Judy Wilyman: proof of vaccines’ success

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, AVN, Denialism, Human Rights, Judy Wilyman, Legal, Skeptic by Paul Gallagher

We deserve to see the evidence that vaccinating for all these diseases is good and necessary for the community

Judy Wilyman, June 30th 2010

Read the above statement from prominent antivaccination lobbyist and student Judy Wilyman. It’s a reasonable observation. Defending it would be admirable. Fortunately I don’t have to because the evidence, not only for the success of mass vaccination, but of how this prevents death and disability from disease is readily available.

In fact the success of vaccination is so ubiquitous that vaccines themselves have become a victim of it. Judy Wilyman doesn’t understand she is one of the most fortunate human beings in history. Well into the future even after she dies, billions will dream of the quality of life Judy Wilyman enjoys. Born into the affluence of a developed nation she has lived an entire life protected by medical science, robust economies and public health success stories.

Judy Wilyman is one of the luckiest individuals in one of the luckiest generations in one of the luckiest nations as a mere single offspring of around 107 billion human beings to have lived and died on this planet. She is inestimably healthier, more comfortable, more free and importantly more disease free than around 99% of our species to have seen the sky. With her life protected by her own and others vaccine induced immunity, and now already almost twice the age that genetic predisposition alone permits on this planet, Judy will live on for years enriching her life and exploring any manner of experience.

Every day vaccine success is all around her. It’s invisible. It is the absence of suddenly missing school friends, the grief that parents would bear, the devastation that ravaged cities in the late 17th and 18th centuries. It is the message of those little mossy tombstones I passed that, on rare visits to older family graves, my father would stop and read with reverence long before I knew how to read at all.

It’s removed the throat choking sadness that incredibly meant both my maternal grandparents were long dead and even more years passed before their grandchildren discovered they had an uncle on that side of the family. The only male and last born, he had died within weeks of his birth taking with him my grandfather’s dream of passing on a farm.

Vaccine success is the absence of tears often shed. Tears Often Shed child health and welfare in Australia from 1788, published in 1978 was written by Dr. Brian Gandevia. I’ve heard Wilyman reach into the past to condemn vaccines by misrepresenting the scientific context of the times and wonder if she passed this by on purpose. In 1800 Botany Bay held about 1,000 children, half being orphans. Infant mortality was 11% – over 20 times what it is today. In 1827 pertussis appeared, then measles then diphtheria. Mortality was high.

By 1880 Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane had children’s hospitals. That year a measles outbreak hit Sydney. Henry Lawson’s 1899 poem entitled Past Carin’ reflects the tragedy of harshness in Australian living at that time. This is a short out-take:

Our first child took—a cruel week in dyin’, …

I’ve pulled three through and buried two

Since then—and I’m past carin’.

Judy Wilyman weaves myth and junk science to justify make-believe notions that we are not allowed to see the evidence of vaccine success. All the time unaware that she is this evidence. In more ways than one also. Not only is Judy here due to vaccination regimes and medical science, but the vacuum left by the need to simply survive is being filled by the fantastic fraud and fiction that Wilyman produces to malign vaccination itself.

So absolute has vaccine success been that we can now turn our attention to the rarity of the potential of an adverse event. Unlike Lawson, we’re not “past carin'”. In an era of health luxury we can choose what to care about, and with disconcerting ease antivaccinationists, divested of evidence, play human emotion.

Abuse of innocent Australians:

Her W.A. State Library talk was a hack job of the worst vaccine myths on offer. Yet supposedly worth retelling because Wilyman is studying to complete a PhD in an Arts faculty and labels herself “an independent researcher who has been scouring the peer reviewed journals for 10 years”.

At the same talk Wilyman allows a glimpse into ego clashing with conspiracy beliefs:

If vaccination was based on science then the media would not have to work so hard to suppress the information. You will notice the media reports rely on discrediting individuals and organisations and running fear campaigns to encourage parents to vaccinate. Did they mention in the papers that myself and [redacted] are both PhD researchers? Did they mention that the lowest vaccination rates in Perth are… where the majority of doctors and other professionals live? No. This topic is about the control of information.

That final appeal to authority is meaningless. It is a myth that “doctors don’t vaccinate”. Economic advantage has not only been firmly linked to the Dunning-Kruger effect but we’ve known since last century that the same demographic refuse to register their children on the Australian immunisation register, or complete appropriate forms. Linear skill sets (job training) and consequent income rises correlate to big mortgages, not critical thinking.

Moving beyond this slur on class status, Judy works quite hard to evoke a feeling of manipulation and abuse of personal rights in her audience. She produces a slide of the Australian Framework for Environmental Health Risk Assessment.

At the top is “community consultation”. Has anyone here been consulted on a preventative measure such as vaccination for the health of your child? The public is being excluded from this process because we’re told it’s a medical procedure. So I’m asking you tonight why are you vaccinating? Are you vaccinating because you have a good idea of the risk of disease and the risk of vaccines or are you vaccinating through blind faith?

I hate to interrupt but this is a gross deception played on her audience. What a set up! Nothing on the impact of vaccine preventable disease (VPD). Nothing on risk benefit. This comes well after claiming herself and Meryl Dorey are presenting “peer reviewed science” that proves there’s no evidence to support vaccination. They will tell the real story, not the contrived story the government and media tell. “The government treats vaccines as if they have no harmful effects at all”, Judy claims.

This makes Definition of adverse events following immunisation, published by the Australian government along with Post-vaccination procedures (focused on adverse effects) and reports on the surveillance of Adverse Events Following Immunisation in Australia quite puzzling then. Judy also claims “They are promoted as if we can put as many as we like into our bodies without harm”.

Convinced that the government “coerces” Australians into vaccination Judy argues vaccination is a human rights issue, that (with incentives) she described recently as “a crime against humanity”. In order to understand Wilyman’s primary deception it’s crucial to note her invention is that we live in an Orwellian type society that forces coercive and mandatory vaccination. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are free to be as stupid as we wish and place our children in as much danger from vaccine preventable disease as this madness allows. Even better, we can spread exposure to countless others who had no choice in the matter and belittle those who protect our children with herd immunity as “vaccinating through blind faith”.

Quoting “the health ethics that our immunisation principles are based upon” Wilyman then misleads her audience [bold mine]:

“The state retains the authority to regulate the human body in order to protect the health and safety of the general public”.

So it is the government that’s deciding how many vaccines we can put into our bodies

Even though this is complete codswallop, it prompts Judy to come up with two questions that set “the context and the ethics of these fundamental principles”.

