Category Archives: Human Rights

Drug War tactics driving up HIV/AIDS

Posted in Anti-Drug Lobby, Denialism, Health, Human Rights, Illicit Drug Policy, Legal by

The Global Commission on Drug Policy recently released yet another report condemning illicit drug prohibition and the War on Drugs.

Entitled The War on Drugs and HIV/AIDS – how the criminalisation of drug use fuels the global pandemic the report lists 6 key dynamics behind the trend.

1.) Fear of arrest drives persons who use drugs underground, away from HIV testing and HIV prevention services and into high risk environments. 2.) Restrictions on provision of sterile syringes to drug users result in increased syringe sharing. 3.) Prohibitions or restrictions on opioid substitution therapy or other evidence based treatment result in untreated addiction and avoidable HIV risk behaviour. 4.) Conditions and lack of HIV prevention measures in prison lead to HIV outbreaks in incarcerated drug users. 5.) Disruptions of HIV antiretroviral therapy result in elevated HIV viral load and subsequent HIV transmission and increased antiretroviral resistance. 6.) Limited public funds are wasted on harmful and ineffective drug law enforcement efforts instead of being invested in proven HIV prevention strategies.

Let’s forget “drug war” and call this problem what it is. Treating drug use as a criminal offence. Now, just by raising that image we’re into different waters entirely. Pointing to problems with the criminal model immediately evokes suspicion of compulsory promotion of illicit drug use. We’re conditioned to assume if we don’t punish drug use, it will be everywhere and bring about a host of nasty outcomes.

Mostly, we’re well conditioned to associate drug use with crime and to see it as criminal. Stitched on to this is the pop culture image from which we draw stereotypes. My favourite is one I often refer to as Quinn Martin. Quinn Martin Productions brought us Streets Of San Francisco and a host of other unrealistic 1970’s TV Cop shows. If you wanted a crime – it was drug related. A bad guy or a weak willed loser? Toss in a druggie.

Of course, I’m not suggesting we imagine this. The reality is criminals are made from associating in criminal circles and from being incarcerated, regardless of the reason. How this fits in with the drug-crime punishment model was addressed recently by eminent Australians who authored the Australia 21 Report. They state:

The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children, and we are all letting it happen

Rather than legalisation alone, that report discussed regulation, decriminalisation and de-penalisation. Far from being an open slather free ride these measures involve control, certain losses of freedom, the need to demonstrate responsibility and a major focus on rehabilitation back to a productive and useful lifestyle. What they don’t involve is the destruction of lives and sustaining criminal enterprise at huge cost to the community.

Yet in Australia we do very well managing HIV/AIDS in injection drug users [IDU]. 16 million use IV drugs globally. Almost 20% live with HIV. Fortunately, Australia managed to keep that level at 3%, and a significant number of that sample were at higher risk statistically from acquiring HIV from another high risk behaviour. This level remained stable for decades.

So the question does arise. Apart from acknowledging shocking human rights abuses, tragedy in many nations and an ongoing source of disease and corruption, what policy aspects need we mull over?

Since the Howard years Tough On Drugs initiative and emergence of groups like Drug Free Australia lobbying against expanded protective measures, the level of HIV in IDU jumped to 4%. It remains an exquisite example of how just a few years of delayed and abandoned Harm Reduction responses, increased punishment and disinformation about Harm Reduction efficacy has an immediately devastating impact on HIV control in Aussie IDU.

The fact that this collective undermining of Harm Minimisation occurred during a period when Harm Reduction services, research and supporting evidence expanded rapidly in Australia is testimony to how effective disinformation and intuitively themed attacks on evidence can actually be.

Still, as of April this year we remain extremely fortunate thanks to Harm Reduction:

HIV in IV Drug Users matched to Harm Reduction

The single greatest sabotage of Harm Reduction initiatives under the auspices of John Howard, was the suppression of a heroin on prescription trial in 1997. This had strong bipartisan support and the Federal Health Minister, four States and the ACT were excited about the decision to go ahead. Under instructions from then ANCD head Major Brian Watters – later to become a Board member of Drug Free Australia – Howard immediately vetoed the decision.

