Category Archives: Health

The Australian Vaccination Network: Meryl Dorey’s continued pertussis misinformation

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

Last time we left The Australian Vaccination Network, or rather President Meryl Dorey, we’d had a close look at her use of unrelated data sets and the tendency to use two figures twenty years apart, to argue pertussis vaccination is not efficacious.

Four days later, an AVN member repeated the very same claim on the very same forum. Also, back on the day I posted Meryl had written an extraordinary attack on official health figures based upon the newspaper article, More testing finds more coughing. Dorey’s completely unreferenced and innuendo filled post is entitled 100 times increase in Whooping Cough – is it REALLY just more testing? 

The article quoted is quite sensible and accurate. Dorey’s feverish and misleading extrapolation can only be examined if one reads her entire diatribe then copies and pastes the news article link at the bottom into a browser. What sets her off is focusing on the first paragraph, whilst ignoring the second. The article opens with the observation that better testing has more to do with the outbreak in NSW than with drops in immunisation. Then continues in the second paragraph with [bold mine] “there was no doubt whooping cough increased in areas with low vaccination rates”, according to Professor Booy who is a professor of child health at Westmead Children’s Hospital.

Dorey uses the same leap in notifications from 1991 to today, ignoring the peaks and troughs of infection, smirking that the outbreak, “isn’t real – it’s just more testing”. Then a simple falsehood. “So the fact that we have gone from 300 cases in 1991 to more than 35,000 cases today is just a figment of our imagination…”. From 332 cases in 1991 we had 34,794 last year and as of “today” have 18,299. Source here. Then it’s classic Reductio Ad Persecutorum, the classic logical fallacy named after Meryl Dorey herself.

And the vilification of families who have chosen not to vaccinate by the media, the medical community and the government that has occurred over the last 2 years because of this non-existent epidemic…

There’s been no vilification. Facts are facts. The Reductio Ad Persecutorum we see is entirely down to denial of vaccine efficacy and germ theory. Dorey ignores here the effect on herd immunity in areas with low vaccination rates, and has now redefined the epidemic as “non-existent”. Astonishing. The Hon Nicola Roxon, Federal Minister for Health and Ageing released Protecting Bubs: Whooping Cough Epidemic on February 21st this year, including;

As the current whooping cough epidemic continues, Health and Ageing Minister Nicola Roxon has reminded parents to protect their children with vaccinations, which can begin six weeks after birth.

“All parents should take advantage of the free vaccines provided by the Australian Government to protect young children from whooping cough,” Ms Roxon said. “Babies can be protected with vaccinations at six to eight weeks after birth, then at four months, and then when they reach six months old.

“Vaccines worth about $86 million will be provided in 2010-2011––free of charge for infants, children and adolescents.

[…..]

“Babies are not fully protected until their third dose of the vaccine, so it is important for those around new babies to be free of infection.

Remember, Dorey’s continued demonstrably false argument is that high vaccination rates and increasing pertussis cases prove the pertussis vaccine is not efficacious. This, she argues, is supported by a corresponding rise in diagnoses and notifications. In her article she is clearly selecting the reality of more widespread testing and using it out of context. Her context is that reported effective wider testing is a ploy by the government to dodge the higher notifications of pertussis (and thus vaccine inefficacy). In reality, more widespread testing explains the rise in notifications over the past four years.

Nonetheless she states without any supporting references;

But be that as it may, the fact is that the government has declared an epidemic by their own figures and now, faced with the inconvenient fact (which we have been stating for years) that vaccination rates are at an all-time high, they are now trying to say that there was no epidemic in the first place -it’s only smoke and mirrors. Don’t count on our statistics -they’re only rubbery figures, after all.

Oh, and we haven’t actually seen an increase in pertussis deaths either because Professor Booy says that they were much higher ten years ago. In fact, there were NO deaths at all from pertussis for well over a decade prior to the deaths that occurred in 2009 – one of which was in a child too young to be vaccinated and the other 2 in older, partially-vaccinated infants. So again, don’t trust the government’s statistics because they seem to be either inaccurate or simply made up on the spot!

“Inconvenient fact… smoke and mirrors… rubbery figures… no deaths ‘for well over a decade prior to … 2009’… statistics made up on the spot”. Statistics Dorey uses to make her entire “failed vaccine” argument, I might add. That’s quite a tantrum to throw over one small news article that refers only to vaccination rates in NSW, whilst Dorey is using national figures. Professor Peter McIntyre in a Rapid Roundup article for the Australian science media centre written in September 2010, addresses both death rates and the most important factor in recent diagnostic increases: Local GP access to PCR testing;

“The problem with whooping cough is that it is hard to get a laboratory diagnosis that is definite and doctors may not order the relevant tests so it does tend to be under-recognised. Having said that, the availability of the PCR test (since about 2000 in hospitals but especially over the past two years at the GP level) has greatly increased the number of cases and hospitalisations being recognised.

There have been big national epidemics in 1996/7, in 2000/1 and most recently in 2008/9. In South Australia, where this death occurred, the epidemic was later than in many other parts of Australia and is still current.

Bearing this in mind, it is important to note that despite a very large increase in reported cases in the 2008/9 epidemic compared with 1996/7, there were a total of nine infant deaths in 1996/7 but there have been, with the most recent death in SA, a total of four deaths recognised in 2008-2010.

