Category Archives: Science

Vaccine Package Inserts: Not all you should be reading

Posted in AVN, Health, Legal, Meryl Dorey, Science by

If the AVN do make it to Canberra during this first quarter, “to lobby for changes to Federal legislation protecting the rights of Australians to choose not to vaccinate or to vaccinate selectively”, I’ll be particularly interested in the worth of item 5 on their list:

All parents to be provided with the manufacturer’s package inserts to the vaccines they are supposed to be giving their children with the ingredients, side effects and contraindications highlighted. We want this information to be provided well in advance of them having to make these decisions to allow them time to ask their healthcare providers questions about both safety and efficacy.

Of what possible use is this complex clinically relevant information to parents who need advice on vaccination? How often have we heard antivaccination lobbyists rattle off the worst of the worst as if they are guaranteed in all cases? Just who will these opportunistic “healthcare providers” be who finally chat with the wide eyed terrified parents thinking of an alternative? 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.

Assuming Meryl will be flying to Canberra, let’s imagine for a moment, it is not vaccination but air travel that’s being targetted as dangerous and thus in need of informing passengers of all “adverse side effects” to flying. This becomes compelling when we note that deaths from MMR and attributed to DTap vaccination remain at zero. Studies examining the that myth DTap – or any vaccination – is related to SIDS found the rate of SIDS in those recently vaccinated was equal to chance.

Around 1990 Hannah Buxton was injected with contaminated MMR. 18 months later she was dead due to the contaminants, not MMR, and her parents were awarded £20,000. A BMJ article (also citing Hannah) published in September 1994 notes over 100 families had won the right to seek (operative word “seek”) compensation for the death and disability of their children following MMR. In the 1990’s vaccines were looking like big business for injury compensation lawyers and this BMJ article is cited as desperate “proof” of MMR fatality. Yet that’s a distortion of the truth. No fatalities have been attributed to MMR. Encephalitis from vaccination is so rare and from measles comparatively so common that to refuse MMR on these grounds is to be grossly misinformed.

Let’s imagine if an airline took this “package insert” logic seriously and chose to inform all passengers of all risks prior to flying. We’ll exclude specifics like metal fatigue and focus on injury and death. To cover “discussion” with a healthcare professional they might add descriptive accounts of what happens to passengers involved in accidents. It could be worked in to the pre flight briefing.

Here’s my proposed “report”, using entirely accurate information and statistics, of flying with such an airline. Airlines that believe in informed choice. Let’s say I’m in need of a decently priced flight, scanning the internet for a bargain…

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One caught my eye. Package Insert Airlines: Where Informed Choice Matters. “Strange”, I thought. I called the number and spoke to the charming lass on the other end. Yes, they had a seat going my way at exactly the time I needed it. Good price too. Just before I hung up, I asked about the name. She explained to me that the airline had been set up by a small consortium who made their fortune printing vaccine package inserts.

“Before take off we explain everything you need to know about your safety and flying”, she gushed happily, “so you can make an informed choice about staying on board”. Wow. Sounded generous. I packed a quick bag and headed off.

After booking in I had a while to wait but before I found an uncomfortable chair, we were paged to start boarding. It didn’t take long for the airliner to fill up. A few moments later an air hostess with a name badge reading Johanna took her position as the standard safety recording started. She pointed out the exits and toilets then, keeping up with the recording, helped demonstrate the possible effects of crashing on take off.

16% of on board fatalities occur during take off, the recording informed us pleasantly. Passengers are usually burned horrifically beyond recognition in a giant fireball. The unspeakable agony felt by those not immediately toasted is at times expressed in blood curdling screams but this is hampered by inhaled high temperature air igniting throat, larynx and lung tissue, poisonous gases and melting facial tissue, particularly the nose, lips and tongue. Loved ones in the terminal are ensured an excellent view. 

Johanna did her best to imitate writhing dying passengers with melting faces, finally letting out a high pitched scream and then finished with a pleasant smile. The recording continued. 14% of onboard fatalities occur during the initial climb, usually due to catastrophic systems failure. Cabin staff will wander by lying to you that everything is just fine. The pilots are trained to try to guide the highly explosive jet-fuel filled plane in for an emergency landing. You will guess something horrible is wrong and the plane will veer dramatically as we return to the tarmac. Johanna gestured pleasantly out the window, smiling all the time.

