Category Archives: Science

Some AVN Stupid burns so much it REALLY burns

Posted in Big Placebo, Health, Legal, Scam, Science by

50% of us will face cancer in our own lives at one time or another… we will have to face the choice of how to treat our illness – using toxic drugs or safe, effective, time-tested natural remedies… If you or someone you know is facing this issue or if you just want to be prepared for any future cancer diagnoses, this will be the best $25 you have ever spent!

Meryl Dorey – farmer’s wife

If you happen to pass by the AVN Shop with a spare red back you could apparently spend it on an amazing secret.

So incredible that Big Pharma, Big Government and Big Medicine don’t want you to know about it. What is it that “they” don’t want you to know about? One answer to cancer. That “one answer” is based on testimonials about black salve combined with ridiculous claims about Aldara (Imiquimod). Imiquimod is accused of causing “systemic and fatal reactions” and actually causing cancer.

In fact imiquimod is successful in treating basal and squamous cell carcinomas, malignant melanomas, actinic keratosis and genital warts to name some conditions. The business about it causing cancer may well have it’s genesis in the fact imiquimod is used on subclinical lesions to promote visibility. It’s a painful approach but ensures all lesions can be successfully treated.

“They” don’t want you to know

Black salve is a type of corrosive salve known as an escharotic. If you’d like to see and read up on the sort of damage corrosive salves can do, check out Quackwatch‘s article aptly headed, Don’t Use Corrosive Cancer Salves (Escharotics). A discussion on the natural logic for their use can be found, I believe, in close proximity to the word “preposterous”.

Dorey’s copy/paste blurb includes the usual silliness about “nature’s scalpel” having been used for over 2,000 years “to treat skin cancers and other cancerous conditions, leading to a total remission of the disease.” Total remission! Wow. Of course putting profits “ahead of morality or their duty of care”, doctors and therapeutic watchdogs have ruined lives with proven Aldara all over the world, rather than promote Black Salve. Strange, because in their overview of Cancer Salves the American Cancer Society note in that killjoy Big Medicine fashion:

Available scientific evidence does not support claims that salves are effective in treating cancer or tumors. In fact, some ingredients may cause great harm. There have been numerous reports of severe burns, disfigurement, and permanent scarring from some of these salves.

That’s awfully negative and a little alarming. In Australia the TGA did publish a warning on it’s website on February 3rd. No doubt just showing off because they can bridge the gap between Big Pharma and Big Government whilst pretending to regulate Big Medicine, the immoral profiteers abandon duty of care to warn Patients and Consumers:

The TGA strongly advises consumers and patients against purchasing or using Black Salve.

Black Salve is corrosive and essentially burns off layers of the skin and surrounding normal tissue. It can destroy large parts of the skin and underlying tissue, and leave significant scarring.

In addition to the TGA warning about the purchase and use of Black Salve, the TGA is also investigating the supply of the product in Australia.

Further, a complaint about the advertising of Black Salve on certain Australian Internet sites is currently under consideration by the Complaints Resolution Panel.

Not long ago Janelle Miles of The Courier Mail reported on this ongoing global plot to ruin lives with toxic drugs and hide, “this safe, effective, time tested natural remedy”, as Meryl called it. Interviewing Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australasia president Gabrielle Caswell, they managed to catch her out saying it was “pretty horrific stuff”, capable of causing “gross scarring”. “It’s disturbing that this product is so widely available,’‘, she added.

Later, probably trying to drive suspicion away from Big Cosmo, Caswell added:

“I wouldn’t want it on my body. I wouldn’t put it on a dog if I had a dog because I think if you have a pet, you look after them.”

Which is rather telling because apparently it is being sold for animal use. Illegally. The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority are presently investigating five websites for peddling porkies to pooch. Many sites are quite happy to tell you the TGA advises against use for humans. But when you know “they” don’t want you to know, the sites may assume you know of another meaning entirely. You know?

The World Today ran a report earlier today on this issue [Audio MP3 here]. It’s clear there are appalling corrosive side effects that can ensue from using Black Salve. Yet the sheer predatory nature of those who contend that a localised agent could have any effect on a deeply invasive cancerous growth that also metastasises, (like melanoma), is appalling.