Meryl Dorey also makes some alarming and demonstrably false claims about the documented mutation in two strains of pertussis. Firstly she claims it’s the “elephant in the room” that the medical community almost never refers to. This nonsense is followed by arguing that the cause is overuse of pertussis vaccination, “much like overuse of antibiotics” led to decreased antibiotic effectiveness. Vaccination levels required for herd immunity and “overuse” of antibiotics are quite different issues however.

Dorey argues incorrectly that nobody seems to know if the vaccine is ineffective or less effective. So, she then makes up her own mind claiming without evidence that the mutated strain is more virulent and dangerous, thus leading to more deaths here and around the world. Then we get this stunner;

So not only is the pertussis shot not preventing vaccinated people from getting pertussis – it could also be responsible for the increased death rate.

So what is happening? There are several strains of circulating bordetella pertussis bacteria. In early 2010 researchers from the University of NSW school of biotechnology and biomolecular sciences discovered mutations in the two most common strains – MT27 and MT70. The whole cell pertussis vaccine contained hundreds of antigens providing widespread protection. It also correlated to more cases of irritability and fever. The acellular vaccine introduced in 2000 is highly tolerable with several variations. Each variation contains between three to five purified pertussis antigens.

This certainly makes it easier for any potential mutation to defeat vaccine induced immunity. Yet in the absence of conclusive data we can only be sure that some strains will have greater effect. Co-author of the study Associate Professor Ruiting Lan says the acellular vaccine might have contributed to the mutation. What we can say is that the pertussis vaccine may not be fully effective.

Professor Lyn Gilbert is a clinical microbiologist at the University of Sydney. She was involved in the study and notes that whilst bordetella pertussis may mutate to bypass herd immunity, bacteria can and do evolve spontaneously. Dr Nick Wood, from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance has also noted that antibiotic use may have played a role in this bordetella pertussis mutation. Do note this is not the overuse of antibiotics leading to antibiotic resistance and super strains Meryl Dorey was alluding to. The World Today covered this back on February 11th, 2010 including both Professor Lyn Gilbert and Associate Professor Lan;

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A comprehensive US article in The Journal of The American Medical Association, Research Aims to Boost Pertussis Control quotes Fritz Mooi, PhD, senior scientist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands. He suggests lowered efficacy and faster waning of immunity associated with the acellular vaccine isn’t a sufficient explanation, for the present outbreaks. He and his colleagues, “posit that this is occurring in response to selection pressure from the vaccine”. What’s quite bizarre is that Meryl Dorey posted this article on her Facebook page. It includes;

James Cherry, MD, a pediatrician at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, in Los Angeles, and one of the world’s leading experts on whooping cough, maintains that the increase in cases reflects greater awareness and improved recognition of the disease among clinicians as well as availability of better laboratory tests and greater access to them.

The one thing I don’t want to do here is to use Ms. Dorey’s misplaced confidence in blaming a pertussis mutation on “overuse” of vaccination, to convey a conclusive argument that B. pertussis strains MT27 and MT70 have not adapted to the acellular vaccine via mutation. This may well turn out to be the case, but it does not justify attacks on vaccination regimes or the vaccine. There have been mutations before through adaption of B. pertussis to the vaccine.

This was the case for The Netherlands outbreak in 1996. Ironically, Dorey has been referring to this outbreak for years as proof of general pertussis vaccine inefficacy. She has been most cautious to not admit or refer to the mutation in The Netherlands as this ran contrary to her claim that pertussis vaccination – both whole cell and acellular – was ineffective. Frankly it now beggars belief she has jumped on the band wagon only to use the situation in Australia to spread fear, rail at health departments, misinform and mislead further.

As I pointed out above, whilst Professor Booy is referring to sufficient levels of vaccination in NSW, Dorey has inexplicably launched an attack on Australia’s national figures. Less than a month before, a Herald Sun article reported AMA Victorian president Dr Harry Hemley as saying “immunisation in the community is tending to wane”.

Ultimately this is another hysterical and difficult to follow anti-vaccination rant from Meryl Dorey. She definitely wants to eat her cake and keep it also. In attempting this she meanders throughout the entire bakery emerging into the spotlight covered in flour and jam, with no more evidence than the odd crumb picked up accidentally along the way.

This Today Show clip on the pertussis epidemic offers good advice and disturbing figures.

SensaSlim: “The cavalry is on the way”

Posted in Big Placebo, Health, Scam by

We last left SensaSlim on July 6th, after a look at some nasty tactics and the use of Rogers Digital marketing Australian news site, to publish “news” stories about their miraculous product.

Next up came the June 21st SensaSlim newsletter, scribed by the elusive Peter O’Brien. It opened with:

Hello Everyone,

The  cavalry is on the way.

I have just been informed that SensaSlim International have arranged for two of the coordinators of the clinical trials that were conduct by the Institut De Recherche Intercontinental to travel to Australia to assist us in defending the integrity of the worldwide trials.

The Institute are treating criticism of their trails very seriously. Dr Strebel who is currently in Moscow on a project and has made contact with SensaSlim lawyers to ensure they are given every assistance through the preparation of affidavits that can be presented to the Supreme Court of New South Wales with regard to the defamation proceedings brought against Dr Ken Harvey.