The angle of descent will be simply horrific, the recording went on. The fuselage and wings will shudder under the force of descent and you will be convinced you are about to die. Passengers must remain seated, but may pray, swear, scream and make hurried calls to loved ones not in the terminal. Due to the extreme strain placed upon the aircraft systems, small fires may well break out burning, choking and gagging you. Any fires near the fuel tanks may result in a catastrophic explosion creating quite a spectacle. Your loved ones in the terminal will have an excellent view of something like this. Johanna turned to point at a large image that had come up on the screen behind her:

Assuming we do not make it in for a safe emergency landing there is information available in small packages on the back of the seat in front of you. Please remove package insert one, instructed the recording. “Ah, Package Insert Airlines“, I mused staring at a bunch of information I couldn’t really understand. Surely this was written for scientists, or experts in this field. It was about G forces and deceleration and how much energy the cabin would absorb.

Please turn to Table One said the pleasant recording as Johanna held up an example of Table One:

Assuming we will be crash-landing and not emergency landing you should familarise yourself with the pain and suffering that possibly awaits. As we observe, up to a 40G deceleration may result in nasal fracture, compression of a vertebral body (the bones of your spine), a broken lower jaw or a fracture dislocation of the top most bone of your spine – on which rests your skull – on the vertebral bone beneath. The classic “hinge fracture”. At this point any sudden or unnecessary movement as opposed to say, lying motionless, will sever your spinal cord leaving you paralysed for life. Except for your facial muscles.

Johanna beamed and highlighted her face like she was selling moisturiser. The recording continued with Johanna doing her best to imitate horribly injured and dying passengers. “Around 50G the maxilla, or front of your face, breaks up and may pierce the skin of the face, but will certainly lacerate the upper mucosa of the lip and cheek. Bleeding will be profound. The major vessel carrying blood to and from the heart spontaneously sprouts big leaks and that can be bad.

Above 80G it just rips open and blood quickly fills your thorax or abdomen, choking you in a grotesque display of gurgling and gasping as blood forces it’s way out from the lungs to the mouth and nose. Johanna was writhing dramatically upside down over the back of a seat gagging and snotting like a trooper. Your bladder and bowel, the recording went on, if not having done so already, will empty spontaneously and dramatically. Please remain seated. I looked at Johanna expectantly but she gave a gentle shake of her head.

 Above this level as we enter 100G plus, the pelvis will fracture of it’s own accord. Please refer to package insert 1A for information on how crucial the pelvis is for ambulation, spinal health, organ protection, core stability, bladder and bowel, sexual health, reproduction, sitting comfortably… on and on it went covering every tiny detail of a fractured pelvis, pain, rehabilitation and permanent disability. People had for some time been leaving in ones and twos. A mother grabbed her baby and screamed that we were all insane before sobbing her way off the plane. I was starting to forget exactly what I was doing here myself.

Vertebral body transection means the bones of your spinal column split transversely and slice front to back or back to front, with part of the vertebra slicing through the spinal cord. This can occur at multiple points. It is important to remember, the recording intoned, that these injuries are not exclusive. So a crash landing deceleration at around 200G may include a fractured nose with the front of your face crumbling off but stuck under the skin, vertebral compression and transection with almost certain quadriplegia or paraplegia, your insides filled with blood that you gurgle and splatter from your nose and mouth and a shattered pelvis, leaving you to wallow in your own waste, until you die are burned or perhaps rescued to begin your life as a permanent patient.

Johanna had been mimicking at extraordinary speed, pulling grotesque faces, shuddering with vertebral injuries, shaking her head violently back and forth working up to a grand finale in which she gasped wide eyed, spluttered and with tongue hanging out collapsed in a heap on the aisle floor, twitching and writhing. Those of us not vomiting into the sick bags broke into a round of applause. She stood up beaming, adjusting her hair. Thinking this must surely be the end of a compelling but pointless exercise a few of us settled down until, horribly, the recording started again.

13% of fatalities occur during the latter stage of the climb once flaps have been raised. Please open package insert 2 and note injuries, suffering and death are much the same as for the initial initial phase of climb. You will note on package insert 2A we have included Total Body Fragmentation which applies to both failed ascent and descent and is pretty much what it sounds like, the soothing voice continued. We shall cover this in due course but it is important to stress that you may be killed during the latter part of ascent.

Once at cruising altitude you may be comforted to know that only 16% of fatalities occur up there in the cold, cold air. Although the same quantity as take off fatalities you may feel assured that on average, 57% of flight time for a 1.5 hour flight is spent cruising. Package insert 3 covers uncontrolled decompression. For our purposes please note Explosive and Rapid cabin decompression effects upon the body which you may experience alone or in tandem with high altitude injuries and hypothermia.