Did vaccines play a significant role in controlling and reducing infectious diseases?
What is in a vaccine?

Let’s focus for now on question 1.

Abuse of Australian History:

Judy is a champion of the misconception that a reduction in overall death rates is proof that improved living standards, and not vaccines, controlled and reduced infectious diseases. Her abuse of the work of early public health authorities is demonstrably hypocritical. Let’s examine her abuse of J.H.L. Cumpston and H.O. Lancester. To Wilyman they “confirm” vaccines did not reduce infectious disease. Cumpston (1880-1954) was Australia’s first Commonwealth Director-General of Health. Known as “the father of public health in Australia” he features prominently in Child Health Since Federation written for the Australian Year Book 2001 by a present day population health scientist.

That scientist would be Professor Fiona Stanley. Founding Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research she has been receiving awards now for 17 years, and refers to both Cumpston and Lancester in this work. Former Australian of the year professor Stanley is mocked and abused mercilessly by Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network for “aggressive commercialisation activities of the Telethon Institute“, being paid off by Big Pharma, hiding the truth and experimenting on children.

She was “invited” by Judy Wilyman to attend the very seminar I’m referring to now. Two days later interviewed on air, Stanley referred to the views presented by Dorey and Wilyman as “bizarre” and “so misinformed that it is scary”.

Professor Fiona Stanley speaks about the “so-called” Australian Vaccination Network in Perth

Download MP3 here.

It’s offensive that Wilyman demeans sound legislation and state authority to control disease, just before invoking Cumpston’s name. As Stanley writes in Child Health Since Federation [bold mine]:

He [Cumpston] oversaw the most spectacular falls in mortality and morbidity ever seen in Australia. […]

Essential to this movement was an expert bureaucracy to research, create and administer policy… Other essential ingredients for the success of the public health movement was a competent and independent (from State) group of medical practitioners, devoted to the care of the sick, but willing to accept State interventions for both public health improvements and care (the latter of course on their terms). […]

Throughout the early 20th century, as bacteriology developed, knowledge grew of the role of organisms in disease, and the focus of public health shifted to identifying disease in individuals and control by isolation (quarantine), which opened the way to mass vaccination.

With improvements in sanitation and quality of life came healthier people. Recovery from disease increased and thus mortality fell. But no widespread immunity or viral elimination occurred. Better nutrition certainly increased host resistance to infection. J.H.L. Cumpston died in 1954 just as vaccine success took off.

Citing Ada and Isaacs, Stanley writes:

Infectious deaths fell before widespread vaccination was implemented. However, since the 1950s, mass vaccination has been the single most effective public health measure to reduce the occurrence of infections, to reduce child deaths and to improve child health

There is of course no doubt that access to good nutrition, clean water, public awareness of cleanliness leading to reduced contact with infecting organisms (good hygiene) and a cleaner environment led to improved health. Yet there is no evidence of vaccination as anything but the greatest single contributor to public health. Lancaster as cited by Wilyman (page 6) actually refers to “gastroenteritis, respiratory and other infections”. This in no way supports her claim that vaccines played no role in reduction of disease.

Wilyman is deceptive in other ways also. When writing on pertussis (linked above – page 6 again) her choice of target is 1954 when the NHMRC advised that pertussis vaccine become routine for new born babies. But fatality had fallen to only 15 deaths per year bemoans Judy.

She avoids informing readers that in the 10 years to 1955, 429 deaths occurred (p.2). In the previous decade – that in which the vaccine was introduced (1936-1945) – 1,693 deaths from pertussis were recorded. In the decade before with no vaccine? 2,808 deaths. So, since the vaccine was actually introduced fatalities had been declining dramatically. Period.

Abuse of Alfred Russel Wallace:

Wilyman refers to Alfred Russel Wallace as “the co-designer of the evolutionary theory with Charles Darwin” and mentions his work, Vaccination a Delusion. If anything exposes Wilyman’s lack of scientific rigor it is the abuse of history and the Victorian antivaccination movement. Wallace himself and his three children were vaccinated. His interest in the movement began once his natural science writings had finished. Whilst a source of income, Wallace was also driven by his spiritualism, social reformist views and Swedenborgianism.

Unlike today’s antivaxxers, the Victorian movements based their position on notions and quantitative approaches that were entirely rational for the day. Science itself was unsettled. One approach was prone to blend with spiritualism (experimental psychology, evolutionary biology, and astronomy), liberty and holistic notions. Another took the view that science should be objective, disinterested, factual and that politics should remain separate.

More so, repeated prosecution from 1867 for not being vaccinated against smallpox or having ones children vaccinated was ruthlessly followed through with. Methods like arm to arm vaccination were high risk and equipment (pins, forks, knives and needles) spoke for themselves. But despite his spiritual leanings Wallace was a scientist. An empiricist. He deplored shoddy record keeping and bad statistics – especially assumptions.

So he set to work challenging the gaping holes in epidemiological data. The vaccine status of between 30-70% of people who died from smallpox was unknown. Not because vaccination failed but records were unreliable or absent. Wallace himself probably had good reason to doubt the disease status of fatalities as recorded by doctors. Thomas Weber looked into Wallace’s role here and concluded in part.

The numerical arguments used by Wallace and his opponents were based on an actuarial type of statistics, i.e., the analysis of life tables and mortalities. Inferential statistics that could be more helpful in identifying potential causes did not yet exist. The statistical approach to the vaccination debate used by Wallace and his opponents could simply not resolve the issue of vaccine efficiency; thus, each side was free to choose the interpretation that suited its needs best. However, despite its indecisive outcome, the debate was a major step in defining what kind of evidence was needed. It is also unjustified to portray the debate as a controversy of science versus antiscience because the boundaries between orthodox and heterodox science we are certain of today were far less apparent in the Victorian era. What the scope and methods of science were or should be were topics still to be settled.

So Wallace had many reasons to challenge vaccination in his time, none of them related to the evidence we have today. Indirectly he helped bring about the success of vaccination as we see it presently. Ever the empiricist there is no doubt how he would form his views with contemporary evidence. Wilyman’s appeal to authority this way is quite silly.

Ultimately Judy Wilyman reinforces the success of vaccination. She has no evidence based argument and shockingly has recycled these old myths for years, masquerading as “an independent researcher”. Without fiction she would have little to say. Despite the cloak and dagger tales of “crimes against humanity” and “government coercion” she is simply free. Free to speak, free to be wrong. Completely democratically free.

Judy Wilyman represents the best in Aussie freedom. The freedom to be stupid.

