes and environment and timing interact together in the occurrence of disease. The overall health of children in the 21st century would appear to be supporting Burnet’s prophecy.
Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet was a Nobel prize winner and Australian of the year born in 1899. A brilliant virologist and immunologist the Burnet Institute in Melbourne is named after him. It is almost beyond belief that in the same talk Wilyman uses influenza as her example of a disease for which the vaccine is more dangerous. Could she possibly know of Burnet’s work in advancing influenza immunisation and how it still influences progress today?
His search for vaccines, particularly for influenza and massive inoculation studies (20,000 subjects) during the second world war, earned him global recognition. Under his guidance progress on polio, pox viruses, herpes, Murray Valley encephalitis and myxomatosis were added to this contribution. Simply put the man was a giant in the progress and necessity of immunisation with vaccines.
This post has no chance of doing Burnet justice other than to highlight Wilyman’s calculated deception in her abuse of research. It is enough that the “mandatory and coercive” monitoring of vaccination status – the “crime against humanity” Wilyman and Dorey ignorantly rail against – owes no small amount to Burnet’s input into keeping records on individual vaccination history.
Also in today’s Mercury is a moving open letter from Toni and David McCaffery. It happens to include reference to the reality of encouraging parents not to vaccinate:
We moved to the Northern Rivers to bring our family up in this pristine environment. However, we did not realise this was a hotbed for contagious and potentially deadly viruses.
Our sweet Dana is the innocent victim of dangerously low levels of awareness and even lower vaccination rates. Instead of her photo winning baby competitions, she is the tragic face of a Whooping Cough (Pertussis) epidemic and sparked a national vaccination debate. […]
Please learn from our past. Vaccination was introduced because there is no medicine to stop these bacteria that killed and maimed thousands of children. Now, these third-world diseases are on the rise again. In NSW it is Whooping Cough. In Queensland it is Measles.
Do you want to live in a country where we are too scared to have friends or family visit our babies or we won’t leave our homes?
As has become a brief tradition of late we might consult the work of Judy’s supervisor Dr. Brian Martin. Dr. Martin accuses opponents of the AVN of launching “attacks”, even inventing his own list of “attack modes”. He writes in the conclusion of When Public Health Debates Become Abusive:
Debates over health-related matters are often extremely bitter. Usually, though, more attention is given to the content — the facts, which position is correct, and policy implications — than to the way a debate is carried out. Yet the methods used are important. Heavy-handed and abusive techniques can discourage participation and distort outcomes, affecting health policies and practices. […]
Science, as a model form of truth-seeking, is based on rational assessment of evidence. Health policy disputes can only partly follow the science model because they also involve differences in values. […]
The question then arises: what can be done to shift debates towards more participatory, respectful modes of engagement? […] The next question is, what should be done about those who engage in personal abuse and who attempt to silence opponents? A first step is to expose and criticise these sorts of methods, especially when used by those on one’s own side
Certainly then, more and more of Dr. Martin’s work can be seen as applying not to those who raise dissent about the privileged status of the AVN, but to members of the antivaccination movement itself.
The University of Wollongong did respond, striving to distance itself from Ms. Wilyman. I have no issue with their general position although I would hope immediate steps have been taken about Wilyman signing the letter to the AHRC as PhD Candidate. This of course is not the only example of egregious conduct on Wilyman’s part bolstered by her affiliation with UOW. From The Mercury:
The UOW issued a statement distancing itself from Ms Wilyman’s comments.
“Articles and associated comments published by Judy Wilyman on the internet, on vaccination issues, are her own personal views and not those of the university,” the statement said.
The larger problem includes the academic succor given to the evidence denial on her part, the extensive involvement of Dr. Martin that raises a clear conflict of interest and the ethical and moral obligation that UOW has to public health. To support and legitimise antivaccination propaganda is not a reflection of academic integrity. To continue to label Wilyman a “researcher” is absurd. She is a reviewer, admitting to “scouring peer reviewed research for ten years”, simply twisting selected material to her own aims.
As with parents who claim to have “researched” the science of vaccination and decide to deny vaccination, questions must be asked about evaluation. Exactly how does one conclude vaccination is entirely dangerous or that it is responsible to deny ones children protection if they have actually engaged in “research” as we understand the term?