So is the claim that blood roots, zinc chloride and zinc oxide is a “safe, effective, natural” alternative being hushed up by organised conspiracy. The ABC confirm that many websites claim “that the medical establishment rejects alternative cancer therapies such as Black Salve because it’s too difficult to make money from them.”

TGA issues warning on skin cancer remedy © ABC The World Today

Despite promotion of anecdotal claims and testimonials, as Ian Olver from the Cancer Council said:

If you just have testimonials, you really don’t know whether, even if it said to work whether that is one in two, one in 20 or one in 200 and that makes a big difference to whether you suggest it to anyone else.

The best twenty odd bucks you’ll ever spend? This burning stupid really burns.

Infant vaccination correlates to reduced incidence of SIDS

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

At a time when enormous anxiety surrounds vaccination it’s comforting to know large research projects concluding, “that immunisations may reduce the risk of SIDS”, are accepted by SIDS support groups and public health officials.

Not only that but German researchers published in Vaccine have suggested that immunisations should be part of the SIDS prevention campaign, having found in 2007:

                                  Immunisations are associated with a halving of the risk of SIDS

Applying the sensible rule of seeking out reputable information regarding vaccination, a visit to SIDS and KIDS yields a succinct Information Statement.

Most compelling has been German research published in Vaccine. Vennemann et al. (2007) conducted meta-analyses on 307 SIDS cases and 971 controls. The findings written in SIDS: No increased risk after immunisation, are unambiguous:

Results:

SIDS cases were immunised less frequently and later than controls. Furthermore there was no increased risk of SIDS in the 14 days following immunisation. There was no evidence to suggest the recently introduced hexavalent vaccines were associated with an increased risk of SIDS.

Conclusion:

This study provides further support that immunisations may reduce the risk of SIDS.

A few months later, Vennemann published with a smaller team again in Vaccine. The paper, Do immunisations reduce the risk of SIDS? A meta-analysis, included:

Results:

The summary odds ratio (OR) in the univariate analysis suggested that immunisations were protective, but the presence of heterogeneity makes it difficult to combine these studies. The summary OR for the studies reporting multivariate ORs was 0.54 (95% CI = 0.39–0.76) with no evidence of heterogeneity.

Conclusions:

Immunisations are associated with a halving of the risk of SIDS. There are biological reasons why this association may be causal, but other factors, such as the healthy vaccine effect, may be important. Immunisations should be part of the SIDS prevention campaigns.

Other studies:

Because babies receive multiple vaccines during the first year of life and SIDS is the leading cause of death between 1 – 12 months of age, the CDC has looked at a possible causal association. They note:

Studies that looked at the age distribution and seasonality of deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). SIDS and VAERS reports following DTP vaccination, and SIDS and VAERS reports following hepatitis B vaccination found no association between SIDS and vaccination. ♣

The CDC also report that the USA Institute of Medicine (IOM) formed a committee to examine epidemiological evidence and look for any association between vaccination and, “SIDS, all sudden unexpected death in infancy, and neonatal death (infant death, whether sudden or not, during the first 4 weeks of life”. The committee further searched for relationships between SIDS and individual doses of diphtheria, tetanus, whole cell (and acellular) pertussis – DTwP, DTaP – and HepB, Hib, and polio. Then they looked for combinations of these same vaccines and any association with SIDS.

Another study using the vaccine safety datalink (VSD) examined 517 deaths between 1991 and 1995 that had occurred during the first year of life. No evidence to show vaccines cause SIDS could be found in any of the above studies. Similar projects have been carried out world wide replicating these results. The evidence is strongly in favour of vaccination having no possible causative effect in relation to SIDS.

What about SIDS research?

Recent research (published a month ago in Neuroscience) from the Oregon Health and Science University has raised some fascinating questions about the role of glial cells (supporting but not electrically active neurons) on individual cardiorespiratory neurons in the brainstem. It’s known that extensive growth of cell dendrites (outgrowths) is normal for cardiorespiratory neurons during the post natal period. This leads to optimal heart and lung control in the brainstem of infants. It’s already known however, that excessive glial cell accumulation is found in the brainstems of infants deceased as a result of SIDS.