6Feb2012

Pertussis notification and vaccination status in context

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Chiropractic, Human Rights by Paul Gallagher

Across the globe it is known how important the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine is in preventing both infection and severity of infection with Bordetella pertussis.

Along with vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus, then polio (1950’s), measles, mumps, rubella (1960’s) the Australian pertussis vaccine has contributed to an astonishing 99% reduction in deaths from vaccine preventable disease. Just after the turn of the century pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus vaccines alone had saved over 70,000 lives whilst the population had almost tripled since their inception. Since then pertussis vaccination alone has saved around another 10,000 Australian lives.

From the World Health Organisation, to national or state health authorities across developed nations to your local doctor, the evidence is compelling. Although anyone can catch pertussis it is babies under 12 months who are most vulnerable to infection. The disease can cause disability and death in the unvaccinated. Whilst immunisation provides antibodies to fight pertussis, it does not provide “magical protection”. For that you need chiropractors or other practitioners of alternatives to medicine.

Immunisation against pertussis does mean:

A significantly reduced chance of being infected
A significantly reduced severity of infection if infected
Protection of unvaccinated individuals that one may come into contact with
Low levels of community infection with high levels of immunisation

Pertussis epidemics follow on from reduction in immunisation across the community, leading to a drop in herd immunity. The present epidemic Australia is experiencing began in Byron Bay, an area with very low immunisation rates, and then spread to other areas of low immunisation. From the backyard of Meryl Dorey’s anti-vaccination lobby group the seeds for this epidemic were sown a decade ago. Brynley Hull and Peter McIntyre wrote in January 2003 [page 12]:

Although immunisation coverage has greatly improved over the past five years in NSW, and many areas have reached coverage targets, there are areas in NSW where the level of registered conscientious objection to immunisation is great enough to affect immunisation coverage, as measured by the ACIR. One such area is northern NSW, and the Byron Bay SLA in particular, where the rate of conscientious objection is one of the highest in the country.

Despite the crystal clear science and undoubted success of immunisation, movements against all vaccines have grown. They have kept pace with internet driven conspiracy theories, imaginary diseases, imaginary cures and new age beliefs. The most successful currency used by those opposed to scientific success is ignorance and misinformation.

An excellent example regarding pertussis vaccination is that many people incorrectly believe all vaccines, with the exception of influenza, provide lifelong immunity. With pertussis, vaccine induced immunity wanes over time and as noted above whilst it reduces the chance of infection, it is not an impervious shield. Antivaccination lobbyists have taken advantage of this to infer that the pertussis vaccination schedule itself has failed. First, we have ignorance – the expectation that immunity is lifelong. Then follows misinformation.

For example as debunked here more than a few times, figures describing vaccination levels and notification of infection are frequently misused by the Australian Vaccination Network to falsely refute the efficacy of immunisation. Yet these clumsy attempts are piecemeal and misleading. Time and again infection notification and vaccination status is highlighted and infused with qualities that serve to misinform. Placing figures in context yields a very different picture which, given that they seek to deny international trends that have existed for decades, is not surprising.

The question, or challenge if you will, is about the veracity of the pertussis vaccination schedule. Thus we must take care to ensure we elucidate notifications related to full immunisation as per the schedule. Take the following table of children between 0 – 4 years old, diagnosed with pertussis:

Pertussis notification by vaccination status 0-4 years, Australia August 2011

We see that a total of 9,333 notifications have been tabulated. 5,296 or 56.7% are fully vaccinated.

986 are partially vaccinated. 800 are not vaccinated. 754 are ineligible for vaccination. This gives us a total of 2,540 or 27.2% who are not fully vaccinated.

1,497 or 16% are unknown.

Do these figures reflect infection in the community? No, they reflect the vaccine status of children diagnosed.

Firstly as the table informs us “fully vaccinated” does not necessarily conform with fully vaccinated under the National Immunisation Program. Ineligible cases between 6-8 weeks of age that had received one dose in 2009 are included in “fully vaccinated”. Both these facts artificially inflate the “fully vaccinated” category.

Next we must accept that this table underestimates the actual number of infections in the community. The National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System relies on a passive surveillance system which does not capture every case of pertussis in the community.

Which raises the question. Who is not making notification? Can we infer anything about the vaccination status of those not recorded in the above table? If so, does this help us understand the figures in the table better? As a matter of fact, yes.

Do these figures reflect the efficacy of pertussis vaccination? In other words, is this telling us that there are over twice as many infected children in our community who have been vaccinated (56.7%), than those who have not been fully vaccinated (27.2%) and thus reflect low vaccine efficacy? No.

Far more children are vaccinated against pertussis than those who are not. 95% vs 5% in fact. Even with greatly reduced chance of infection the sheer numbers of vaccinated children mean that “fully vaccinated” will dominate notifications. These figures also reflect the greater likelihood of parents who vaccinate to take their child to a GP and follow through with reporting, and also reflect the likelihood of conscientious objectors to avoid a GP and to not follow through with reporting.

For example a USA study published in Vaccine in December last year showed that parents who do not vaccinate their children are four times more likely to take their child to a chiropractor than a conventional doctor. In Australia we already know that chiropractors are vocal antivaccination proponents with strong links to antivaccination lobby groups such as the Australian Vaccination Network. Many chiropractors in Australia actively mislead consumers on the topic of vaccination making impossible claims, actively deriding vaccination.

But we can do much better than this and begin to build a profile of parents who refuse vaccination and later choose conscientious objection. Five days ago Australian Doctor reflected on the study:

A US survey found parents who refused childhood vaccinations were four times more likely to have sent their youngest, school-aged child to a chiropractor than parents of vaccinated children. Parents who conscientiously objected to school immunisation requirements were also more likely to have strong concerns about vaccines, to distrust local doctors and to have had one or more births in a non-hospital, alternative setting. […]

Are naturopathic and complementary healthcare providers reinforcing parental concerns and ‘anti-vaccine’ opinions or promoting exemptions, or are they providing healthcare without emphasizing vaccinations?

The pattern emerging is one of anti-conventional medicine, reinforced by alternatives to medicine masquerading as “complementary healthcare”. For our purposes we must now accept that unvaccinated children may be up to four times less likely to visit a GP when ill with pertussis. This means they may be up to four times less likely to appear as a notification. Regardless of exactly how many unvaccinated children are missed, we can see with confidence that the total is skewed away from highlighting unvaccinated children.

Thus the 8.6% of unvaccinated children noted in the table above (n=800) is possibly a significant underestimation. As parents who do vaccinate are more likely to visit a GP and report diligently, the total is additionally skewed toward the fully vaccinated. What this actually means regarding community impact is best captured in this post written by a mother whose vaccinated child was infected by an unvaccinated child who had been sent to school.