What if Wilyman been informed by the university that claims of vaccine induced diseases have been utterly debunked? That if she wants to persist arguing that aluminium adjuvants and ethyl-mercury are causing autism and asthma she must produce compelling evidence? Where would she be today? Clearly still blaming conspiracies for the lack of that evidence but not under the banner of “PhD researcher at the University of Wollongong”. This lends false credence to misinformation and the university must take it’s responsibility to academic truth as absolutely paramount.
Finally we get more Meryl Dorey channeling Brian Martin these days. The main article notes:
AVN president Meryl Dorey said the McCafferys had chosen to go public and had to expect comments from both sides of the debate. “If one side has the right to say something and the other doesn’t, then we are not a democratic society,” she said.
Let’s check that. “Something to say” can include just about anything. For someone who labels her critics as fascists, pond scum and communists with a vendetta Ms. Dorey seems to hold a strange view of both “commentary” and democracy.
Yet again this looking glass model of dissent and attack can be clearly identified.
If you happen to pop past the AVN Facebook page you might notice this entry:
Pretty straightforward. A post with three comments. The three comments are…
Oh. So there seems to be a comment missing. In fact it was the original comment, and here it is:
A paying member was censored. In fact their comment was deleted so that a fairly basic request to have emails answered could be hidden. The issue at play is that the AVN owe over $180,000 in magazines for which they have already taken fees. 11 magazines have not been delivered. Already 2 this year on the back of 5 last year. Yet this member appears to have sent at least two emails requesting clarification and they have clearly been ignored. Still the AVN website censors the fact it is in trouble. It is brazenly seeking new members claiming:
Membership includes 6 editions of Living Wisdom magazine (either hard copy or digital or both if you choose) and there are discounts available for 12 and 18 issue memberships.
If you pay extra as a “professional member” you get a “free listing” in the AVN magazine that does not exist.
In the conclusion of Making Censorship Backfire, co-authored by AVN supporter and full member, Dr. Brian Martin, we read:
An examination of cases where censorship backfires provides some valuable lessons in how to make this happen. The first important point is that the censorship should be exposed to audiences who will be outraged by the act of censorship itself or by the disproportion between the act (speaking out) and the censoring response (a heavy-handed attack). It is essential to have solid documentation, which means that only some cases of censorship can be exposed in this way.
It is important not to be intimidated. Censorship is often backed up by threats of what will happen if those who are censored do not acquiesce. It can be rewarding to see these threats as potential opportunities. By exposing the threats, the backlash can be made all the stronger. Targets of censorship need to be prepared for further attack – including personal invective – should they challenge the censorship.
It is unlikely wide exposure of this would help the member Dorey has ripped off. The information quoted above is interesting in that the best response would be to politely reply arguing that Meryl has had ample time to respond. Furthermore you have serious concerns about the AVN selling magazine subscriptions when overdue issues are now clearly unlikely to eventuate. This raises questions of Fair Trading and advertising under false pretences. It would be in the interests of all concerned if members could discuss this in an open forum fashion.
Of course, as has happened many times before, this member would be banned (if that hasn’t happened already) and the entry deleted. What follows is touched upon in the quote from Dr. Martin above. Dorey writes scathing and vicious reviews of individuals and her loyal members swoop in to attack them on other social media. Claims of being threatened and bullied and having to hire security to defend herself from bullies who don’t believe in free speech, health choices and your right to choose gradually take on a life of their own. The “backfire” works to Meryl’s advantage.
Dr. Martin’s writings on censorship are part of his much larger body of work on dissent, including struggles for autonomy and democratic rights for citizens oppressed by malignant governments. His work often has an artistic choreographed appeal that whilst interesting reveals an untested work in progress.
What is of interest to this article is his defence of antivaccination lobbyists censoring information in order to convey a fallacious and sometimes dangerous message of authority and accuracy to unsuspecting readers. As I suggested recently extremely serious questions can be asked about Dr. Martin’s moral and ethical conviction. This is only reinforced in finding that altruism is not a feature of his work yet saying and doing what one wants, when one wants regardless of the consequences, are features of those he willingly assists.
Muddying the waters further are his attacks upon community volunteers who have themselves raised dissent. The failure of government regulators to challenge what is a litany of legislative transgression, charity scams and antisocial behaviour by Australia’s so-called Australian Vaccination Network is undeniable. Devoted to attacking conventional medicine and vaccination, the group continued unimpeded for 17 years until individual activists raised dissent with government agencies.