What the OHSU study may very well show is that glial cells could interfere with the growth of neurons that regulate cardiorespiratory function. They have also established a relationship between glial cell depletion and the amount vs the size of dendritic outgrowth in the presence of certain growth factors. In being able to understand how this relates to the development of healthy cardiorespiratory function, researchers may begin to identify conditions at the cellular level that could preclude sudden death.

Some people blame vaccines for SIDS. Why?

It’s hard to wrap our thinking lobes around, but despite the abundance of evidence and advice from SIDS experts the antivaccination lobby cling desperately to the temporal association. We shouldn’t be surprised. Every single problem that occurs around the time of any vaccination is assumed to be causally related. The concern first arose in 1979 following a report of four deaths within 24 hours of immunisation. What followed was research in Australasia, North America and Europe that sought to confirm the mechanism, but failed to find any link at all.

Much damage was done by a micropalaeontologist who had emigrated from Slovakia to Australia. In 1985 whilst employed as a geological surveyor with NSW Department of Mineral Resources, one Viera Scheibner claimed to have witnessed “stressed breathing” whilst using an infant breathing monitor invented by her late husband. The infants had been recently vaccinated with DTP and Viera thus declared she had discovered the cause of SIDS. An excellent account of Viera Scheibner by Leask and McIntyre can be found here – (“Public opponents of vaccination: a case study” in Vaccine, 2003 pp.4700-4703).

In her book and elsewhere Scheibner writes deceptively that when Japan moved the vaccination age from under 12 months to 2 years the incidence of SIDS “virtually disappeared”. In fact she sourced figures from Japanese vaccination compensation reports. SIDS is only diagnosed in infants under 12 months. Thus SIDS had not disappeared, only the opportunity to link it to vaccination compensation.

Still, Scheibner argues that “a spate of 37 cot deaths” before the change was purportedly vaccine induced because, “when the vaccination age was moved to two years, the entity of cot death disappeared”. In fact analysis of Tokyo autopsy records suggests the actual incidence of SIDS rose considerably following the shift in vaccination age in 1975.

From 1979 to 1993, the last year studied, incidence of SIDS had increased 12 times (though this huge increase also reflects increased diagnosis, not just rate). What we can take from this is that Scheibner is intentionally deceptive. Actual records proposing the opposite to her claims, are there for her to access.

As Dr. Jay Wile notes whilst demolishing poor Viera in her 2009 article Vaccines Actually Protect Against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) the myth persists thanks to retelling by the usual culprits who fail to check Scheibner’s mere two sources.

Thus, the statement that Dr. Scheibner makes in her book is a lie, and that lie has been repeated over and over again. How in the world could Dr. Scheibner make such an outrageous claim and be believed?

Despite usurping Sweden’s cessation of whole cell pertussis vaccination, Scheibner forgets to recount the immediate rise in pertussis cases and their research effort into new pertussis vaccines. Nor does she recount how Sweden resumed pertussis vaccination to great success. Incredibly she argues that abandoning the vaccine in 1979 is the cause of Sweden’s low infant mortality (which can be traced to before 1960) and also triggered a milder form of pertussis infection.

Sadly, it doesn’t take much mud to stick and Scheibner is oft’ quoted in the appalling claim vaccination causes infant death. Today – as in right now, today – a group of antivaxxers gathered to hear Stephanie Messenger spread her dangerous message. Stephanie is author of Melanie’s Marvellous Measles, which takes kids aged 4 – 10 on a journey of discovering the ineffectiveness of vaccination while teaching them to embrace childhood disease and build immune systems naturally.