Now comes the fascinating aspect. “Unknown”. What does this mean? Really? For whatever reason, somewhere along the line the child’s vaccination status is not recorded at all, is recorded and fails to make it to the final notification table or is lost to genuine confusion or poor record keeping.

However if parents are not registered on the ACIR as conscientious objectors or as completing their children’s vaccination schedules they are also listed as “unknown”. Thus the following from Brynley Hull and Peter McIntyre is compelling [bold mine]:

Additionally, the proportion of conscientious objectors on the [Australian Childhood Immunisation Register] ACIR is likely to be an underestimate of the proportion of parents who don’t immunise because they disagree with immunisation, particularly in more economically advantaged areas. There are some non-immunising parents who ‘object to registering’, and they will refuse to complete any government-provided form.

“Refuse to complete any government-provided form”. Such as those that question the immunisation status of one’s child? That also is where a significant number of “unknown” cases have their genesis.

In tandem with our emerging profile of anti-conventional medicine beliefs driving the decision to not vaccinate and combined with the observation that CO’s are likely to contribute to the “unknown” category by not registering on the ACIR, we are able to make a strong inference that unvaccinated out-rate vaccinated in this category.

Whilst it is impossible to make outright factual quantified claims and rewrite that table, we may conclude that placed in the context of community trends it gives a less than reliable indication of infected subjects within the community. What it does give us is a snap shot of the vaccine status of notifications. Placed in context those notifications appear to be skewed away from unvaccinated and toward vaccinated subjects.

The most significant reason is the overwhelming numbers of vaccinated children in the community. Although appearing as a notification they have a far less severe case of pertussis and are unlikely to suffer disability or death. Other reasons for this would appear to be the intentional avoidance or substitution of conventional medicine, diagnosis and reporting of vaccination status by those in denial of vaccine efficacy.

Of course, people will use these figures to attack the overwhelming evidence in support of vaccination. That’s just what eccentric parent Greg Beattie has tried. It’s simply gobsmacking to read his misleading claim that only 11% of pertussis infections aren’t vaccinated. Actually it’s only 8.6%.

But the point to be made is whilst only 5% of 0-4 year olds aren’t “fully vaccinated” they make up a disproportionate 27.2% of infection notifications. Unsurprisingly his novel mathematics have been dealt with unceremoniously by A Drunken Madman.

There is no debate here. Pertussis vaccination saves lives.

29Jan2012

Andrew Wakefield had only one aim: to make money

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Legal, Scam by Paul Gallagher

Recently there’s been some unusual defence of Andrew Wakefield.

He never wrote a paper claiming vaccines cause autism, offered fans of Meryl Dorey at Woodford. The rationale? To drive home that vaccines do cause autism. You see, the shorthand misconception of Wakefield supporters is that he was found guilty of fraud in publishing a “vaccines cause autism” paper.

It isn’t quite that simple, and through what can only be described as a combination of ignorance and stupidity these blinkered fans now seek to capitalise on their own confusion.

A five member General Medical Council panel found Wakefield guilty of over 30 charges including 12 of causing children to endure “clinically unjustified” invasive testing procedures, buying blood at children’s birthday parties and managing four counts of dishonesty. Then, his “continued lack of insight” into his conduct, and consequences thereof, meant that only “total erasure” from the medical register was warranted.

In short he was an unprofessional crook, guilty of self serving and callous conduct with no insight into the damage he did or the ongoing harm he was causing.

Dorey’s fans insist Brian Deer stitched up Wakefield because Wakefield’s paper includes:

We did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described

So. The reasoning in the mind of a Dorey fan is:

Wakefield did not claim a link to autism, therefore the charge of fraud is wrong.
If the charge of fraud is wrong, then claiming that vaccines cause autism is not fraudulent.
Due to 2 above, then the claim “vaccines cause autism” is factual.
Andrew Wakefield is thus doubly correct in that he never committed fraud, but when he was accused of promoting a fraudulent link to autism, due to 2 above he was “set up”.
Vaccines thus cause autism.

Yet Wakefield did commit fraud in an attempt to manufacture his “autistic entercolitis” (AE), in tampering with histopathology results and in attempting to set up his grand financial empire

Not only would success in creating AE drive class action suits in the USA and the UK, the non-existent syndrome would make Wakefield a pot of gold. Proper diagnoses would be needed. At the expense of pharmaceutical companies, complex immunodiagnostics would be ordered by lawyers acting for the families of those stricken with AE.

Let’s follow the money….

Wakefield was paid £435 643 by Richard Barr’s law firm to create a syndrome to drive class action of anti-vaccination litigants. This was no fluke. In the 1990’s vaccine injury was shaping to be the big one for injury compensation lawyers. In 1996 Richard Barr was already working on his autistic test case – “child 2”. On September 9th the child was subject to what the GMC later found was a “clinically unwarranted” ileocolonoscopy. Although he did not have Crohn’s disease it was assumed he might.

Enter Wakefield’s March 1995 Diagnostic patent that claimed:

Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis may be diagnosed by detecting measles virus in bowel tissue, bowel products or body fluids

In a theme we will see later was Wakefield’s true driving force, an accompanying document proposed setting up a diagnostic company. Wakefield’s scheme suggested that molecular viral diagnostic tests run for clients in the USA and the UK would yield big bucks. In fact it would yield £72.5m per year. The document was an unbridled embellishment of Wakefield’s patented scam and included:

In view of the unique services offered by the Company and its technology, particularly for the molecular diagnostic, the assays can command premium prices […]

The ability of the Company to commercialise its candidate products,” the draft plan continued, “depends upon the extent to which reimbursement for the cost of such products will be available from government health administration authorities, private health providers and, in the context of the molecular diagnostic, the Legal Aid Board.

Despite being paid £150 plus expenses per hour since January 1996 and the reality “child 2” had been enrolled with Barr’s firm for seven months, Wakefield was after Legal Aid.