Dr. Martin holds his PhD in physics but does not work in any related area. Apart from being president of Whistleblowers Australia, he is presently Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong. Thus use of the term “Doctor” is quite misleading in qualifying his skill as a social scientist. It is unclear if he has any requisite understanding of ethics or moral responsibility as it pertains to social sciences and indeed, society as a whole.
One may venture to suggest it is of course unsurprising then, that Martin also writes about “dissident scientists” who work in dissent of what he terms “paradigms”, disagreeing as to what theories are correct. We are left only to ponder how a physicist has found himself well versed in the mechanics of “scientific dissent” whilst at the same time defending the denial of evidence as if it were dissent.
In startling misunderstanding of the scientific method and the value of evidence he notes incorrectly in Grassroots Science:
Dissent is central to science: the formulation of new ideas and the discovery of new evidence is the driving force behind scientific advance. At the same time, certain theories, methods, and ways of approaching the world – often called paradigms – are treated as sacrosanct within the professional scientific community. Those who persist in challenging paradigms may be treated not as legitimate scientists but as renegades or outcasts. […]
For example, there are many individuals who have developed challenges and alternatives to relativity, quantum mechanics, and the theory of evolution, three theories central to modern science. […]
Western medical authorities at first rejected acupuncture as unscientific but, following demonstrations of its effectiveness, eventually accepted or tolerated it as a practice under the canons of western biomedicine, rejecting its associations with non-Western concepts of the body. […]
At the same time, some mainstream medical practitioners and researchers are hostile to alternative health. This is apparent in pronouncements that taking vitamin supplements is a waste of money or in police raids on alternative cancer therapists, the raids being encouraged by mainstream opponents.
Many proponents of alternative health say that mainstream medical science is distorted by corporate, government, and professional pressures. In this context, grassroots medical science presents itself as being truer to the ethos of science as a search for truth unsullied by vested interests.
Whilst one is grateful to Dr. Martin for seeking to identify certain dynamics it is apparent that his reinterpretation of the facts serves evidence denial and pseudoscience very well. Arguably “dissent” as he terms it here may well prove valuable to science. But one might venture to add it’s primary value has been in provoking the need to examine dissenting theories such that they ultimately bring about their own demise.
He has misrepresented vitamin therapy and acupuncture, falsely accused scientists of holding “paradigms” sacrosanct and completely ignored the value of randomised controlled trials in revealing the validity or not of “outcasts” theories. I think it’s fair to accept the final paragraph as an observation, whilst also noting it’s inexcusable to omit that the evidence favours this as a distorted conspiracy. Alternatives to medicine have flourished in Australia, crept into educational institutes and been subsidised by health insurance for many years.
It would be pointless to continue with examples, which go as far as criticising the dismissal of anecdotal evidence by mainstream science. For the purpose of this article this would include vaccines causing autism, SIDS, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and diabetes. I have chosen those examples deliberately. Whilst The Australian Immunisation Handbook specifically states research has constantly replicated no link Martin is supervising a PhD student conducting a literature review, but no research, who continually states vaccines have been shown to cause these conditions.
What is clear from the errors above and the Grassroots Science article in general is that Dr. Martin either has no grasp on the concept of evidence and it’s importance to science, or seeks to misrepresent application of the scientific method to the extent of devaluing it to the status of merely discerning an opinion. One cannot ignore the parallels between the tone of his writing and that of his PhD student Judy Wilyman.
Many have sought to have Brian Martin answer how he can ignore the devastating impact of his support of the AVN. As I noted recently this goes as far as making excuses for Ms. Dorey’s refusal to engage in scientific discourse with those who seek to challenge many of her claims. A substantial amount of his work claims to expose censorship and the tactics of those who refuse to accept “dissident” or “grassroots scientists”.
Thus it is deeply troubling that he defends Ms. Dorey’s censoring of material. More troubling is his making excuses for Dorey’s refusal to accept to enter into discourse as a “grassroots scientist”. Yet most bizarre is his championing of Dorey actually censoring material to sabotage engagement as a “grassroots scientist” – and actually blame this on those who were censored despite them offering Dorey an avenue to provide evidence.
Consider this recent censorship by Dorey. It served to censor the truth and defend several demonstrable errors. In Martin’s view Dorey has no need to engage because people have “attacked” her. Despite this being a self serving interpretation, what it demonstrates is the perpetuation of misinformation. This is exactly why individuals have raised concern about overlap as an academic, an advocate for truth in evidence, the supervisor of Judy Wilyman and defender of Meryl Dorey.