Exactly how many HIV cases, ruined lives and deaths this led to is impossible to estimate, and I would err toward a minimal estimate. Still, 15 years later we can assume the body pile is now somewhat impressive. In what is unique insight into how Howard in turn manipulated the zealots who tried to manipulate him, he never flinched on needle exchange.

To his credit he continued to fund over a thousand outlets across Australia, with some specialising in bulk dispensing, others in hard core risk management. Abandoning these programmes was insanity, despite conservative lobbyists being convinced he might do so. Yet to Howard, being seen to usher in heroin prescription – “free heroin” – as shock jocks called it was political suicide.

Despite strong support for our official policy of Harm Minimisation, which accommodated extreme spending against smuggling (Supply Reduction), this is how he presented his thoughts in 1998:

The policy of zero tolerance of drug taking in this country is a wholly credible policy and policy that ought to be pursued more vigorously by government and by people who are concerned about the problem.

Of all the lies he told, this remains one of my favourites. There was no such policy beyond words. He seemed to despise everyone equally. Which was essential for the politician he became. All that mattered to Howard was Howard, and securing votes. Manipulating drug workers, users, science advisers, policy experts and voters over what was a social crisis at the time was pure business.

British Columbia did introduce heroin on prescription in 2005. 5 years later the effects of the combined measures on HIV were compelling:

British Columbia: HIV infection matched to Harm Reduction initiatives

Similar success from heroin on prescription is found in every nation to usher in trials and programmes. Sadly, Australia was ready before the Howard years. We were in fact, world leaders. Now it’s a different story. We have one Medically Supervised Injecting Facility that ran as a successful trial for 11 years.

Seven of those 11 years were due to disinformation and sabotage from conservatives. In October 2010 the Kenaelly NSW State government passed a Drug Misuse and Trafficking Amendment bill to ensure the Centre became permanent. 11 years of moral panic was, at least legislatively, silenced.

Whilst actually attacking Harm Reduction initiatives, confusing methadone and buprenorphine with illicit drugs and muddling the lot in with AFL drug policy, Alan Jones delighted us with his wisdom on “Harm Minimisation”, in mid 2007 [MP3 here]. Obnoxious, offensive and completely ignorant of facts it is also somewhat representative of Aussie views today:

So today Australia has a long, long way to go before we do, if ever, fully recover from the rise of anti-drug conservatives under John Howard. They did far more damage than just raise HIV infection by 1% in injection drug users. Our fluency with progressive policy and public maturity has been undermined. Australia waits, on pause.

33 million people live with HIV today. Outside sub-Sahran Africa IV drug use accounts for 1/3 of new infections. For almost 15 years annual HIV infections have been falling on a global scale. Except for seven countries wherein HIV infections increased by about 25% primarily due to IV drug use.

The “drug war” is full on in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and unsurprisingly 5 of these 7 countries are in these boundaries. In the last decade people living with HIV in these areas has close to tripled. Russia has resisted Harm Reduction measures keeping methadone illegal and charging users for needle possession. As this demographic is actively abused by law enforcers the motivation to use needles based on access convenience and minimal time is heightened. The results are clear:

HIV infections – Russian Federation

Thailand has impressively cut HIV infection in workers in the famous tourist attracting sex industry from 40% in the mid 1990’s to around 5% today. This pulled male clientele infection rates down in parallel. At the same time fierce drug war tactics led to 2,500 “death squad” murders in 2003 and HIV is up to 1 in 2 IDU in some regions. A comparison of different demographics for HIV infection is compelling:

THAILAND: HIV infections per demographic

In a splendid example of stupidity the USA reinstated it’s 21 year ban on federal funding for needle exchange programmes only 2 years after ending it. A stark lesson for Australia, constantly under the assault of disinformation from anti-drug group Drug Free Australia, can be found on page 9 of the GCDP Report.