Should a large hole appear in the fuselage, perhaps due to a bomb, maintenance failure, metal fatigue, cargo door failure or just really bad luck passengers may expect explosive decompression. Contrary to the urban myth your body will not “blow up” killing you instantly and painlessly. As air escapes from the cabin in about half a second it will suck all the air from your lungs rupturing pulmonary tissue whilst you find it impossible to inhale as blood flows freely from your mouth and nose.

An extraordinarily rapid heart beat will only make this worse. Try try remain calm. Oxygen masks will drop down in front of you. Of such little pressure, they are useless and serve only to distract you in your final moments of life which are excruciatingly painful and unimaginably terrifying. Please keep an eye out for flying passengers, body parts or projectiles which will hit you with the force of bomb fragments, or slice, rip and tear your body into pieces.

As the freezing air fills the cabin the relative humidity changes rapidly, causing a dense fog to form. Depending on your distance from the cause of decompression, Johanna gestured to the front and back of the plane, you may experience the effects of rapid, not explosive cabin decompression. Blood and lung tissue is less likely to splatter in your vicinity although lung tissue damage to yourself and others is still likely. The further from the cause of decompression and the better restrained the more adverse reactions that can be expected over time and the more painful your slower demise.

Should you be unfortunate enough to be seated or standing near the decompression zone you will exit the aircraft at high speed experiencing physical decompression, pulmonary damage and bleeding, retinal bleeding, hypothermia, edema, numbness, wind sheer and insomnia. As you plunge toward the earth you may reach speeds that tear clothes, hair and skin from the body.

For those still on board, hypothermia sets in within a few minutes but not before hypoxia begins to kill off brain cells and precipitate organ failure. As you lapse in and out of consciousness you may notice the frozen vomit blocking the blood and pulmonary edema discharge from escaping the oral cavity. Limbs, hands and feet begin to swell as fluid escapes the blood stream and lymph vessels to build up in the tissues. Your retinas may hemorrhage as your body temperature rises to fever levels. Cerebral edema will creep up on you the longer you find the captain is able to control the plane through an interminably long descent. This brain swelling will lead to blinding headaches and more lapses into unconsciousness as life threatening hypothermia sets in. 

The recording continued on like this for a while with Johanna diving and falling and rolling about the cabin. She pleasantly gestured to where body parts are most likely to become wedged, and gave a realistic impression of someone trying unsuccessfully to breathe through the drop down oxygen masks. She sat in the seats most likely to accompany decapitation given the chosen place of decompression and managed a sterling performance as a hysterical young mother trying hopelessly to stop her toddler from being sucked out of an imaginary gaping hole in the fuselage.

I couldn’t see the point to all this convoluted intricate information. I suspected it had some legal purpose but I was 19 times less likely to die like this than in the car I drove to the airport. I couldn’t imagine the stupidity involved in thinking such highly specific and biased information had any bearing on flying whatsoever, beyond creating the illusion there was something to fear.

I tuned back in at times as this marathon of irrelevance continued to inform me that another 16% of fatalities occurred during descent and initial approach. 25% occurred during final approach and landing. Then they got onto multiple injury specifics. 45% of intact (Intact?!) fatalities had a spinal fracture. 47.6% of accident victims had a ruptured heart and 35% also had a ruptured aorta. Only 20% of fatalities don’t have limb fractures the recording pleasantly informed us adding that a sound knowledge of Total Body Fragmentation would help us make an informed choice.

Thorax injuries were the most common. Liver, spleen, diaphragm. GI tract injuries were the least common. Skull, brain and facial destruction was very common. Great I thought. Your turds survive but your brain is mash. Neck, spine, wrist, femur, humorous, tibia… then combinations… and fatalities… until I couldn’t think much beyond Total Body Fragmentation sucks man. “Flying Causes Total Body Fragmentation”, I wanted to yell. Which free speech suppressing scientists had been holding back such vital information? I needed to know this, didn’t I? I couldn’t just trust one of the most successful, safest industries in the world, could I?

Then I realised something. Total Body Fragmentation was an incredible rarity. So were aviation accidents. It was Informed Choice that really sucked, and looking around it had emptied a good deal of the plane, having filled people’s heads with nonsense.

I hoped they weren’t driving home.

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So, dear reader. If you’ll pardon the foray you can appreciate just how nonsensical this obsession with package inserts is. There is however, a sinister side to this apparent “information”. As I hinted at above, using it to educate people is fatally flawed. Parents need to know about the probability of adverse events of all types, including disease affecting their children. The fact that extreme events are possible is completely irrelevant to making an informed choice.