Here’s where Meryl Dorey’s new breed of Wakefield defenders fail to make first base. Two weeks before selecting his 1st subject for the 12 child study Wakefield co-authored with Richard Barr a letter that included:

Children with enteritis and disintegrative disorder, form part of a new syndrome. The evidence is undeniably in favour of a specific vaccine induced pathology

Nine months before publishing his paper Wakefield had filed for monovalent vaccine patents. A nice addition to his other patent that placed the measles component of MMR as a diagnostic pointer to Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Opening of Wakefield’s vaccine patent submission. See item 15 for reference to his Crohn’s Disease patent

[Image © Brian Deer]

In the lead up to releasing the paper’s results Wakefield made various copies on tape of how he should announce specifics of his “findings”. In one of these proposed announcements Wakefield states:

There is sufficient anxiety in my own mind for the long term safety of the polyvalent vaccine—that is, the MMR vaccination in combination—that I think it should be suspended in favour of the single vaccines

Having agreed to follow through with a press announcement that would reinforce the safety of MMR and stress his small sample of unverified results did – as the paper’s text stated – “not prove an association between [MMR] and the syndrome described”, Wakefield turned renegade. He argued that parents should consider splitting MMR vaccination into measles, mumps and rubella shots, leaving measles under a cloud. This of course, was a bonus for his hoped for impending single shot patent profits.

In a confidential submission (1999) to the Legal Aid board in his quest to set up Unigenetics, he argued the link b/w MMR and autism had been shown. He scored £800 000 of tax payer funds to conduct PCR tests of dubious pursuit. Within this venture – to be set up in the Republic of Ireland – he would take 37% of the earnings, the scheming parent known as “Number 10” would take 22.2%. A venture capitalist would get 18%. Royal Free’s professor of gastroenterology, Roy Pounder would get 11.7% and Professor John O’Leary another champion of “MMR causes autism” would get 11.1%.

In addition to these petty “legal costs and salary” monies Wakefield would get another £90 000 per year – more than half of which was for travel.

“Carmel Healthcare Ltd” (also registered in the Irish Republic) was to be named after Wakefield’s wife, Carmel.

Wakefield sought to use outmoded and discredited immunodiagnostic methods. Transfer factor, a technique that would purportedly be used for treatment, had been written out of practice. The technique lacked evidence, cost effectiveness and presented an infection risk.

American immunologist Hugh Fudenberg, of the Neuro Immuno Therapeutics foundation was also involved. Brian Deer writes that apart from being under sanction from his local medical board for prescription and use of controlled drugs, he also claimed to be able to cure autism with the above transfer factor. See Why investors might have paused.

Finally problems with the Dublin measles test would later become apparent. Supposed to detect virus from past MMR immunisations the technique gave inconsistent, unreliable results. Because of this method vaccine lawsuits in America and Britain suffered irreversible setbacks.

Brian Deer writes that he was handed a “private and confidential” prospectus 35 pages long, which included:

It is estimated that the initial market for the diagnostic will be litigation driven testing of patients with autistic enterocolitis from both the UK and the USA…”. £700 000 from investors was needed. Mind blowing profits were assured. “It is estimated that by year 3, income from this testing could be about £3 300 000 rising to about £28 000 000 as diagnostic testing in support of therapeutic regimes come on stream.

There was really nothing to diagnose. Count those profits. All from a made up syndrome driving litigation. “Litigation driven testing”. But then how many innocent families would also have been ripped off, lied to and how many others would have used his vaccines?

Of course today we know he forged conclusions from Dr. Amar Dhillon’s intestinal tissue sample grading sheets, to invent Autistic Enterocolitis. Now he is inexplicably trying to plead ignorance, blame Dhillon and thus sue the BMJ with the help of the USA’s version of Australia’s Dr. Brian Martin – “whistleblower” David Lewis.

Walker-Smith’s abuse of very ill children, at the insistence of Wakefield who continually ordered unnecessary tests, cannot be overstated. All of Walker-Smith’s tests – blood, colonoscopies, ileocolonoscopies returned negative results. Dhillon recorded normal findings. Consultant histopathologist Susan Davies also recorded normal intestinal findings. Also struck off the medical register, Walker-Smith was labelled “irresponsible and unethical”.

Paola Domizio, a consultant histopathologist and professor of pathology education at Queen Mary’s College has since claimed to be “astonished” at the normality of the histology findings. So Wakefield now blames Dhillon as the culprit of fraud. Just as he earlier used Walker-Smith’s presentation to “prove” he did not falsify data. Yet even there we can demonstrate Wakefield to have submitted identical material to the Legal Aid Board on 6 June 1996 – 6 1/2 months before Walker-Smith’s presentation.

It was Wakefield. It was always Wakefield. It will always be Wakefield.

Wakefield’s dishonesty and fraud sought to make him filthy rich. From well before the study began he had the “syndrome” laid out. Months before publication he was setting up his patents. Feel free to go through and add up those income totals. Then visit sham blog Child Health Safety and try to make sense of the autism ramblings peppered there.

So Child Health Safety and Dorey’s new Wakefield converts need to be aware. On at least four different occasions Wakefield claimed MMR did cause autism. He particularly did so when prospecting for capital to run his assumed to be obscenely profitable immunodiagnostic businesses, that specialised in a condition – autistic entercolitis – he had fraudulently invented.

Wakefield’s fraud may well have been done on mundane tissue samples. But he played a cunning side game.

That side game was to ensure people believed that MMR actually did cause autism.

Edited: 17/07/2018

26Jan2012

Should Australia’s Federal Health Minister be for the health or the harming of children?

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Health, Human Rights, Legal, Science, Vaxxed by Paul Gallagher

Sign The Petition to Australia’s Health Minister

No doubt this Australia day is a first in that a conspiracy theorist masquerading as a PhD candidate, has just harassed our Federal Health Minister over a delusion.

Australian Vaccination Network member Judy Wilyman has written an extraordinary piece of combined conspiracy ramble and delusion of grandeur to Tanya Plibersek, our Federal Health Minister. In it Wilyman claims to speak for “the community for whom this policy is designed”. That policy would be life saving vaccination schedules. That community would be Australia wide.

Last I checked Wilyman’s extreme conspiracy views are believed by a very small fraction of the 1.7% of Aussies who don’t vaccinate through conscientious objection. I’ve read her work and listened to her speak. Carefully crafted deception arguing that vaccines have had no effect ever, is interspersed with a very strange obsession. A type of appeal to antiquity meets appeal to authority. Eg; Russel Wallace who is considered second only to Charles Darwin in grasping the theory of evolution wasn’t keen on vaccination, borrowing liberally from the Yuk Factor to dismiss the idea.

Wilyman actually reads this stuff out at AVN gatherings. Confusing the drop in mortality that accompanied improved living standards, Wilyman mistakenly believes this is indicating a drop in vaccine preventable disease. Last November she wrote to Nicola Roxon, including:

To the Honourable Ms. Roxon, […]

There is no historical evidence that vaccines controlled any of the infectious diseases listed in government immunization policies – in any developed country. […]

There is no democracy in a country that doesn’t have a transparent government. The Australian government will be committing a crime against humanity by introducing policies that bribe the Australian public into vaccinating by offering $2000 in welfare benefits or by preventing individuals from working in clinical positions.