Recently in reviewing the history of Harm Reduction and HIV, I noted the stark difference between not just nations, but regions within nations favouring HR as a powerful controller of HIV spread. Similarly today it can be seen that in nations with extreme law enforcement, and regions within the USA with the most intense law enforcement that HIV levels are higher than those with low law enforcement.

For instance, a study of the 96 largest US metropolitan areas found that measures of anti-drug “legal repressiveness” were associated with higher HIV prevalence among injectors and concluded: “This may be because fear of arrest and/or punishment leads drug injectors to avoid using syringe exchanges, or to inject hurriedly or to inject in shooting galleries or other multiperson injection settings to escape detection.”

DFA fallaciously – and skillfully – report the exact opposite. Similarly DFA urge for dedicated Harm Prevention measures, described already on this blog as crude behaviour modification. Whether through blind or biblical force the aim is to do just that: force drug users to stop by changing behaviour. Forget the addiction and crush the symptom.

The easiest way to do this is control the environment. Enter compulsory detention. What DFA have called “compassionate detention”. The models they are considering are terrifying. Not only is HIV infection spread through these centres, they fail to offer any addiction treatment. Forced abstinence is associated with high fatality relapse.

Once infected with HIV criminal and punitive approaches act as a disincentive to testing and treatment. Requirements to be drug-free in order to receive treatment (as in Sweden) and denial of certain rights like child custody and employment correlate directly to higher HIV/AIDS fatalities. Confidentiality breaches and stigma impact frequently due to law enforcement regardless of country.

This leads to higher circulation of HIV in the community as treatment has been shown to reduce HIV transmitted via blood and body fluids. As such it is vital all demographics in all communities can be reached through treatment which ultimately leads to prevention.

Incarceration also increases HIV infection and Australia is heading toward a USA type model which has 25% of prisoners listed as HIV positive. Fortunately our initial lower levels in the IDU population will protect us significantly from such a nightmare. Unusually, prison needle exchange is resisted strongly. DFA play the key lobby role nationally and prison guard unions seem intent to deny evidence in favour of their health.

Australian prison guards profit enormously from selling syringes to prisoners. Secondary to money is the control of prison dynamics, control of prisoner behaviour and the essential control of these transactions in corruption entire. A syringe is power in the prison setting. The sooner we remove this tool from guards and protect prisoner health with clean exchanges, the better.

Resources spent on law enforcement are resources not spent on health initiatives generally, on a global scale. With drug crime and infection encouraged by the former and lessened by the latter, it is clear we face a major global challenge. Public health is the first principle of drug control.

Settings where HIV prevention measures have been curtailed as a result of economic concerns have been particularly vulnerable to increases in HIV risk among injection drug users. For instance, a greater than 10-fold increase in newly diagnosed HIV infections among injecting drug users has recently been reported from Greece during the first seven months of 2011.

Australia remains incredibly lucky and indeed most fortunate in this global picture. What cannot be ignored and what must be cautioned against is our slow morphing into a landing pad for USA styled conservative disasters. DFA is an arm of Drug Free America Foundation and act at their bidding. DFAF have their “division”, the Institute on Global Drug Policy who fund the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice.

This is no journal but a vehicle for lobbying against progressive drug policy primarily that which targets HIV control. All get together and play at the Swedish based World Federation Against Drugs which similarly is nothing like a “world federation”. What they strive for is patently out of this world.

As today’s most brilliant minds accept the evidence condemning prohibition, the global Drug Free Whomever groups seek to defend the UN Drug Conventions that originated in 1961.

Fortunate we may be, but complacent we cannot afford to become.

Hepatitis B Vaccination: A Chinese Success Story

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

The vaccination effort against Hepatitis B, especially to protect newborns, will not stop

– Dr Yang Wei Zhong, Deputy Director General of the China CDC –

Australians are unfamiliar with the impact of large scale infection from Hepatitis B virus [HBV].

Ways of controlling the spread of infection include vaccination of health care workers against HBV, that infection with HBV is a notifiable disease, the quarantine of patients suspected of having HBV, ongoing quarantine procedures for patients diagnosed with HBV, extensive education and follow up of patients upon discharge and Harm Reduction initiatives.