They are also going to assist us with the preparation of any material that needs to be submitted to the ACCC to dispose of the allegations that the trials are not conclusive. We will also be proposing to have the trials coordinators speak with Today Tonight whilst they are in Australia and other health writers to combat this attack against us.

I have now seen affidavits that have been filed in the courts in England by SensaSlim International against Dr Matthew Capehorn. There can be no doubt in anybody’s mind upon reading the material that Dr Capehorn was given the data he required to prepare the white paper and that he was prepared to continue to stand by the white paper conditional upon being paid additional money. As I have always said the dispute with Dr Capehorn has nothing to do with the evidence of the efficacy of SensaSlim but it is all about money.

Area Managers have asked me to confirm that SensaSlim was approved to be sold as a dietary aid by the Therapeutic Good Administration based upon the ingredients and not the clinical trials. The clinical trial data was of no interest to the TGA and nor did they ask for it. All they wanted to be satisfied with was the ingredients in the product and the formulation and if based upon the science the product would be able to achieve weight loss.

Those keeping up with the saga will recognise the arrogance in the wording of this newsletter on several points. Today Tonight have started to distance themselves from SensaSlim. It was beyond ambitious to suggest research authors from the Institut De Recherche Intercontinental (IRI) would – just like the cavalry – come a-recscuin’ by submitting materials, “to the ACCC to dispose of the allegations that the trials are not conclusive.” At much the same time the ACCC had discovered the IRI was a bogus entity and that photos depicting executives – or the cavalry, if you will – were also bogus, being photos of lung specialists from St Paul Lung Clinic in Minnesota, USA. SensaSlim legal eagle Terry Harrison said at the time, the Australian arm had cobbled the deal with Dennis Thornton of Lloyds Business Brokers, on behalf of SensaSlim Suisse Ltd. According to the director of Lloyds Business, Thornton was found dead last year. Australian Skeptics have an article here, reviewing the ACCC and Ken Harvey’s position.

The ACCC had won a federal court order to freeze SensaSlim’s Australian assets, most likely on the basis of fabricated trial evidence presented on Australian TV. Certainly for engaging in ‘‘misleading and deceptive conduct’’ under the Trade Practices Act 1971. The assets are frozen until a hearing on August 31st. This is the basis of Dr. Ken Harvey’s complaint against the company. A report, not written by Harvey, about this complaint was published on auspharmacist.net.au provoking SensaSlim to sue for defamation. Making the caper even more overtly scam-worthy was the fact the same pictures of the USA doctors were published on the site of the Mountebank Clinic. The “clinic” address is an industrial estate in Bargo, NSW.

“Mountebank” means:

“a person who sells quack medicines, as from a platform in public places attracting and influencing an audience by tricks, storytelling, sleight of hand, etc… a person who deceives others especially in order to trick them out of their money… any charlatan or quack”

Charming. The clinics’ director was passed off as an “Dr. Joseph Balsamo”, with an image of singer Alberto Balsamo and the qualifications of Flindsers University academic, Adjunct Associate Professor Mary Harris. The Mountebank gig is apparently part of Reef Health who open their website blurb with the strange line, “Reef Health Pty Limited is a 100% Australian company dedicated to natural products which are not only good for you, but actually help.” Reef Health is owned by Andrew Tarter/Tatar and his girlfriend Roxanne Naylor.

That doesn’t stop Roxanne auctioning herself off for a date on this crass dating site – What’s Your Price? She’s getting good mileage from that profile picture. Tatar – or Tarter – is a struck off Sydney solicitor arrested in Vanuatu in 2007 under suspicion of helping smuggle a convicted conman from Fiji. That conman was none other than Peter Foster. Naylor and Tatar are respectively CEO and General Manager of Kava Kwik – Vanuatu Instant Kava.

There’s a wonderful little exchange about sunny Vanuatu here on the Scam.com forum from October/November 2008. A Peter Foster claims to have been conned by a Sam Grant who pushes cancer cures and sells worthless “distributorships”. Grant sells, ahem, “neutraceuticals“. A Brian Smith also suggests Grant is a conman. Grant refutes Fosters account, denying he sells distributorships and pointing out Foster is in jail. Then an “ausman123” rips into “real scammers” Andrew Tarter/Tatar and Roxanne Naylor for scamming Sam Grant:

They own reefhealth.com which WAS reselling a product of sam grants (sic) in Australia. He did this in good faith and shipped all stock without payment.Andrew & Roxanne did not pay for ANY stock even though Sam shipped the orders. When Sam asked for his money Roxanne and Andrew went and registered domain names in Australia and the UK which are the brand name of Sam Grants product and redirected them to Reefhealth.com and posted a FALSE claim about the product.

Roxanne then sent an email to Sam saying that she would be interested in selling the domain back to him. Extortion?
So lets look at the facts:
1. Roxanne and Andrew have history of scams and running scams.
2. Roxanne and Andrew did not pay for stock and pocketed the money rather than paying the bill.
3. Roxanne and Andrew then bought brand domains names and redirected them to their website which they changed and put a FALSE statment about the product to trick customers.
4. Roxanne and Andrew then began posting FALSE information on Sam Grant calling him a scammer.
5. Peter Foster is an international SCAMMER who is associated with Roxanne and Andrew. Interestingly enough he is in Jail at the moment so for him to post on an internet forum while is jail is truly amazing.