Both of these points are false. Aussies who choose not to vaccinate are suitable for, and advised on how to receive, all financial entitlements. The Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 dictates protection of clientele and workers. Employers have a responsibility to ensure the safety of employees, visitors and clientele. Also, employees have a responsibility to comply with a reasonable request of an employer to not endanger themselves nor place at risk the workplace health and safety of another worker.

Contrary to Wilyman’s delusional diversion, this is in accordance with the latest and best scientific advice and research. What would Russel Wallace make of it? I don’t give a toss. It’s no more a “crime against humanity” than being hindered from working on dangerous unguarded machinery, or driving a forklift with no mirrors in reverse listening to a blaring iPod, building and working on scaffolding with no ladders, trap doors and railings or running barefoot through freshly discarded used syringes.

The rest of November’s caper was claiming no proper trials exist, it’s all a Big Pharma conspiracy, science is biased and wrong and the astonishing claim that no proper monitoring of immunisation “side effects” has been done in 50 years.

To think someone claiming to be doing a PhD in vaccine legislation has not seen the reams of government incidence tables and graphs of AEFI beggars belief. Good work to her supervisor, Dr. Brian Martin. It finished with:

The community would like you to address the issues above and ensure that you can provide conclusive evidence and transparency for your policy before introducing any coercive measures into vaccination policies.

Today, much the same has been produced and thrown at Tanya Plibersek. Except Wilyman has cranked it up accusing the minister of making decisions based on corruption. Meryl Dorey claims Plibersek has “been placed on notice – stop the corruption in medicine!”. Wilyman demands the minister herself reply (emphasis hers).

It includes more community buck passing:

The community has lost confidence in the ability of the Health Department to make decisions in the best interests of the public due to the lack of integrity in the science being used and the conflicts of interest in individuals on government advisory boards. There is overwhelming evidence for this and I will list this below. As a result of this corruption of the scientific process the community has lost confidence in the Government’s Childhood Immunisation Schedule as it is clearly driven by profit and not safety.

In 2010 in W.A., speaking for the AVN, Wilyman raised the claim that vaccination policy is corrupt because “the governed” must be consulted. “Well I don’t recall being consulted” she managed incredulously then, “Do you recall being consulted?”.

She serves it up to Tanya Plibersek also:

The government requires “the consent of the governed who have the right to full participation in the decision-making process” before it implements public health policy (NRC- National Research Council, 1996). Therefore, until the issues below are addressed and consumers have equal representation on decision-making boards, the community is rejecting vaccination policy that is linked to financial benefits for parents.

Well I don’t recall being consulted for my opinion as your community member Judge Judy. How about some of that precious “balance” we hear so much about?

Wilyman then lists seven Big Pharma conspiracy themes, two of which are “hidden ties”. One between Big Pharma and peer review editors. The other between university academics and government advisory boards. Her supervisor is conspiracy theorist and post modernist “whistleblower”, Dr. Brian Martin, himself shown the door from any and everything “advisory”. One wonders if the latter is water cooler sour grapes.

Her scientific concerns to Plibersek are that a.) no studies exist into “the chemicals in vaccines.. causing the steep increase in chronic illness in our children.” Also b.) “… no controlled clinical study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated…”, has ever been done. Clearly no longer in Kansas Toto, she finishes with:

Until these issues are addressed the public is rejecting coercive or mandatory immunization policies that result in the discrimination of healthy individuals. I hope the Health Minister will reply to these community concerns personally.

I’m not sure which is more absurd. The patently fictitious accusations, or this notion of Judge Judy speaking for the community and advising what “the public is rejecting”. I know Judy may not be all that well – perhaps a few screams short of a tantrum in the old currency. But Margaret Court is hard evidence that living a delusion and causing community harm are not mutually exclusive.

Let’s hope Tanya Plibersek steps up monitoring of such individuals and groups along with how they exploit loopholes in legislation and academic privilege to bring harm to our most vulnerable community members.

To put this in better context AVN Facebook member, Wendy Elphinstone bragged in late November of intentionally infecting her daughter with varicella – chicken pox. This is abuse of a child, all to make a statement against artificial “health fascism” and suppression of rights. It is in effect the right to choose gone mad.

You quite rightly can’t smoke a cigarette in a confined space near anybody, much less your own children. Euthanasia is still illegal. So is pot. But you can risk your child’s life, make them sick, scared, miserable and harm them, because it’s the latest fad.

Varicella killed 0.41 per million before vaccination was instigated. MMR and DTap (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine) have no demonstrable history of fatality. This mother will not give her child MMR or DTap, but will expose her to a known risk of death via varicella. A risk of death that is about half of the risk of MMR induced brain injury that is often used as justification for denying vaccination.

Had Wendy Elphinstone’s unwelcome guest been passed on to an infant the risk of death is four times that of children aged 1 – 4. Strangely, Wendy never did explain how she controlled this.

Necrotizing Fascilitis is better known as “flesh-eating disease”. You can catch it from serious skin wounds, weakened immunity (such as associated with vaccine preventable diseases) yet also following varicella. Varicella pneumonia can occur and varicella encephalitis – although rare – can occur following infection. Any deterioration in patient health requires monitoring for neurological or super bacterial infection.

Then it lays dormant until again, it may emerge as shingles, encephalitis and potentially lead to stroke, disability or death.

Of course, Meryl Dorey went ballistic over a community member doing the right thing and acting in the interest of the child – the proxy of vaccine choice insanity. Dorey demoted varicella to almost harmlessness claiming purposeful exposure is something our “mothers and grandmothers” would have done. I mean, really Meryl? Don’t make me get out the Four Yorkshiremen again.

Just before Dorey came to Australia, she lived in a country where varicella killed 100 children per year, effected 4 million children and was behind $400 million in lost wages and medical costs annually. Half a million needed medical care and 10,000 were hospitalised. Frankly, I’d have expected more composure from “Australia’s leading vaccination expert”.

Meryl launched into accusations against the good citizen who cared enough to ensure this child’s welfare was not in serious danger. She claimed he’d accused her fallaciously of microchips and human culling. Which she er, wrote about here and then here, still later urging her members to keep it secret here.

Despite turning the issue into a “poor me” episode, in my mind it underscored just how dangerous Meryl Dorey and her AVN really are. Overtly wringing hands over unproven problems with “chemicals” and “toxins” in vaccines, buttressed by cries of no testing and poor record keeping, they now claim a right to casually infect their own children with a disease.