Stephanie lost a child to SIDS, blames vaccination and seems to have been twisted to the aims of Dorey’s Australian Vaccination Network. Her antivaccination shin dig was set up cloak and dagger style with the location sent via text only on the day to those who had paid and left a number. Her flyer promises a:

100% success rate [against SIDS]

Learn the latest on SIDS

This information is being hidden from the general public

With 30 years of “research” on vaccines and ten on SIDS Stephanie would provide another rehash of all the standards such as toxic ingredients, children getting sicker, vaccines causing cancer, the myth of herd immunity, “natural” alternatives, ensuring government benefits and so on. I wonder however if one person there will step in and offer her the help she clearly needs. This nonsense is paranoid, vindictive, emotionally damaging and antisocial in the extreme.

The reality is that on the subject of SIDS and infant health in general vaccination has an excellent record. Be sure to speak to your doctor or large support organisations for reputable government approved information.

According to the best informed and most genuine sources in Australia immunisation is associated with a lower risk of SIDS.

Go for it!

– ♣ A cautionary note on VAERS. The raw “data” accessible via VAERS is notoriously unreliable. VAERS exists to alert authorities to reporting trends. These trends reflect growing trends against vaccination, or anecdotal correlation. In short they err toward antivaccination propaganda and reports are often prompted by antivaccination site material.

The role of health authorities is to apply controlled studies to examine persistent trends in reporting. This is the case with SIDS. However, the false correlations that prompted the research will remain on the VAERS data base – and be used by antivax groups to further mislead. So to will the many self reporting mistakes, pranks and ideologically driven distortions.

This is true for all “adverse reactions” reported to VAERS. They are shown to be false, yet remain as original “data sets”. Thus VAERS data itself is not reliable. Follow up research tends to find no conclusive association in the majority of cases.

Victorian skeptic & school teacher Adam Vanlangenberg discusses his lunchtime class

Posted in Big Placebo, Denialism, Health, Scam, Science by

The rise of pseudoscience has been significant since cheap, rapid access to information has been the norm.

Regrettably the extreme beliefs held by many have been massaged by those who benefit such that Choice and Point of view (no matter how wrong) is taking the place of Evidence and Peer review. The trendy phrase that bothers me most is “health freedom”.

It’s one thing for hanky panky nonsense to make promises from shop windows and festivals. Yet quite another when it begins to shape the quality of science education on offer in Australian Universities. This rise in what I consider outright scams driven by those who are motivated by ego, self serving ideals and profit has a long history. I accept that many have genuine beliefs in the “wellness” industry. But I am yet to be availed of any evidence that consumer service and health is taking precedence over a vindictive confrontational trend by the many Enemies of Reason.

Recently the group Friends of Science in Medicine formed to address this:

A group of concerned Australian health care researchers and providers has set up an organisation that aims to discourage universities from offering accreditation in unproven medical therapies. The group would also like such therapies to be removed from claimable benefits by health funds.
Currently 19 (out of 39) Australian universities offer courses in unproven and often bizarre treatments such as iridology, aromatherapy, homeopathy and chiropractic.

Keeping up to speed with the norm of attacking Australian Skeptics as the proxy demon for anything evidence based, Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network fallaciously wrote on this development:

There is an organisation in Australia which hates every natural therapy. They hate the healthcare practitioners and they hate the healthcare consumers who ‘turn their backs’ on Western medicine in favour of a range of other modalities which put no money in their pockets and take away their prestige. Worst of all, they hate anyone who chooses not to use  vaccines! That is the ultimate heresy, as far as they are concerned.

But it’s OK – because they have a plan and they have the money and media backing, they think, to bring this plan to fruition.

This group, the Australian Skeptics, has been instrumental in setting up the organisation, Stop the AVN.

Quite a lot of hatred to go with the free speech they are usually accused of suppressing. This is of course as noted before, simply scurrilous deflection from presenting any evidence or explaining missing funds. Stupidly many believers have taken up the trend. Meryl is under instruction from the Alliance for Health Freedom Australia to maintain the “enemy behind the curtain” slur on all things skeptical but ultimately it is very telling that Godwin’s Law out paces evidence provision in this matter.

Being tricked into conflict and betrayed by connivance is really what’s happening to many innocent minds. The big regret in some aspects is that heated young minds are misled as to the notion of skepticism and the aim of skeptic movements. Recently Adam Vanlangenberg, a Victorian school teacher and skeptic spoke on TV about the popularity of his lunchtime skeptic class.