Scammers scamming scammers? Or is it just a scam? Either way after this cosy chat and the information pulled together by The Age – and also independently by a member of Support Dr. Ken Harvey – it’s entirely possible Naylor and Tatar/Tarter were “fronting” for Foster. Reef Health accused The Age of “hacking” their Mountebank Clinic website and it disappeared on the same day. The Age has admitted using an incredibly complex and particularly darstardly piece of software known in hacking circles only as… “Google”.

The next day, June 23rd saw reports of a $4.2 million class action by over 70 franchisees conned into paying up to $60,000 to buy SensaSlim stock. They also fell for the line of supposed clinical trials and substantial evidence. Slater & Gordon are working with the ACCC in a bid for compensation, which may indeed prove difficult given SensaSlim’s Australian accounts hold approximately $230,000.

With regard to Dr. Ken Harvey’s defamation case, I mentioned last time that Justice Lucy McCallum had issued consent orders on June 14th. One of which was that, “The plaintiff file an amended statement of claim on or before 1st July 2011”. Sadly for SensaSlim this did not come to pass. Following the ACCC action their lawyers, Kennedy’s Australia withdrew from the case. By June 30th John Kukulovski of Jirsch Sutherland was appointed administrator and by July 5th it was reported he was recommending liquidation. Dr. Harvey has been awarded costs although until happily reimbursed cause for celebration must wait. His lawyers will apply to have the defamation case struck off on July 11th.

The paragraph above in which Peter O’Brien notes the TGA were not interested in product efficacy is accurate and gives insight into the problems with Australia’s regulatory system. Here’s the TGA’s public summary of SensaSlim. In effect the paper tiger position of the TGA is the genesis of this entire sorry saga – and an avalanche of other scams, shams and inefficacious “remedies”. The TGA claimed in June that it cancelled SensaSlim’s advertising approvals and welcomed the ACCC investigation. Pharmainfocus.com.au reported;

“TGA has already taken regulatory action through cancelling SensaSlim’s advertising approvals. We have tested their product and although we have found it does not contain any unsafe ingredients, TGA is continuing to assess other aspects of the product,” a spokesperson said.

Which is as usual, utterly useless. The TGA should invoke Section 30 of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Act, 1989 and deregister SensaSlim from the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods – certificate here. Presently the anorexic slogan Nothing tastes as good as slim feels still heads up SensaSlim’s shiny new sales and advertising website, including the absurd “lose weight while you sleep” argument. As reported in today’s Weekend Health in The Australian;

But on a newly established website the company confirms it’s proceeding against Harvey. Although the TGA assured Weekend Health in June that it had cancelled SensaSlim’s advertising approvals, the firm continues to promote its product on the new site, claiming the spray is approved by the TGA and the Health Department.

[…..]

A TGA spokesperson wasn’t able to clarify the situation as Weekend Health went to press. Harvey suggests the case highlights “fundamental flaws” in Australia’s system of regulation and promotion of complementary products. Specifically, the TGA’s lack of teeth and a distinction between “listed” and “registered” products that is unclear to the public.

Listed products are assessed by the TGA only for safety and quality, while registered products are also tested for effectiveness.

Being snobbed off is nothing new for the TGA. The article also mentions some nasty tactics recently used to bully co-complainant Dr. Lesley Campbell over her position in Harvey’s defamation case. Another problem of course is the role of pharmacists in selling the product – just one of many unproven remedies they stock. SensaSlim are also hyping up The Australian spray weightloss challenge, and use the site to boast the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods certificate.

The final balderdash to note is the “settlement” of the stunt case in which SensaSlim claimed the jockey of Black Caviar had lost too much weight. On examination it’s absurd. I opined to other’s on June 26th, when Yahoo 7 published the story that jockey’s are weighed pre and post race. Underweight jockey’s carry weights in their saddles. So Wanderson D’Avila was the correct weight and apparently magically lost 0.8kg within about 30-40 minutes before the next weigh in. Even The Age picked up this AAP story, in which D’Avila was apparently paid $12,500.

Fortunately Jonathan Holmes of ABC’s Media Watch gives this story – and much of the Sensaslim con it’s due, below. The final insult is that now – on their new website – SensaSlim is offered free to jockeys over the 2011 racing season. Again, they use the made up claims attributed to Dr. Capehorn. He denies ever making them and lists this, along with use of his endorsement and identity before he actually sighted evidence, as a key reason for quitting his role as Research Director. He is suing SensaSlim for breach of contract and they are suing him for breach of contract. Nonetheless the hilarity includes;

Dr Matthew Capehorn, SensaSlim Research Director and Clinical Director of the National Obesity Forum in the UK said, “The erratic dietary habits and pre-race preparations of many the nation’s jockeys is an ongoing tragedy waiting to happen.”

Dr Capehorn noted recent press reports in Australia that highlighted not only eating disorders in the sport but lethal lifestyle choices associated with the need to lose weight quickly. He said the same pattern could be seen in the racing industry around the world.

“Jockeys are traumatised and tortured every day by food deprivation,” Dr Capehorn said. “The constant thoughts of food and being hungry have led to mental breakdowns, domestic violence and even suicide.”