So successful have these measures been that many Aussies erroneously believe HBV is exclusively a problem for high risk demographics such as IV drug users or sex workers. This misconception itself is as dangerous as high risk behaviour because it leads to the belief that protection from infection is linked to how one identifies oneself.

Indeed, IV drug users and sex workers are often highly educated about the risk of HBV infection and implement safe injecting and safe sex practices. Many seek out or are offered the HBV vaccine by their own or any GP. The fact is everyone is susceptible to infection with HBV or any blood borne virus.

Tragically the antivaccination lobby has done much to mislead some Aussies into what could almost be termed lethal complacency. By both dehumanising high risk demographics and falsely linking the HBV vaccine to injury and death, they have propagated ignorance and fear, condemning many to premature death from liver failure. In some cases the virus will be cleared over time, but there is no way to manufacture this outcome.

HBV positive individuals who would not exist but for antivaccination propaganda, can transmit the virus for many years post infection, completely free of symptoms.

The WHO observe:

HBV may be the cause of up to 80% of all cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) worldwide, second only to tobacco among known human carcinogens. […]

One should not judge by appearance: most infected people look perfectly healthy and have no symptoms of disease, yet may be highly infectious.

As Australia’s population changes rapidly through immigration and we travel more readily our risk of HBV infection steadily increases. At no time in our history has vaccination against HBV been more important. This will be true tomorrow, next week, next year and next decade. For this reason HBV vaccination is available to newborns.

It’s safe to say that everyday in Australia new lives not only begin, but are in many cases saved and protected from infection through this initiative. In the USA at least eight people per day die from HBV related complications. 25% of carriers world wide – over one million people – die each year from chronic hepatic insufficiency, cirrhosis and liver cancer brought on by HBV infection.

The protective effect of vaccination rolls on for newborns, toddlers and children. Children not born to a HBV positive mother are still protected from the many modes of infection as they grow and go about their lives. There are more concerns than sexual behaviour or the sterility of drug administration. Blood borne is invisible. Only a tiny scratch or cut to the skin or oral mucosa is enough to allow the HBV virus to infect.

It can remain viable for up to a week in blood stains on razor blades, nail clippers, nail files, table tops and can be transferred to a tiny wound by moistening dried, viable blood stains on bedding. We can extrapolate from that to see potential risk comes from any sharp surface or object or textile that children play with and chew on.

It would appear that if complacency was to be justified it is in the parents whose children are vaccinated at birth.

Fortunately antivaccination lobbying and planned fear mongering is not the global norm. At the same time we can celebrate the truly life changing roll out of Hepatitis B vaccination in China.

In 2004 The Association for Asia Research reported 690 million people in China were infected with HBV:

According to the Xinhua News Agency, April 25 is Children’s Immunization Day in China. China’s health department has named this day with the theme of “vaccination prevents hepatitis B” this year. They want to draw the public’s attention to the importance of vaccinating children for hepatitis B vaccination to stop further spread of the disease in China.

A recent study showed that about 2 billion people in the world are infected with hepatitis B; 690 million of them live in China. The chronic hepatitis B carriers in China number about 20 million. An average of 280,000 deaths annually are caused by hepatitis B and related liver diseases.

Still today in China HBV infection carries stigma much like HIV which, in what should be a wake up to Australian and USA antivaccination mobs, prevents middle and upper class individuals from seeking blood tests. Despite HIV awareness being much greater, as recently as 2007 the HIV to HBV infection ratio in China was 1 to 200.

In 2005 the GAVI Alliance began to work with Chinese officials in combating HBV through the vaccination of newborns. GAVI had already made significant inroads in developing nations. In 2004, 22 years after HBV vaccination was introduced to Italy, 50% of low income nations had included the vaccine in immunisation schedules.

What’s truly impressive about GAVI’s impact, is that this was only six years after the 50% mark was reached for high income countries. Over 75% of that catch up followed the launch of GAVI.