Adam manages to capture in a few minutes a great deal of the bipartisan respect, tolerance and quest for verifiable knowledge that real skepticism is known for.

Adam Vanlangenberg on The Circle

Meryl’s Marvellous Measles Mistake

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Science by

Not long ago I suited up for satire and wrote about Package Insert Airlines. The fictitious airline that takes the view passengers must know of every adverse event to flying before making the “informed choice” to fly.

This was in response to Meryl Dorey’s proposal that the AVN will march on Canberra with demands. One of these is that all parents be given vaccine package insert information to discuss with a “health professional” before deciding to vaccinate their child.

Such a distortion of the reality of the risk-benefit of vaccination seeks to promote Meryl’s choice – not a parents choice. So it is with her recent publication of Definition of Adverse Events Following Immunisation on the AVN Facebook page.

It’s appendix 6 from the 9th edition of the Australian Immunisation Handbook. Yes, those same scheming government manipulators Dorey snorts at when facts get in her way. As antivaxxers dispute that immunity is gained from vaccines, Meryl swapped the word “immunisation” with “vaccination”. List of adverse events which can occur following vaccination. In her first comment GP’s were attacked over, “crying which is continuous and unaltered for longer than 3 hours”.

One member claimed this (3 hours of screaming) meant “almost everyone should be taking their screaming child back to the doctor after a vac!”. In the real world, this should have been gently dissuaded with a reminder that abnormal crying occurs in only 4% of cases. This information is actually on the same site as the adverse event list.

Instead Dorey replied:

And when you do, [redacted], most likely, the doctor will say it’s perfectly normal and won’t report it! -MD

It kind of makes bizarre sense. Meryl can’t report the actual incidence of 4%, as that would mean acknowledging that doctors, nurses and more do report adverse reactions. Far better to invent malicious intent and advise members of that, when we’re talking “informed choice”.

You can see where this is going. Context is meaningless. Actual incidence and significance of adverse events or package insert information works against all that the AVN stand for. As I wrote last time, “This particularly immoral intent of Meryl Dorey’s overall scheme to sabotage vaccination in Australia is born of connivance of such intellectual paucity as to demand it be placed in context”.

The intent is to jettison any accurate notion of risk-benefit. It aims to falsely convey that vaccines are worse than the diseases they prevent. To mislead parents and burden them with irrational fear. Dorey would have you believe that if vaccines aren’t 100% perfect then they must be 100% dangerous.

What did that HCCC warning about The Australian Vaccination Network say again? Ah, yes:

  • quotes selectively from research to suggest that vaccination may be dangerous

Let’s take yesterday’s attempt to claim that MMR or the measles vaccine can by itself cause Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSPE). SSPE occurs following measles infection in which the virus infects neurons and lays dormant. Although erring on the side of exceptional caution, SSPE is listed in Australia as an adverse event following immunisation so confirmation bias will play a part.

The fact that it’s listed does not mean SSPE from MMR or another vaccine is probable or even possible. It means the decision to remove it from listing has not yet been made.

It’s fair to say that incorrect conclusions were previously drawn in some very rare cases – and understandably so. Measles vaccines involve an attenuated live virus. With incomplete investigation, or those limited in scope, errors are made. Ms. Dorey just hasn’t caught up with the facts yet. Science may move forward at a crawl but antivaxxers seem to insist some aspects be frozen in time forever.

On a Facebook page Vaccines Uncensored that has since closed, Dorey wrote:

The polio vaccine reference Dorey later produced from whale.to also included claims of polio definition fraud along with AIDS, GBS, Leukemia and cancer, being certainly due to all vaccines. Where polio vaccination has been instituted globally, “reported polio infections show a 700% increase as a result of compulsory vaccination polio” the trusty reference informs us.

Meryl then copy/pasted a section quoting “Informed Parent” issue 4, 2001 which itself was quoting a 1970’s article on a large New Zealand outbreak of SSPE from 1956 to 1966. It was suggesting live SV40 was involved. There was no confirmation but it was believed the SSPE was related to the Salk vaccine. No such case has been documented again.