One can only anticipate the demise of this scam with something close to urgent glee. Nasty people, nasty tactics, nasty claims. Australia still lacks appropriate legislation to effectively and quickly deal with this type of nonsense. Though on the positive side, their assets are frozen, they went into liquidation on July 1st and Ken Harvey’s lawyers will apply to have the defamation case struck off on July 11th.

Sadly, I’m sure SensaSlim will go on to rort consumers in Europe for some time to come.

Australian Vaccination Network 101

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Denialism, Health by

Meryl Dorey of The Australian Vaccination Network says opposition to her operation is an attack on free speech. That claim however, is a simple ruse to divert attention from the reality of dangerous and illegal conduct.

A Mother’s Choice: The tragedy of the Australian (anti) Vaccination Network

HCCC Find AVN Risk Australian Health

AVN Lied To Members Over Charity Status

Poll Source

Dirty tactics when SensaSlim first copped a spray

Posted in Big Placebo, Health, Scam by

June was a bad month for miracle diet spray SensaSlim. To date I’ve only published The Sensaslim Affair by Ken Harvey, SensaSlim Jockeying for credibility, Beware the lure of new treatments – a very pragmatic piece by Professor John Dixon and Louisa Hall’s piece – which I’ll get to.

We know that Dr. Ken Harvey is one of seven, perhaps nine, complainants and that Professor Lesley Campbell, from the St Vincent’s Hospital diabetes centre is another. As can be read in the above the complaint was simple in that SensaSlim was making ridiculous claims of efficacy. In the absence of any evidence – the much hyped “research” has still not been validated – the claims were most likely fabricated.

Almost certainly others are franchisees left out to dry with their investment. SensaSlim had promised marketing and advertising help which never eventuated. Dr. Harvey was being sued for $800,000. On June 14th the case came before Defamation List Judge, Justice Lucy McCallum, in the Supreme Court at Sydney. The following consent orders were made by Justice McCallum, and published on the Support Dr. Ken Harvey Facebook page in response to SensaSlim’s Australian manager Adam Adams’ rather biased, if not gloating account. The thread has since been deleted by Adams:

  • The plaintiff file an amended statement of claim on or before 1 July 2011;
  • The defendants file a defence on or before 15 July 2011;
  • The plaintiff file any reply on or before 29 July 2011;
  • The defendants’ notice of motion dated 24 May 2011 be dismissed;
  • The plaintiff pay the defendants’ costs thrown away by reason of the plaintiff’s amendment to its statement of claim;
  • The proceedings be stood over to the defamation list on 15 August 2011;
  • The parties have liberty to relist the proceedings in the defamation list on 11 July 2011.

Basically this meant Dr. Harvey had not had the charges thrown out. The plaintiff – SensaSlim – was to file an amended claim by July 1st. SensaSlim thus had to pay Dr. Harvey’s costs because of their amended statement of claim and there was another opportunity on July 11th for potentially seeing the case dismissed. On June 17th, Louisa Hall writing for Fairfax noted the appalling situation that had allowed this action to come about.

Primarily that if any court action is underway complaints lodged with Australia’s TGA against the plaintiff can not be pursued through the Complaints Resolution Panel – CRP. This allows ongoing selling of, and profitting from, the product through it’s “outlandish” claims. Libel cases may take over a year leading to significant income for what may turn out to be a scam. This is a major flaw in TGA legislation. They will only invoke Section 30 of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Act, 1989, which would make ongoing selling and advertising illegal, when the company itself is deemed to be acting fraudulently. This would also remove SensaSlim from the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. But as noted here before, presently the TGA care not if a product works: only if it considered to be of acceptable risk.

In the article by Louisa Hall SensaSlim’s legal adviser, Terry Harrison denied the entire defamation suit aimed to gag Dr. Harvey. Interestingly almost two weeks before, SensaSlim Newsletter number 42 was falling into the odd lap. Written by Adam T. Adams – Australian Manager, it contained reference to the CRP in stark dissonance to Terry Harrison’s assurances.

It gives alarming insight into the arrogant stand-over talk directed at Area Managers, who no doubt smelled a rat months before. They had threatened legal action in lieu of repayment of their investment. Adams names them all [I won’t] and claims his legal advice is that this action is fatally flawed. These poor investors were left with the sole option of trying to sell their entire Areas and then… go away. What’s interesting is that the legal team acting for the disgruntled Area Mangers had included a CRP determination from March 30th, 2011. “CHC” is the Complimentary Healthcare Council. [Bold Mine except in red]. Adams wrote in part;

But that’s not the issue I want to make. The issue I want to make is in the letter [the law firm] said has (sic) follows. One of the reasons they [Area managers] wanted “out” was:

“… determination published by the Therapeutic Goods Advertising code complaints resolution panel on the 30th March 2011, clearly found examples of inconsistencies of many representations, (our client are certain that the fact that this panel will now review SensaSlim’s responses to the complaint, which were only received by the panel on the 30th March 2011 and issue a new determination, which our clients are confident will not materially change nor effect the existing determination)”.

You will be aware that I told you that Peter O’Brien was able to have the Complaints Resolution Panel withdraw their published determination. This was mentioned in Newsletter 38, where I advised:

“On Wednesday we received a phone call from a Area Manager, “DP”, saying that the Complaints Resolution Panel had brought down a decision and published it on their website in regard to a complaint about the SensaSlim website. We mentioned this to you previously that our competitors were filing complaints with a view to hindering our progress.