In 2001 10% of China’s population were chronic carriers of HBV, which was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths from cirrhosis and liver cancer annually. In 2004 this was estimated to be 280,000 deaths. Less than 40% of children in poor areas were being immunised.

In 2002 the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, the Chinese Government and GAVI formed a partnership to co-fund HBV vaccines. This lasted until the end of 2010 and produced a concerted effort to fight infection. Over 25 million newborns in remote and poor regions of western and central China were given free HBV vaccines.

As many women traditionally gave birth at home, raising awareness as to the value of immunisation and encouraging mothers to give birth in hospital became a crucial part of the programme.

In 2005 the Chinese government added HBV vaccines to the national immunisation schedule. At the beginning of the project 64% of children were immunised with the first dose at birth. Now this level is over 90% in the majority of these remote regions. Today, less than 1% of children aged under 5 are carriers of HBV.

Dr Mark Kane, a GAVI Alliance founding Board member states:

The success of the introduction of hepatitis B vaccine is a model, showing us what we need to do and what can happen as we embark on efforts to introduce important new vaccines against pneumonia, diarrhoea and cervical cancer.

China remains a country where vaccines are not a victim of their success. 25 million newborns have been given a start in life that many of their parents could only dream of. Australia’s most vocal antivaccination identity claims Chinese herbal medicine has been shown “to clear Hep B from the system… there are peer reviewed studies on this”.

It appears the Chinese themselves would, and can, disagree without saying a word. There is no cure. The virus can and does clear of it’s own accord in some cases, which might easily be the subject of poorly controlled studies.

However the ravages of Hepatitis B infection in China is a matter of recorded history. I wish them all the best for the future.

Because after all as we can see yet again, vaccination saves lives.

Harm Reduction: How Australia Stopped HIV

Posted in Anti-Drug Lobby, Drug Free Australia, Health, Human Rights, Illicit Drug Policy by

In 1985 before the introduction of needle and syringe programmes (NSP) 90% of Australian injection drug users reported sharing injection equipment. By 1994 following introduction of NSPs this figure had fallen to 20%. In 2009 this figure was around 15% possibly reflecting the constant number of distributions from NSP programmes over the previous decade.

One of the most powerful modes of resistance to the spread of HIV/AIDS is Harm Reduction (HR) measures.

In Australia, HR exists as one of three pillars of Harm Minimisation (HM) – our official illicit drug control policy. The other two pillars are Supply Reduction and Demand Reduction. Reduction in supply receiving the lions share of funding directs energy at reducing international and domestic supply. Reduction in demand receiving less funding delivers programmes and initiatives designed to reduce the demand for drugs within communities.

Harm Reduction receiving the least funding from the HM pile targets the harm to individuals that eventuates from behaviour. HR has always drawn condemnation from conservative groups because of the association with drug use and sex. Initially men who have sex with men (MSM). Then later through maximal exploitation of drug using pop culture. Nonetheless, study after study comparing countries and districts within countries to have implemented HR or not done so, show a stunning success in favour of HR.

This post will look almost exclusively at IV drug use. HR for Injection Drug Users (IDU) includes provision of clean needles and sterile water, swabs, sharps containers for disposal and specialised filters capable of removing bacteria. Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) including methadone and buprenorphine and safe injecting facilities are pivotal aspects of HR. Heroin on prescription is not available in Australia but has shown unprecedented success as a HR measure where it has been implemented.

Despite the evidence supporting HM as an effective policy and the reality that Supply Reduction [law enforcement] is the most highly funded pillar, Aussies are still subject to notions such as “Tough on drugs” and code words such as Drug Free Australia’s Harm Prevention. Intuitively it sounds fine. Why minimise harm if you can prevent it?

Yet on examination “harm prevention” is the abandonment of HM for the reintroduction of Just Say No approaches. Known to have had deleterious effects on self esteem, no effect on lowering drug use and providing the field upon which drug use flourished, Just Say No quite simply failed, and failed Epically. Today of course, skeptics are well aware of how beliefs and behaviours are reinforced through attacking them. Harm Prevention even more so is code for punitive, custodial and forced behaviour control.