No doctors are involved, no monitoring follows. No possible spread to the unaware, immunocompromised or vulnerable is prevented or documented. Any notion of clinical (“allopathic”) support is derided.

But vaccination schedules are “a crime against humanity”.

Happy Australia Day.

If you think Australia’s Health Minister should be aware of this creeping malaise into public health, do visit this petition and help Stop The AVN.

23Jan2012

Meryl Dorey claims that Australian Skeptics suppress free speech – Why?

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Human Rights, Legal, Scam by Paul Gallagher

In the lead up to the Woodford Folk Festival the pros and cons of allowing Meryl Dorey to speak on vaccination received ample coverage.

The concern was quite straight forward. Meryl Dorey has a track record of misleading the public to sway people away from vaccination, a proven record of misappropriating funds and scamming her members, harassing grieving parents of babies deceased from vaccine preventable disease and is the subject of a NSW Health Care Complaints Commission Public Health Warning.

Meryl also refuses to engage her critics and despite being shown in error time and again, continuing to repeat untruths. Lastly, she gives voice to selective and bogus information in order to discredit the science of vaccination. We are in the middle of a serious pertussis epidemic and Meryl has a well rehearsed ditty that confuses people with dodgy figures and blatant untruths.

This was not an issue of free speech, but one of community responsibility. Very serious responsibility.

Despite Meryl’s extraordinary claim that the Australian Skeptics “say we don’t have freedom of speech and you don’t have a right to say no (to vaccination)”, it is a distortion of the facts. A successful 2009 complaint to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, submitted by Ken McLeod had posed under item 5 page 6, Is the AVN protected by a right of free speech? After noting the lack of constitutional protection and citing legal precedents it concluded:

So, in Australia, one is entitled to free speech provided that one does not harm an individual or society in general.

Ms. Dorey responded extensively to this in her reply (pages 9 – 12), citing a number of High Court cases involving the running of government. Dorey argued that the AVN was engaged “in ʻpoliticalʼ discussion”, and that “freedom of communication on matters of government and politics”, included material produced by the AVN.

Having awarded herself this spectacular promotion her conclusion did quite naturally, “confirm that the HCCC has a constitutional obligation” not to implement the provisions of the Health Care Complaints Act to the detriment of the AVN. Dorey’s defence was dismissed and the complaint upheld.

This is the genesis of the “they suppress my right to free speech” myth. Mr. McLeod is not a member of any skeptic organisations or groups in Australia. Australian Skeptics have never endorsed in word, deed or by association any notion that could be construed as opposition to free speech. Ms. Dorey has subsequently scurrilously inferred this for malicious intent.

Strikingly, whilst arguing that the AVN holds the same importance as individuals involved in the running of government, Dorey failed to address the key outcome of McLeod’s self imposed query: [That] In Australia one is entitled to free speech, provided that one does not harm an individual or society in general.

The importance of this cannot be overstated. Dorey spent six times as much text unsuccessfully refuting McLeod’s conclusion, as he did formulating it. At no point does she argue that the AVN does not harm an individual or society in general. As a refutation it seeks to argue that the AVN has a constitutionally protected right to speak how it chooses regardless of consequences to aforementioned individuals and society.

As for a chronology of the Australian Skeptics’ genuine involvement in challenging claims made by the AVN, we can look back to issue 2 of The Skeptic 2005, and the article by Ken McLeod: “Anti-Vaccination Ratbaggery”. In March 2009 Toni and David McCaffery lost their 4 week old daughter, Dana, to pertussis. Unaware of the AVN’s existence the McCaffery’s made a public plea for parents to educate themselves on the dangers of vaccine preventable disease. At the same time Meryl Dorey contended that the public was being misled, seeking access to Dana’s medical records and confirmation of cause of death.

On August 5th 2009 Australian Skeptics published a page dedicated to evidence based information on vaccination. On Thursday August 6th, 2009 The Australian ran a full page advertisement funded by Dick Smith Foods criticising the AVN and urging parents to seek reputable information.

By early September 2009 Channel 7’s Sunday Night programme ran two episodes on pertussis and vaccination. The first, A Mother’s Choice looked at the story of the McCaffery’s and featured interviews with Meryl Dorey. In the second, a forum, it was confirmed that the McCafferys had been targetted with hate mail by The AVN. Asked about qualifications, Meryl contended that she “had a brain” and had researched vaccination for 20 years.

Although morally supported in the studio by members of Australian Skeptics, it was the personal and invasive nature of the AVN’s comments toward the McCaffery’s that motivated an individual, Daniel Raffaele, to form a Facebook page called Stop The Australian Vaccination Network. It is not funded by, nor is it a “sub-group” of Australian Skeptics. Whilst popular with some skeptics it is not an exclusively skeptic venture.

Later that year the Australian Skeptics awarded Ms. Dorey the 2009 Bent Spoon Award for the traditional annual celebration of the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudo-scientific piffle. The honour table presently reads:

2009: Meryl Dorey and the deceptively named Australian Vaccination Network, who spread fear and misinformation about vaccines

The McCaffery’s received the first Fred Thornett Award for the “promotion of reason”. The following year the Fred went to Ken McLeod and Wendy Wilkinson who had contributed to Stop The AVN in individual ways, realising unique outcomes. Namely the NSW HCCC public health warning against the AVN and the NSW OLGR revoking the AVN’s Charitable fundraising licence. The Skeptic Of The Year award, went to Stop The AVN itself.

It is likely that around September 2009 that the AVN turret swung in the direction of Australian Skeptics. Certainly the 2009 Merit Awards (particularly the Bent Spoon), a number of articles in The Skeptic over 2010, and the 2010 Merit Awards themselves galvanised AVN opposition to all things skeptical. Since then salvos of misinformation which attempt to portray Stop The AVN and Ms. Dorey’s individual critics as “a sub-group” of Australian Skeptics, who are also accused of being antidemocratic, have continued unabated.

But blaming “the skeptics”, Australian Skeptics or continually claiming (as in the audio below) that Stop The AVN is funded by “the mother ship”, Australian Skeptics does nothing but divert attention away from the real issue. Meryl wants to be seen as persecuted, as silenced by unseen forces, and aware of your enemy. That way she must be right because they are so very wrong. Evidence need not come into it. Action can be initiated by invoking assumed malignant motives attached to the word “skeptic”.

By linking suppression of free speech to Skeptics and repeating gems such as “They [Skeptics] say people aren’t smart enough to hear both sides of the argument”, it creates an entirely false dynamic that suggests there is another side to proper health care and the scientifically literate are hiding it. It’s the vaccine equivalent of tacitly urging people to cut off their nose to spite their face.