This post below appeared on AVN’s Facebook page with the following comments. The first from Dorey makes the head spin. There is only one type b strain of Haemophilus influenzae (called Hib). Yet she informs readers that the Hib vaccine caused an increase in diagnosis of other types of Hib caused by yet even more Hib strains. Later she mentions “Hib (all strains)”:
Later this reply was added:
And yes, it was part of the thread:
Now if you pop back you’ll find it has been deleted and the other poster to take issue with Ms. Dorey’s creativity has now taken issue with Tristan’s rather divisive “us” reference.
The individual censored is also a member of the AVN and yes, is also wondering whatever happened to the magazines promised so long ago. Is this honestly how paying members are treated by Meryl Dorey? If so then one must begin to wonder exactly how Dorey and Dr. Martin are so certain that anonymous threats apparently come from people who have not been schemed, dismissed and discarded.
Censorship, fraud, and publication biases are ways in which the availability of research data can be distorted. A different process is distortion of the perception of research data rather than distortion of the data itself. In other words, data is openly available, but efforts are made to shape people’s perception of it.
There appears to be little doubt of a significant conflict of interest. Martin is well aware of and extremely deft with tactics used to deflect the problems noted above. He is defending censorship and fraud at the AVN and his student has an exclusive history of publication bias. More recently Martin himself has distorted data by selectively using a misrepresentation of usual chatter on the Stop The AVN Facebook page. The aim – as he himself offers above – is to shape the public perception of those who challenge Ms. Dorey in such a way as to vilify and defame them.
As time passes I’ll endeavour to look closer at Martin’s work attacking those who essentially accept the overwhelming evidence on vaccination. Already we can dismiss his defence of impartiality. Yet so blatant and unethical is his present state of evidence denial a close look at parallels between defending antivaccination groups and his earlier work is warranted.
Given that Judy Wilyman and Meryl Dorey rely almost entirely on imagined conflicts of interest, this very conflict of interest within a conflict of interest to bolster manufactured dissent from outright denial and censorship is beginning to look very tacky indeed.
I do hope the University of Wollongong have a clear conscience.
The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children, and we are all letting it happen
Senator Bob Carr (Foreign Affairs Minister), Mick Palmer (former Federal Police Chief), Nicholas Cowdery (former Director: NSW Public Prosecutions), Geoff Gallop (ex W.A. Premier)
On April 3rd this year Aussies woke to news of “the most significant challenge to drug laws in decades”, as reported by Fairfax media below. Or download MP3 [41sec]:
Interesting then that Bronwyn Bishop looks set to sit on the Front Bench of Australia’s next Federal Government. In 2007 Bishop chaired a House of Representatives Senate Inquiry into the impact of illicit drug use on families. Dreamed up by John Winston Howard to give an airing to the extreme right wing anti-drug movement whilst simultaneously heaping shame upon the brilliant minds driving the policy of Harm Minimisation, it was an appalling example of a predetermined agenda.
For many years prior it was axiomatic to those involved with illicit drug policy and the impact of organised crime that prohibition was a failure. The War on Drugs is a war on people and it surprised no-one that Bishop entitled her all singing all dancing moral panic final report “The Winnable War”. It was rejected by every D&A policy, funding and health service of any standing. Indeed by many more with pretty much no standing.
Drug Free Australia (DFA) and a range of conservative anti-drug lobbyists held it in high regard. Ann Bressington, who squeezes anti-vaccination, anti-fluoride, anti-Harm Minimisation and Festival of Light fundamentalism into her day, was delighted. Then again, Ann verbally coached a witness through his submission to say he “escaped harm minimisation, not addiction”.
Bishop had given succor to one of their fundamentalist favourites, and on the same day attempted to batter one of their sworn enemies for his devotion to health policy, science and evidence. Perhaps I shall recount one exchange with the G.P. who used naltrexone, sedatives and the bible in bringing about the death of 25 of his heroin dependent patients in 20 months [summary]. Now an “expert” in naltrexone related fatality with Drug Free Australia (I kid you not) he said then:
I was interested to discover that the actual historical site of Sodom and Gomorrah has recently been found in Israel. On the bottom right of this slide are pictures of sulphur balls that have been found there. So consequences matter, and they can destroy a civilisation quickly, as we saw with yesterday’s tsunami and so on.