It is at times perplexing as to why so much energy is spent on attacking HM entirely. Supply Reduction however is based in part upon the reality that people want, seek, use and enjoy illicit drugs. Education to accompany this is open and honest – not promotion of illicit drug use . Yet to the conservative mind the idea that their children, friends or the community at large is the demographic from which drug demand comes, is morally untenable.

With HR it is aspects of this pillar that equally cannot be accepted. To the conservative mind, just as condoms cause AIDS and promote sexual promiscuity so too do clean needles, safe injecting facilities and safe injecting education encourage drug use. Drug Free Australia write:

We need to re-focus our drug policy and practice on an approach that prioritises primary prevention, if we are to see any real change in the health and wellbeing of our current and future generations of young people. We need to acknowledge that Australia has one of the highest rates of drug use, because of a priority on Harm Minimisation rather than Harm Prevention, and we now need to take a leaf out of the books of the policy makers in the UK and United States. Both these countries have given greater emphasis to prevention initiatives, while still aiming to help people who are drug dependent, to recover.

The towering dishonesty inherent in this nonsense is typical of the tactics used by DFA in what has become over just a few years, one of the most immoral lobbying groups on the illicit drug landscape. Australia has high levels of cannabis use and abuse. This is handy in arguing that we have high drug use generally. A synopsis of the above is simply: Harm Minimisation has caused Australia to have one of the highest drug use levels in the world. We should be doing what America and the UK do.

The UK get a mention because they reclassified cannabis to a Class B (like speed/other amphetamines) from a Class C drug and punish users accordingly. Of 2.3 million USA prisoners in 2010, over 65% or 1.5 million meet DSM IV medical criteria for substance abuse or addiction. On top of this another 458,000 have a history that meets DSM IV criteria for addiction, were under the influence when they committed their crime, committed a crime to finance the purchase of drugs or were incarcerated for a drug law violation.

Between 1960 and 1990 official crime rates in Finland, the USA and Germany were similar. Incarceration in Finland dropped 60%, remained stable in Germany and quadrupled in the USA, driven primarily by drug convictions.

Today around around 80% of USA prisoners are incarcerated due to illicit drugs. 11% are receiving some type of “treatment”. The last thing Aussies need is a dose of the USA nightmare.

What of the impact of changing our strategy on HIV and consequently other types of blood borne virus transmission? The graph below is from a TED talk by Sereen El-Feki, vice-chair of the Global Commission on HIV and the law:

HIV infection in Injection Drug Users

Whilst Thailand and Russia have ignored Harm Reduction and Australia and Switzerland have embraced it the USA and Malaysia employed only some Harm Reduction techniques. Should Australia embrace USA tactics our prison population will explode, HIV infection in IV drug users will increase by about eight times the present rate and treatment – presently some of the best in the world with plunge to 11%. The cost to the public health purse would simply gut present programmes and destroy any hope of improvement for say, dental, mental health, public hospital care, nursing home care etc.

There is a 4 minute out-take from Sereen El-Feki’s TED talk in April this year below. Or download MP3 here.

The first case of AIDS was reported in Australia in 1983. At that time morbidity rates to rival World War II were expected. Following the innovative approach of HR, levels of infection in all demographics fell from 2,500 per year to 500 in the decade following inception of HR. This infection rate has remained stable.

At the time, initiation of clean needle supply contravened the states Drug Offensive which, already highly criticised, had regrettably escalated drug use and criminalisation via the failed “Just Say No” approach. The pilot programme ran from St. Vincents Drug and Alcohol Service on November 13 1986. It was run in the suburb of Darlinghurst. An evaluation recommended they should be adminstered by social workers, drug agencies, pharmacies, medical professionals and urged:

The urgent widespread introduction of needle exchange programmes in all states and territories

There needed to be an amendment to the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act following which NSW pharmacies sold “anti-AIDS kits”. By mid 1989 there were 40 public outlets run across Sydney. By 1994 there were 250 outlets run by NGOs, government agencies and pharmacists distributing 3.5 million syringes annually. For the year 1993-1994 10.3 million syringes were distributed across Australia. The USA with 15 times the population of Australia distributed 8 million syringes in 1994-1995.