It’s simple mum. MMR does not kill and measles is 1,000 times more likely to leave your child with irreparable brain damage. If they must, parents need to speak to a doctor about this information, not be lured into panicked confusion. Dorey’s request is just as much a statement: You are not being given safe advice. And that, is an outright lie.

Yet there’s more to consider. As I note above studies have been done on the myth of vaccine induced SIDS. This is not on package inserts, nor is Shaken Baby Syndrome. Yet Dorey insists both these causes (and others) of death are side effects of vaccination. Toxic poisoning without “prior testing on infants” is happening right now via vaccination, she claims.

In her mind extremely rare possibilities must be advertised as likely probabilities. As must a growing number of invented fictions: immune disorders, failure to thrive, leaking intestines, heavy metal build up, slow learning and almost any ailment is blamed on vaccines, water or medication. So if by chance she is granted her wish, it will only be the beginning.

I set out above to highlight what we take for granted. The fear of flying is considered irrational. A phobia. In short Dorey seeks to propagate a phobic fear of vaccines that may cripple critical and safe decision making.

Meryl Dorey is well aware that “informed choice” is in this case, “Meryl’s choice”. It is not free speech, but plain deception.

Parents deserve facts, not irrational fear.

Risk From Disease vs Risk From Vaccine

Vaccination saved us from…what, exactly?

Posted in AVN, Health, Judy Wilyman, Meryl Dorey, Science by

So goes one heading over at the No Compulsory Vaccination blog, leading to a screed of disturbingly accusatory silliness borne of the confidence from one graph.

Dr Raymond Obomsawin is one of the few to knock up a bogus graph that cites decreasing incidence of measles infection rather than the boring old general mortality we’ve come to expect from antivaxxers. The obvious conclusion of course is that lethal viruses were being tamed by clean water, less wandering poo and yummy food.

Robert Webb succinctly explains where the problems lie here and also points to a further mincing of Obomsawin by David Gorski at Science Based Medicine. I quite like Gorski’s sub-heading. Intellectual dishonesty at it’s most naked.

What surprises me still however, is just how many angles these purveyors of fiction will try. As I touched on in some satire recently, Meryl Dorey’s hilarious poker face revelation on Radio 3CR whilst chatting (or rather, lying) to Helen Lobato pre Woodford was a beauty.

A lot of the credit that’s been given to vaccines for the decline in deaths and infectious diseases has nothing to do with vaccines. Because it all happened before the shots were introduced. Engineers did more to improve the health of Australians than doctors ever have.

Whilst antivaxxers have been a little more vocal of late, they seem to have really only dug their hole deeper. If not attacking those who ask questions of them, engaging in a bit of fraud or libel, it seems to be silliness as usual. Judy Wilyman is a splendid offender with this myth, claiming there is “no historical evidence” for the success of any vaccine schedule. Her trick is to use mortality rates. Usually Judy just plonks up infant fatality rates from 1900 onwards and uses the rapid decline up till 1950 to mount her case.

Let’s ignore what two World Wars did to the birth rate and consequently infant fatalities in English speaking nations over that period, and just focus on the absurdity of mortality alone. There’s no doubt improvements in sanitation, hygiene and quality of food improved our health vastly. But did it also impact on viral behaviour and immunity as is being suggested?

Bogey sites such as Child Health Safety with Vaccines Did Not Save Us – 2 centuries of official statistics excel in exploiting this myth of “mortality = disease”. As amusing as such nonsense may be, it shows the lengths some go to in protecting the vaccine-autism myth. That blog provides graph after graph of fatalities which are virtually irrelevant to disease incidence. It is only once vaccines enter the timeline do we see disease incidence almost vanish.

To me, a drop in mortality coinciding with a healthier population indicates improved rate of recovery from illness. It doesn’t say much about infection other than to hint at better general immunity that comes with better health. But better immunity is not specific immunity, and this is what antivaxxers are really claiming – even if they don’t realise it.

More so, this claim would also demand rising herd immunity before widespread vaccination programmes, on a trajectory that would have matched the herd immunity achieved by mass vaccination. Acceptance of the value of herd immunity refutes the claim infection control arose from better living. That’s one reason antivaxxers deny it. Strangely, there is silence about success of the Hib vaccine, which they should be able to explain.