This slide shows a tree with snakes, which to my mind is a lot of the stories that you hear from harm minimisation. Methadone, syringe giveaways, injecting rooms, medical cannabis, heroin trials all those are catered for by the same people. But, on the other side of the tree, you have all the downsides, the side effects, which are not talked about in this culture.
It is of extreme concern to me that medical science which is known and understood overseas is not understood and not talked about and given no airplay whatsoever in this culture.
These are old slides I made several years ago, charting a lot of these behaviours: this is condoms and the AIDS risk, charting the parallel between condoms and AIDS deaths.
Ms GEORGE (Senate committee member): Sorry, I do not understand. What are you saying – condom protection and AIDS deaths are correlated?
Dr Reece: Yes, condom sales and AIDS deaths. I am saying that there is a statistical association between the two.
Under Keeping Up The War On Drugs Bishop wrote in her report:
A significant amount of damage to families and the community has been avoided by the government’s uncompromising approach to the trafficking and use of illicit drugs. Drug industry elites who have repeatedly claimed that the ‘war on drugs’ has failed are simply wrong. […]
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and its partners have been highly successful in limiting the damage of illicit drugs in Australia. The number and weight of detections for selected illicit drugs are generally higher than before 2000…
Increasing drug seizures reflect increasing drug traffic. Increasing traffic reflects increasing and increasingly varied demand. Such demand indicates more use and we already knew more use was due to ineffective tactics globally. The snide term “drug industry elites” still has life in certain circles. Essentially it demeaned those who dealt in evidence alone and advised accordingly.
Australia endured the rejection of science by politicians for the very tenuous reason of hopefully securing votes. At the States and Territories health ministers’ conference in Cairns in 1997, the issue of a heroin trial – the latest step in Harm Reduction to show exciting success in Europe – was raised. Ultimately Michael Wooldridge, four states and the ACT voted for trials to begin. The result was 6-3 in favour.
Whilst credit is due for his continued funding of needle exchange programmes, Howard had not just a conservative eye but a retributive one. The success of Harm Minimisation under the previous government left him keen to change the essence of a policy that had seen Australia emerge as world leaders. Thus we copped his Tough On Drugs approach – a dismal failure. He immediately cancelled the trial on advice from his Evangelical adviser and first Chair of the ANCD, Major Brian Watters.
Watters was already making enemies in the ANCD itself, for merging his Salvation Army role with what should have been best practice. A Drug Free Australia Board member, Watters’ disdain for science and academics was manifest. He had spoken on an episode of Four Corners with John Howard:
WATTERS: I mean, the Salvation Army’s been doing it for 120 years. No good these academics telling us it doesn’t work.
HOWARD: And I feel in very safe hands, with the police on the one side and the Salvation Army on the other.
WATTERS: It’s the law and the prophets.
HOWARD: It’s the law and the prophets. That’s right.
So it continued. The “law and the prophets” looking after in-need Aussies. One of the most used phrases in the bible, it’s most significant aspect is that Jesus came to “fulfill” The Law and The Prophets. Then we got the faith healers and the purists. The Evangelists and the righteous. Anti-harm minimisation groups arose – DFA itself funded by [then] Health Minister, Tony Abbott. Others re-emerged keen to sink the conservative boot in to such sinful wickedness as clean needles, condoms and honest, open health education.
In 2007 The World Federation Against Drugs firmed it’s resolve in Sweden in striking mockery of the NGO Forum at the 50th Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Human Rights, Harm Reduction and Health Responses we heard from [then] UNODC Executive Director, Antonio Maria Costa, would be crucial to future global policy initiatives. Apparently not if conservatives could help it. Populated, perhaps unsurprisingly, by a number of biblical fundamentalists, evangelists and young earth creationists one might appreciate the uncompromising stance and anti-rights position that WFAD entertain.
DRUG Free Australia may not be a household name but its leaders claim a role in repelling further moves towards what they see as the evil of drug decriminalisation.
It fears the ”tough on drugs” regime of the Howard government is unravelling, with the abandonment of the school drug education strategy and declining use of community advertising campaigns. […]
‘Our view is that Australia’s illicit drug policy is too lenient, sending mixed messages to our youth,” [Jo Baxter] said.
Here’s a picture drawn by a child attending a DFA school education strategy (Hint: be drug free, go to heaven). Interestingly the Education Department in S.A. has a different view to Baxter on the matter. That article mentions a member of Youth for a Drug Free Australia, who is also head of The Recovered Drug Users League SA, Ryan Hidden.