Dorey then copy/pasted two more paragraphs from either whale.to or vaccineinjury.info, goading the other member with “You can apologise later”.

One was a paper written by Belgamwar RB et al. 1997. Measles, mumps, rubella vaccine induced subacute sclerosing panencephalitis. It “presumed” an Indian child developed SSPE 15 years after she received MMR at 9 months of age. The reasoning is that the live measles virus in MMR lay dormant. Although incredibly rare at zero – 0.7 cases per million, these events seemed feasible.

Another explanation may be denatured or failed vaccines that, having no efficacy, left the subject vulnerable to consequent measles infection. Or SSPE from a pre-vaccine infection could be involved. This girl apparently had no history of measles infection, but this does not account for the potential of asymptomatic measles infection or incomplete records. Today it is accepted that a natural measles infection is the cause in these cases.

Risk of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis from measles vaccination. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 1990 by Halsey was another similar piece pasted in by Dorey. It posed the existence of “vaccine associated SSPE”, but failed utterly to show causality. Focusing on SSPE in an era when vaccination is preventing wild measles does not eliminate prior infection with measles and resultant latency as the cause of SSPE. Halsey practically admits to this oversight in his text, ignoring dormancy and stating, “we should pay attention to SSPE after inoculation”.

Well before these largely discredited papers, Zilber et al. in 1983 had already posed:

Most of the SSPE cases reported measles at an age significantly younger than that of the general population. This pattern did not change after introduction of antimeasles vaccination. Incidence was significantly lower (p less than 10(-9) in the vaccinated population than in the unvaccinated population. Occurrence of SSPE in some children who were vaccinated against measles could be explained by incomplete vaccine efficacy, or by older age at vaccination, which allows the possibility of prior exposure to measles. There was no indication that measles vaccine can induce SSPE.

The physiopathology of SSPE is not well understood. Yet evidence (October 2010) suggests that factors at play favour humoral over cellular immune response allowing viral dormancy in infected neuronal tissue. Exactly what this atypical immune response helps to explain in cases of SSPE is bound to be further elucidated. It was certainly not known to the authors Dorey has cited. What is clear is that measles vaccination does not trigger SSPE in those already infected by wild measles virus – as suggested by Dorey in the screenshot above.

The WHO note on the topic:

Available epidemiological data, in line with virus genotyping data, do not suggest that measles vaccine virus can cause SSPE. Furthermore, epidemiological data do not suggest that the administration of measles vaccine can accelerate the course of SSPE or trigger SSPE in an individual who would have developed the disease at a later time without immunization. Neither can the vaccine lead to the development of SSPE where it would not otherwise have occurred in a person who has already a benign persistent wild measles infection at the time of vaccination.

For situations where cases of SSPE occur in vaccinated individuals who have no previous history of natural measles infection, the available evidence points to natural measles infection as the cause of SSPE, not vaccine.

For those who wish to err on the side of extreme caution, it pays to remember that the Australian Immunisation Handbook is regularly updated. We should keep in mind that proposed incidence has always been of extremely small numbers. Maintaining the claim SSPE can be due to measles vaccination must now include the academic argument of what significance the phrase, “the available evidence”, as advanced by the WHO should be given.

Zero – 0.7 unlikely cases per million vaccines vs a certain 8.5 per million measles cases, was the older accepted risk-benefit. Following a late 2005 Journal of Infectious Diseases paper the measles induced rate of SSPE has been estimated at 6.5 – 11 cases per 100,000 infections. An increase of 7 to 13 times. This “disease vs vaccine” notion is akin to MMR induced encephalitis. Except the always dodgy evidence blaming vaccination for SSPE is in need of reinstating.

On a final note, it is outrageous for Dorey to be feigning concern over SSPE. There is only one answer to tackle SSPE: the elimination of measles via vaccination. Even then it’s estimated that a lag of up to 20 years or more will follow in which latent SSPE from wild measles will continue to emerge.

For about 6 years the new accepted risk-benefit of SSPE has been zero cases from vaccination and up to 11 cases per 100,000 measles infections.

Ignore Meryl Dorey. Speak to your doctor.

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

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.