More comprehensive analyses refuted the concerns of increasing drug use. No increase in drug use was seen in any country that had instigated needle exchange and more so, attendance at rehabilitation and abstinence programmes had increased. Australia’s Commonwealth Department of Health (now Dept. of Health and Ageing) estimated that 25,000 cases of HIV were averted in the 12 years from 1988 – 2000 due to needle exchange alone (page 10 – 3.5.3).

The infection rate among Aussie IDU sat at around 3%. Users who were also MSM had an infection rate of 27%. In Russia where HR for drug users was denied, the figure for IDU was between 75 and 90%. One study in 1997 looked at 81 European cities with and without needle exchange programmes. Seroprevalence (measured from the presence of HIV within blood taken from used syringes) increased 5.9% annually in cities without clean needle distribution, and decreased 5.8% in cities with needle exchange.

In an astonishing comparison, Edinburgh with no NSP experienced a 65% HIV infection rate amongst IDU. Glasgow, less than an hours drive away and with NSP experienced a 4.5% increase in HIV infection amongst IDU. The one issue Australia faced was return of used syringes. Users were placing them in sharps bins. Yet to return any syringes to Exchanges meant risking being questioned by police. A used syringe is evidence of illicit drug use and this acted as a disincentive to return items for safe disposal.

Of note however is that fears and front page headlines of beach goers and joggers stepping on syringes and undergoing “agonising waits” for blood tests to be cleared of HIV infection are out of proportion. HIV dies very quickly once outside the body and syringes on beaches have been discarded into drains, washed out to sea and then beached. Nonetheless despite the absence of actual transmission it is an unpleasant experience which can be lessened by removing all offences for possession of a used syringe.

Clearly, Australia’s decision to take the necessary steps and bring together members of drug using demographics, gay rights advocates and prostitutes collectives and allow them to consult upon and shape this programme was one of it’s greatest public health initiatives ever.

Between 2000-2009 NSPs have averted 32,050 new cases of HIV and 96,666 Hepatitis C infections. Needles distributed increased from approximately 27 million to 31 million in that decade. For every one dollar invested, four dollars have been saved. 140,000 Disability Adjusted Life Years were gained over the same decade.

Still, conservative biblical fundamentalist group Drug Free Australia boldly inform us that Return On Investment is quite wrong and should show an expense. In earlier posts you can access from the tag on the right, I highlight how they cherry pick phrases and select data out of context. At other times they simply dismiss WHO findings based solely on the reviews of just one Swedish researcher, Dr Kerstin Käll.

So to be very clear, Dr Kerstin Käll, working for the Swedish government who are dodging UN demands to establish more Needle Exchanges and accelerate HR or remain in breach of the international right to health, conducted no research but criticised methodology that was favourable of NSP success. Her own research argues regular testing for HIV is more of a prevention – yes prevention – than clean needle supply.

It’s easy to get confused because whilst Käll supports NSP programmes as reducing hepatitis C in prisons DFA refute any change in HCV attributable to NSP programmes… anywhere. They also lobby stridently against the establishment of needle exchange in Australian prisons. Of course, despite the evidence above they insist the impact of NSP on HIV is “inconclusive”.

Ultimately it’s irrefutable how successful Harm Reduction has been in controlling the spread of blood borne viruses. Paramount amongst these is HIV, Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B. The most significant and visionary measure to now apply would include steps to decriminalisation and regulation.

Today however, this is where Australia is falling behind.

The Australian Vaccination Network

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Health, Human Rights, Legal, Scam by

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.

A response to the defence of chiropractic

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Big Placebo, Chiropractic, Denialism, Health, Human Rights, Scam, Science by

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”.

However as we read in Quacks galore in facade of quirky medicine:

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.

Here’s lookin’ at ya Keith.