He just happens to be the chap Ann Bressington coached to lie to the House of Representatives. But later Jo had him chatting to kiddies in school against Education Department instructions. A few weeks earlier he chose to dob in tobacconists the very day after Ann Bressington’s “bong ban” came into force.
Now… where did I read “mixed messages”?
Jo Baxter is Executive Officer of Drug Free Australia, Spokesperson for the S.A. “campus” of the evangelist driven Delgarno Institute is also vice-president of the World Federation Against Drugs. If you want an attack on human rights driven policy in Australia, Drug Free Australia is the group. If you want a “Heads Up People!” attack on the Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose main report also concludes prohibition has failed, the Delgaro Institute is the place.
But if you want to read an attack on the host of eminent Australians who produced the report raised in Parliament last April 3rd, Jo Baxter will even pop on her WFAD V.P. hat. So what do we get? Labelling the report compiled by 24 former senior state and federal politicians, experts in drug policy and public health, young people, a leading businessman, legal and former law enforcement officers, as “lacking substance” Jo begins:
The so-called ‘high level’ report on illicit drugs, suggesting that decriminalisation across the board, will solve Australia’s drug problems, lacks sound scientific basis and credibility and, as such should be discounted. The following a (sic) just some of the reasons:
First, it is not the ‘War on Drugs’ that has failed, but rather, it’s the failure of Australia’s Illicit Drugs Policy to satisfactorily address primary prevention.
For over 25 years Australians have endured a policy of Harm Minimisation, which has left a ‘train wreck’ in families and communities across the nation. […]
They have failed to recognised that, between 2000 and 2006, Australia had a ‘Tough on Drugs Strategy’ and our illicit drug use rates dropped significantly. The trend is now turning around. […]
Which is it I wonder? A Harm Minimisation train wreck or a Tough on Drugs victory? Harm Minimisation arrested the spread of HIV, Hepatitis B and harmful drug using practices. The surge in heroin use is well documented as due to immigration of a S.E. Asian demographic able to import large quantities and sell at reduced rates. If prohibition was working initially this would not have happened.
Instead criminal cartels blossomed and later shifted to manufacturing their own product indoors. If prohibition worked that would never have happened. It seems to me like Tough On Drugs actually oversaw the rise of many new classes of drugs and an actual shift in the drug using habits of our community more in line with criminal profit.
As always Harm Minimisation and Reduction have functioned to manage the fallout from prohibition’s failure.
Effectively Jo’s article is a repeat of what the Drug Free Australia mantra has been, no matter what the title, debate, paper or conference. A synopsis of what Bronwyn Bishop concocted in 2007. A reflection on their bogus research on Supervised Injecting Facilities, Needle Syringe Programmes, Medicinal Cannabinoid research and so on.
The global Drug Free movement is to illicit drug policy in the community, what creationism is to evolution in the science curriculum.
Given the demonstrable failures of prohibition, we are still reticent to discuss this issue vociferously. Clearly it is a topic that can be easily misinterpreted, accidentally misrepresented or used to cast mischievous accusations toward those who mount firm evidence backed arguments. Much of the confusion stems from the fear that drug use under relaxed laws will equate to greater use. Often this is expressed as if one believes use will be compulsory.
Yet needle provision did not lead to increased use. The return on investment is four dollars for every one dollar invested. As needles are returned potential virus reserves are removed from the community. Users reciprocate with services learning to manage health and exploit opportunity to cease using. New users are resourced and educated to develop the means to never risk cross infection. The entire community benefits and vital dollars are not spent dealing with preventable problems.
Still, the false belief that use is encouraged this way persists in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Similarly the notion of deregulation is seen as a “free for all”, quite bizarrely likened to alcohol. Perhaps understandably challenges to drug prohibition evoke images of the end of alcohol prohibition. With this comparison comes the assumption all drugs will be readily available and an integral part of culture. Businesses will provide and houses will be stocked. The roads will be full of talkative, super-horny, hallucinating, dozing, dancing, slurring and very hungry drivers heading for pizza.
No. The only relationship to alcohol prohibition will be the removal of the millions of Al Capone types and the violence, intimidation, corruption, ruined families and poisoned customers that inevitably evolve. The failure of prohibition can be seen in a top down, if not linear fashion. Yet the way in which it is finally dismantled is in my mind not completely predictable and remains a complex bottom up venture to be managed with flexibility.