Individuals who may speak or write as part of their professional life, and also happen to comment or offer advice on the Stop The AVN Facebook page are targetted for their views and awarded “membership” of Australian Skeptics by Ms. Dorey. You may ask why. The answer is quite simple. By convincing potential supporters an enemy is mobilising forces against them – terms Dorey actually uses fictitiously against “the skeptics” and SAVN – it is easier to rally support or motivate people to act without thinking critically.

Let’s take one recent example. A physician wrote a piece on the topic of patient health choice vs risk. Vaccination was not mentioned. Health authorities know that with the success of medical science rare adverse events are now more common than the diseases and problems that filled cemeteries with young mothers, infants and children only half a century ago. Yet this piece had a poll. A poll on choice. Dorey wanted to influence that poll. So, here’s what she wrote to her members:

[Redacted] is a member of both Stop the AVN and the Australian Skeptics. She has just written an article for the [redacted] which I believe is free online (text below), there is also a poll asking whether doctors should support a patient’s health choice even if they disagree with it. At the present time, 50% of those who have answered say no! That is frightening! i (sic) think if this poll is representative of most doctors, they should have a refresher course in what it means to be a health advisor rather than a health dictator.

Some nastiness on AVN’s Facebook page accompanied this. More so quite some assumption is being made. Not only is the article open to the public (anyone can vote) many doctors who defend conventional medicine also strenuously defend a patients right to choose. Ethics is perhaps not Meryl’s best subject. Eventually this was brought to the attention of the physician who, clearly not ruffled, went through the motions of seeking clarification:

Ms Dorey, I am not, and have never been a “member of Australian Skeptics.” I await your correction and apology. (Unless, of course, you were talking about somebody else, rather than just misspelling my name).

Silence.

Apart from individuals there are many blog posts and Facebook diatribes attacking “Australian Skeptics” or just “skeptics” for suppressing free speech, to not being actual skeptics, to being “pathological skeptics” for not seriously accepting the possibility of aliens. This silliness espouses ignorance of skeptics. It is not the existence of aliens that skeptics find difficult to accept. It is the quality of the current evidence for the existence and activities of aliens that has been proven unworthy time and again.

Much like that being exhumed over and again to challenge vaccine safety.

From a woman who likens court ordered vaccination to rape with full penetration, labelling vaccines “instruments of death” and claims that trusting ones doctor is “like telling a hen to trust a fox or like telling a five-year-old to trust a paedophile”, it would seem rational discourse is far from an option. Particularly when she then fictitiously claims on air to be bipartisan, and says, “we advise people to go to their doctors”.

Yet, I’m not really interested in these not infrequent outbursts at present. It is the calculated hammering of Australian Skeptics as being involved in the removal of choice, or suppression of free speech. These accusations are of course, untrue. Skeptics may seek to change minds with evidence. Yet using abusive or oppressive means of argument (evidence based or not) will drive people away, not leave them thinking.

Many requests for transparency on this point have been sent to Ms. Dorey. Most SAVN members and administrators are not associated with Australian Skeptics or the skeptic movement. Today it may function like a small organisation but time is given voluntarily and funding is from the pockets of a core group of members. SAVN does not accept any funds or readily collect donations despite claims to the contrary from Ms. Dorey:

The big question is why put so much focus on persecution? Surely the way to silence critics is just to knuckle down and get to work. Produce this “medical literature” that supports rejection of vaccine efficacy and safety. Yet there is none. Therein lies the problem. Challenging Meryl Dorey with hard evidence and arguments that undermine her claims will always be met with silence.

It is far better for her to define her apparent worth by inventing malignant intent in others. This is exactly what we saw in the lead up to Woodford. Time and again this specter of a well funded sub-group of Australian Skeptics who insist Aussies have no right to free speech was raised.

As critics of George W. Bush learned the hard way, calls for evidence and reason fall on many deaf ears when supporters are convinced an enemy is working toward obscure ends. The claim that Australian Skeptics invest significantly in opposing the AVN as part of a larger plan to impose skeptical views upon society and remove individual choice, serves admirably to draw attention away from the reality.

As for defamation, that does pose a fascinating intellectual exercise. Defamation in Australia focuses upon the individual:

You can defame someone if you say something false about them which spoils their good reputation, which makes people want to avoid them or which hurts them in their work or their profession.

Regarding organisations:

Under the old system of individual state laws, almost anyone or any organisation or company could bring an action for defamation. However, under the Uniform Defamation Law, corporations with 10 or more employees cannot sue. However, be warned that individuals or groups of individuals employed by or associated with that corporation – such as company directors, CEOs or managers – can still sue if they are identified by the publication.

Not-for-profit organisations can still sue for defamation, no matter how many employees or members they have.

Perhaps Meryl Dorey had the foresight to sketch out her defence against being defamatory long ago. From page 10 of the AVN reply to the HCCC, is this part of her reply to Mr. McLeod’s query on free speech:

The High Court has determined that any common law or statutory remedy for defamation may not be granted if its exercise would infringe upon the freedom to discuss government and political matters that the Constitution impliedly requires.

Further, the courts have found that a statute that diminishes the rights or remedies of persons defamed and correspondingly enlarges the freedom to discuss government and political matters is not contrary to this constitutional implication. The common law rights of persons defamed may be diminished by statute but they cannot be enlarged so as to restrict the freedom required by the Constitution.

This means that all statutes (whether state or commonwealth) that purport to define the law of defamation are construed so that they conform with the Constitution. Where such provisions are inconsistent with the Constitution, they are invalid to the extent of that inconsistency.

The ego is breath taking is it not? From so important as to lord over the law of the land to so persecuted the nasty skeptics seek to stop her speaking. Dorey manages it all.

So, the “why” is rather clear. Inventing persecution at the hands of “the skeptics” makes this an emotional issue. It fires up other people who aren’t aware of all the facts. It fills valuable time during which Dorey may be questioned about evidence. It draws conspiracy theorists like Tiga Bayles and Helen Lobato out of the woodwork, eager for a sample. Wonderfully, it gives them someone to blame.

It gives false credence and a reason to hearing her speak. It eliminates her having to explain a massive litany of misconduct and financial mismanagement to her members. It gives a senseless reason to members to run to her rallying call. It breaks down critical thought in followers and propagates simple reaction. They need not know why they are acting, only who they are acting against. And that requires very little effort on Dorey’s part.

“The skeptics say white. Go forth and say ______”.