David directed us to the CHC website and a report had been published. Except the report stated that the CHC had found against the company because we haven’t filed a defence. Except we did file a defence on the 25 of January and again when confronted with this crises Peter O’ Brien swung into action with his legal teams and within one hour the CHC had taken the report off their website and agreed that the report is now redundant and that they would withdraw any ruling against SensaSlim”. But back to this week…

So the lawyers for the above Area Managers said that they were ‘confident’ that a review by the Complaints Resolution Panel will not change anything. They, [names deleted]  were ‘confident’ that the company would still be found to be at fault by the Complaints Resolution Panel. Is that ‘confidence’ built on anything except negativity or pessimism? I don’t think it is.

But they were SO WRONG.  So very very WRONG.

So here’s the good news. Last week Peter O’Brien was at his desk until 11pm the night before the CRP were to reconsider the matter, and back at 5 a.m., drafting, redrafting and writing a 9 page submission. With the assistance of his legal team and SensaSlim in London’s lawyers a very comprehensive submission was written stating that the CRP had absolutely no justification at law in adjudicating on the matter since the company had filed an $800,000.00 defamation lawsuit against Dr. Ken Harvey.

You see, it is written in Law that if the subject matter of the complaint is currently the subject of court proceedings, then the CRP are unable to adjudicate. I have attached a copy of the submission just so you get some understanding of the work, the very hard word that is happening behind the scenes that you never see, to uphold the good name of SensaSlim.

So when I read that Area Managers think that the management of this company would be best served if we were replaced by them, and there were others at the helm I think it is absolutely laughable. Too silly for words, really! “TB” who suggests such an action and thinks he could run the company better, is the one who said that they were confident, the CRP would find against us.

Peter O’Brien didn’t accept such a fate but together with his lawyers (by the way Robbinson Legal are the lawyers who acted for Paul Hogan in his case against the ATO, so they’re not frightened of a stoush either) found a way to defend the company. This defamation action, which could be in the courts for a year or two or even longer, basically gives an iron clad protection that nobody can raise a complaint against SensaSlim to the CRP and hurt us.

There are nine complaints that were received in a three day period two weeks ago. These were not complaints by members of the public, but clever legal crafted arguments by people acting on behalf of our competitors and big pharmaceutical companies. These are the same people who have written to the CHC to delay and hinder our progress and having our advertisements approved..and they also wrote to the TGA.

But let me say this. We will not allow their dirty tactics defeat us. We had a very big win this week with the determination by the CRP that they cannot adjudicate on any matters pertaining to SensaSlim.

It was known widely that the CRP decision was published, and then apparently removed within an hour or so. The reason given by the CRP was that SensaSlim claimed to have not been notified. That they never received email notification of the decision and thus did not file a defence. Yet above Adams is telling his own investors they did file a defence, the CHC got it wrong and Peter O’Brien “swung into action”. Confusing. We’ve also got a Big Pharma conspiracy and the lie that “competitors” are behind the “clever legal action”. Finally, there’s no ambiguity about legal action stifling complaints.

But there was more fun to be had. Over much of the first three weeks of June I was corresponding with an editor from Australia.to, a sub domain of World News site http://www.international.to/, a service of RogersDIGITAL.com, which had been “reporting” frequently and favourably about SensaSlim. Rogers Digital specialise in providing advertising techniques including brand direct response and behavioural targetting. They “deliver a diverse audience for advertisers including… women and men of all ages, shoppers, travellers and business and IT professionals”. Their advertising opportunities aim to meet “all the needs of marketers”, via websites “which reach ‘buy-ready’ customers”.

The reason for the correspondence was in response to my concern over a “news” article by a Peter O’Brien about the Jockey weight loss affair. Including;

The jockey of super horse Black Caviar has admitted using the controversial slimming spray as his secret weapon allowing him to calm his nerves, forget about food cravings and focus on Black Caviar, but critics warn that this could lead to unexpected excess weight loss and potential disqualification.

“I am aware of the law suit, but the benefits outweigh the risks,” Nolen said. “This has been a lifeline to many jockeys.”

The Thank you for suing us ad was also published. Both articles were under the sites “your say” URL’s. The advertisement, first published June 5th in The Sunday Mail, lacked a Complimentary Healthcare Council number, suggesting SensaSlim wasn’t accredited. Both the CHC and ACCC say this accreditation aims to provide;

“…. reliable and quality advice and information to our members, government, key stakeholders, the media and consumers.”

Correspondence dried up about the same time I spelled out the problems with SensaSlim’s “white paper”, and the fact Dr. Capehorn who was being used to endorse the product refuted that he made any comment supporting the jockey weight loss stunt. I also spelled out that Capehorn had quit his role with SensaSlim and issued statements through his lawyers. More so there were problems with Australia.to publishing even more articles claiming SensaSlim was represented at the 18th European Congress on Obesity in Turkey. I’ll get to that directly.

Interestingly the Thank you for suing us ad piece and the Black Caviar jockey piece by Peter O’Brien have disappeared. Follow those links and you get a 404. The following day I raised concerns with the editor about an article headed, “Obesity scientists told of SensaSlim slimming spray that has the effect of ‘Fooling the Brain’ into Thinking You’re Not Hungry” and another headed “Four Twins, a Jockey and a sensational slimming spray talk Turkey”. I received no reply. Ironically, both these articles now deliver a 404 message also.