Evidence across the world shows use drops or remains stable with relaxed laws. The Portuguese example has presented in over a decade, remarkable success. The advantages of removing extensive punitive measures and simple stigma become manifest in a few short years. Legal resources freed from the waste of hassling petty users are brought to bear on serious crime. Users, freed from the fear of severe prosecution and shame become proactive in seeking help.
Potential users become a smaller market as drugs become controlled by authorities and subject to medical oversight – not criminal endeavour. More so, the opportunity to get ones life back on track is a reality that provides huge motivation to avoid drug use and experimentation. Presently in Australia, by the time users need substantial help they may be alienated from society, ashamed, angry and overwhelmed by the prospect of “perhaps” getting a decent life back under way.
Options used to mange illicit drug use are well explained in the Australia 21 Report:
Decriminalisation means specified proscribed behaviour is removed from the criminal law and is dealt with under the civil law.
De-penalisation means reducing the severity of penalties.
Legalisation means that the specified forms of behaviour are no longer offenses dealt with by the law.
Regulation means establishing a strictly controlled legal market for drugs as is the case with pharmaceutical drugs, tobacco products and alcoholic beverages.
Deconstructing prohibition is not a licence to take drugs. It is a means to remove lucrative profits from criminals and steer in-need and at-risk Aussies toward a healthier and more hopeful future. Those able to see a way out of the present mess all hold a somewhat unique view. No one person holds the solution, but certainly as experts and visionaries, groups such as the Australia 21 Board are urgently needed to begin the process of improving Australian lives and saving tax payer dollars.
400 Aussies die from drug related causes annually and countless others suffer a range of related harm that varies from mild to severe interpersonal conflict, financial tragedy or horrific violence. Lives are cropped of potential and under the present system valuable, talented and vital community members slowly withdraw from society even years after they have ceased to use any drugs.
Stopping us from turning this mess around is the movement I opened this article with. Whether it’s same sex marriage, being an atheist or removing the stigma from elicit drugs a vocal and well organised minority conclude that they can do any and everything to impose their own moral values on the rest of the society. In effect however, knowing that they cannot successfully do this the outcome is merely to impede progress to equality and thus limit the freedom of others.
Hence we cannot really have this discussion without at some point acknowledging it isn’t resisted just on philosophical grounds. The continuance of the war on people and the fruitless prohibition of illicit drugs, regardless of means used, is the single aim of those who today are seen attacking Harm Minimisation and Harm Reduction.
Therein lies the problem. Whilst arguments are akin to anti-vaccination rhetoric: repetitive, evidence free, conspiratorial, personal and peppered with linking all related ills to the present policy, in this case conservatives do have political sway. Thus full and open discourse regarding the retrieval of control from organised crime must include the reality that the anti-drug movement is guilty in it’s own way of inflicting suffering, corruption and death on our nation.
More so, they know this well. The bulk of attacks on Harm Reduction revolve around creating the pseudoscience and pathological theories to argue HIV has not been controlled by reducing the personal exchange of blood and body fluids. Despite the exquisite correlation between Harm Reduction absence and HIV presence across the globe it is still argued that HR “enables” drug use, thus causes all negatives that go with it.
Discourse is poor because the reality is that no government would dream of even broaching the subject for fear of alienating the conservative vote. Dr. Reece states above that condom use parallels AIDS deaths and God’s wrath will follow Harm Reduction measures as a “consequence”. Rhetoric fed to parliamentarians about Injecting Facilities is nowhere near as absurd, looks genuine to the untrained eye and can influence decisions. We should expect the same polish in defence of prohibition.
Changes in equal rights now look set to take years. The public is well versed in who the bigots are in matters of marriage, abortion and euthanasia. For the public to be prepared to take on a gradual change in their world view as it pertains to drug use and abuse, those truly dedicated to abolishing prohibition need to expose the bigots and the saboteurs also. And yes, it may be that simply opening channels of discussion will be enough to do this.
The evidence is irrefutable. Prohibition has failed and it is killing Australians. We don’t just need discussion on the necessity for change. We need discussion on why there is as yet no change and instead a persistent silence. Every report on this issue and every report on Harm Minimisation success is attacked by anti-drug lobbyists such as Drug Free Australia.
When we do expand the discussion we must be prepared to lay the blame at their door.
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