I also asked Adam Adams to explain this claim of SensaSlim representatives attending the conference on the Support Dr. Ken Harvey Facebook Page on June 17th. By this stage most knew there was almost certainly no “evidence”, and it had become clear SensaSlim were not even at the Obesity conference. One complainant had attended the conference. Asked about the SensaSlim claims this person replied that none of the “so-called staffs said to have presented the work” could be found in the Congress abstracts. Secondly, no SensaSlim scientific presentation was witnessed. Thirdly, whilst there were outside booths at the conference at which weight loss products and devices may be advertised without any evidence, SensaSlim had manned none of them.

What happens next – June 22nd onwards – is well known, but also very funny in respect of SensaSlim’s June 21st newsletter written by none other than the elusive Peter O’Brien himself. Given time differences it would seem that the ACCC were moving to freeze SensaSlim Australian accounts at much the same time O’Brien opened his newsletter with “Hello Everyone, The  cavalry is on the way.” I’ll cover these events next with a look at the ridiculous “settlement” for the Black Caviar jockey stunt. For now a review of the ACA programme that pulls together the vital flaws in this blatant scam.

How The Australian Vaccination Network misleads Aussies on pertussis (whooping cough) vaccination

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Denialism, Health by

She’s doing it again.

That’s all I could think when I saw the below lie published about noon by Meryl Dorey, on the Australian Vaccination Network‘s Facebook page.

Facebook post misileading about pertussis vaccine efficacyI do mean “lie” – not misunderstanding or difference in conclusion. Dorey’s had this pointed out to her countless times – as recently as last week. This was also dismissed in 2009 by the ABC, following a complaint as a breach of their editorial guidelines for fairness and accuracy in reporting. More so, she presents this sleight of hand with obfuscation of conflicting data sets published by the same government bodies and insists on cherry picking. To make the entire sorry matter patently ridiculous, a high school student would receive a dressing down if this “mistake” was honestly made. That’s because not only is Meryl Dorey hiding the truth about pertussis infection and the undoubted success of pertussis vaccine efficacy, she is using entirely unrelated data sets.

The pertussis notification data tells us zero about the vaccine status of the notified cases. By far the bulk are adults whose vaccine induced immunity has waned. Of the 18 standard recorded age categories, 16 are after the age at which immunity begins to wane. Nor does it inform us as to the location of initial infection. As a legally notifiable disease all cases diagnosed who are from an address within our borders must be reported.

This includes returning tourists, immigrants, refugees, Australian based shipping and flight crews, travel weary business men and women, and so on. Dorey’s attempted causal link is akin to saying people who hold a drivers licence are more likely to be involved at sometime in their lives in a road accident. The more licences issued in the last 20 years, the more accidents we see. Therefore the entire licensing process is either ineffective, causal or both.

Nonetheless it would be remiss of me not to address this trick for the benefit of those with confirmation bias. The burden is on Meryl Dorey to show a robust statistical association between the data she presents. She fails to do so, because it can’t be done. To be absolutely fair, let’s use Ms. Dorey’s selected data. In fact, let’s use the very data, tables and argument she submitted on September 9th, 2009 to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission in response to a complaint about the AVN. Dorey writes on page 6;

Since the AVN was established, Australia has experienced an increase of over 23% in our rate of vaccination against whooping cough with a concurrent increase in the incidence of this disease of almost 40 times. Please refer to the Australian government graphs below:

Keep in mind, table 2 is above table 1. The 23% increase in pertussis vaccination “since the AVN was established” can be gleaned from these two tables [95.1% (Table 1) – 71.6% (Table 2 – 2001)].

In order to show that pertussis vaccination isnʼt effective, Ms. Dorey must compare vaccination status to diagnoses. Partially, fully or in need of a booster? And use a controlled single sample.

What we begin with is two separate cohorts, the lower table (1) being 2 year olds born in the first quarter of 2006, who received the trivalent Diptheria, tetanus, pertussis vaccine being fully assessed on June 30, 2008. The upper table (2) is of 0 – 6 year olds vaccinated with a monovalent (pertussis only) vaccine between 1989 and 2001.

Knowing full well that pertussis vaccination begins to wane at about age 10 years Dorey then chooses notification only (not age related) data between 1991 and 2009 – below, to secure her “40 fold increase”.

Straight off the Epic Fail factor leaps out. We cannot simply draw a line from childhood vaccination to notification in all age groups, and as I noted above from diverse backgrounds and travel habits. More so, had it been the year before, notification was less than a 17 fold increase from 1991. The two years preceding that show a 35 and 34 fold increase respectively.

In 1998 there was a 14.5 times increase from 1991. A year before was a 27.5 fold increase, whilst 1996 gives us an 11.6 fold increase – only 42% of 1997 notifications.

Clearly using even this non age related data set fails to show the claimed relation between steadily increasing vaccination and infection rates. It appears to show a regular rise and fall in infection.

Evidence of decreasing vaccination uptake and rising infection was causing significant concern in the eyes of Australian health authorities. This was clearly defined in the complaint to The HCCC. So Meryl Dorey offers another fallacy;

[Contrary to assertions] the current increase in the incidence of pertussis has nothing to do with any purported decline in the rate of vaccination. Instead, we are seeing an outbreak of pertussis despite a substantial increase in vaccination against it – an experience which is being duplicated in every country for which mass vaccination against this illness exists.

“… an experience which is being duplicated in every country for which mass vaccination against this illness exists”. Remember that. Dorey lists two references to supposedly support this. I’ll soon be getting on to how she plagiarised a WHO document graph cropping out explanatory text to replace with her own, and severely misrepresented the Netherlands pertussis outbreak. Both publications strenuously support pertussis vaccination and yes, these were the documents referenced in support of that bald faced lie.

A claim of direct causation to the vaccination regimes requires ignorance about herd immunity, pertussis strains, acellular vs live cell vaccines, periodic outbreaks or epidemics, and vaccinated vs non-vaccinated infection rates during outbreaks. Outbreaks do occur effecting unvaccinated and vaccinated children under 10 – 15 notably, whilst adults with no immunity don’t usually exhibit the classic symptoms. Certainly they are not at the risk of injury and death that infants and babies are.

But let’s look more closely at what Ms. Dorey has intentionally avoided. Age groups and the rise and fall of infection rates over the years.

From Communicable Diseases Intelligence, Vol. 32 No. 2, Figure 49 shows the rise and fall of pertussis in the ten years to 2006. Figure 50 just below it, shows notifications for 2006 by age and sex.

Zero to four years is higher than the next two age categories as it reflects the fact infants are not fully immunised until about 12 months.

We can clearly see this is a typical non outbreak year in which most cases are found in middle aged women. It’s a striking reminder that a pertussis booster is absolutely vital to protect newborn babies from infection as they are passed around family and friends or cared for by grandparents. This goes doubly for women.

Meryl Dorey was in damage control mode, trying to refute that the outbreak – now epidemic – that began in 2007 – 2008 was related to declining uptake of vaccination and that certain pockets where vaccination was low presented a lethal threat to young children. This is why her trick linking notification and vaccination rates was, and still is, doing the rounds. In June 2009, three months before our self appointed guru submitted her HCCC reply, it was reported in the Journal of Pediatrics that children who didn’t receive the pertussis vaccine were 23 times more likely to catch pertussis. In 2010 the same journal reported fears over the vaccine were unfounded. What are we to make of Australia’s so-called “vaccination expert” using “sciencey” terms to convey the opposite of research published in prestigious journals that’s pertinent to exactly the topic she claims authority on?

Notification rate for pertussis by age & sex for 2008

Dorey would have done better to stick to the facts, than to defend anti-vaccination pseudoscience and hide the high levels of infection in children.

Whilst there is strong data showing higher rates of infection in areas of low vaccination, overall Australian data showed a nation wide outbreak that we now know that has culminated in disability and death in most states.

This is the tragic irony to this ongoing and oft’ debunked abuse of her readers and members intelligence. Check that 2006 graph above again and compare to the 2008 data reflecting an outbreak on the left, from Communicable Diseases Intelligence, Vol. 34 No. 3.

Horrifically, in two years there’d been over a 6 fold increase for females and almost a 5 fold increase for males 0-4 years old. Roughly a 10 fold increase in 4-9 year olds and over a 6 fold increase for 10-15 year old children. Through all this Meryl Dorey failed to advise parents on how to protect their own and others children. Incredibly she had access to this crucial data through the very National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System she used to create her original sleight of hand above. Here is the 2009 table of pertussis notifications by age and sex.

She continued to urge against pertussis vaccination, plying her members with bizarre pseudoscience and fear mongering, going as far as claiming vaccines are filled with poisons and cause cancer. This was a key element in her roving seminars as seen here in slides one, two, three and four. Denying pertussis infection was anything to be concerned about, her advice was and is to proactively catch it to build “natural immunity” and that it can “be treated homeopathically”.

Dorey refuses to admit she and the AVN (which is in fact one and the same) are anti-vaccination. Although it beggars belief that she would support what she has called “instruments of death”. The mantra is that “they” are for informed choice and provide information parents would not otherwise access, to assist in making a choice on vaccination. Why would parents not otherwise have access to it? Well for one, as we’ve seen here it is manufactured and fallacious. To refute Dorey’s claims with proper evidence however, is to be “suppressing free speech”.

Ironically, I can’t post this on Dorey’s Facebook page because I’ve been banned and had all my other posts deleted. I see this happen regularly to anyone who doesn’t march in goosestep anti-medicine fervor. Free speech was it? We’re all entitled to our own opinions but the assumed right to manufacture ones own “facts” to the large scale detriment of community health is beyond the boundary of free speech.

Be extremely wary of online sources that use grandiose titles reflecting a “national” vaccination service, an “information network”, “total” family health or particularly offering “the truth” or what you won’t be told elsewhere.

Please seek reputable advice on vaccination. Speak to your doctor or a conventional medical professional.

Update: July 8th. In a standard example of how misinformation is spread to misinformed members of the public, an AVN member at about 11am July 8th, posted the below item. It provides a link directly to the same page Meryl Dorey provided on July 4th. What makes this entire charade more absurd is that the URL leads to the NNDSS index – not the Pertussis notification table it is taken from. Our vaccine expert and Co. have so little experience with this data that simple navigation through the site is defeating them. Another high school failure.