Being the lovers of science they claim to be, Hib has falsified the claim of improved living standards, not vaccination, controlling certain diseases. In time, perhaps shortly, we may see this repeated with a hepatitis C vaccine and I predict the antivaxxers will have just as little to say by way of explanation of their “theory”.

Yet ultimately it is antivaxxers themselves who debunk this nonsensical myth. If improved living standards controlled or wiped out vaccine preventable diseases then how do we explain this present resurgence on the back of low immunisation rates? Surely living standards haven’t dropped, anymore than they improved over the 12 years from 1993 in which Hib vaccination demonstrated it’s efficacy. Added to this is the bizarre belief that children are meant to catch these diseases. Which by the way we’re told, are harmless, even “marvellous”, in the case of returning measles.

Simply put, if improved living standards can suppress these diseases we should see them eliminated, not returning. Nor does the rise of chiropractic, homeoprophylactic, herbal and other “immune boosting” hanky panky make real sense. All of this exposes the fact that it is herd immunity sustained by vaccination that largely protects those who refuse vaccination. That’s another reason to deny the value of herd immunity.

As the lie becomes harder to sustain new myths are fabricated. The pertussis vaccine has caused the outbreak. Vaccination causes the disease it is meant to prevent. “Vaccine shedding” places the unvaccinated at risk. Viruses are intentionally released into the community. Vaccination causes immune dysfunction leading to later infection. Vaccination doesn’t provide proper immunity.

It would seem it is approaching the End Game in more ways than one for this myth. It isn’t hard to answer Ms. Dorey’s question.

Vaccination saved us from the returning diseases children are not being vaccinated against.

Vaccination And Improved Living Standards

Vaccine induced autism – how Meryl Dorey misled her Woodford audience

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Legal, Scam, Science by

Meryl Dorey is shown to have presented material to the audience at Woodford that in two cases argues vaccine induced autism where there is clearly none. In one case the word “autism” has been inserted, additionally, in a descriptive or qualitative fashion on her slide yet it is not present in the court ruling or transcript from where she sourced her text. In another instance there are no cases of autism following, or because of, vaccination. One awaits an explanation from Meryl Wynn Dorey.

There is an awful amount of misinformation on Meryl Dorey’s Woodford slides. Let’s examine the fatally flawed attempt to exhume the “vaccines cause autism” corpse. This is the heading of slide 18:

Meryl Dorey’s Woodford slide number 18

Not much ambiguity there I’d say. But there was seemingly intentional manipulation of a source document providing more misinformation on that slide. Dorey has usurped the case of Bailey Banks.

Bailey was indeed compensated for a vaccine injury. Was it autism, as alleged on Dorey’s slide? No.

The US Court of Federal Claims case file states clearly in it’s opening index: “Non-autistic developmental delay”.

A search of the Claims case file yields a very similar text to that which Dorey provided to her Woodford audience. There is only a one word difference. “[Autism]”. Here is the original text on page 27 of the claims file:

The Court found that Bailey would not have suffered this delay but for the administration of the MMR vaccine, and that this chain of causation was not too remote, but was rather a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to Pervasive Developmental Delay.

That is all. It seems Meryl Dorey needs to explain this striking addition that quite plainly seeks to falsify the court ruling. The evidence is damning indeed.

On page 2 the fact that compensation is not for autism is stressed implicitly [Bold mine]:

Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) is a ‘subthreshold’ condition in which some – but not all – features of autism or another explicitly identified Pervasive Developmental Disorder are identified. PDD-NOS is often incorrectly referred to as simply “PDD.” The term PDD refers to the class of conditions to which autism belongs. PDD is NOT itself a diagnosis, while PDD-NOS IS a diagnosis. The term Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS; also referred to as “atypical personality development,” “atypical PDD,” or “atypical autism”) is included in DSM-IV to encompass cases where there is marked impairment of social interaction, communication, and/or stereotyped behavior patterns or interest, but when full features for autism or another explicitly defined PDD are not met.
It should be emphasized that this ”subthreshold” category is thus defined implicitly, that is, no specific guidelines for diagnosis are provided. While deficits in peer relations and unusual sensitivities are typically noted, social skills are less impaired than in classical autism.

On page 6 [Bold mine]:

Among the physicians treating Bailey, a neurologist named Dr. Ivan Lopez personally examined Bailey and diagnosed Bailey as follows:

This patient has developmental delay probably secondary to an episode of acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis that he had at 18 months of age after the vaccine. He certainly does not ___ [sic] for autism because over here we can find a specific reason for his condition and this is not just coming up with no reason.

And [Bold mine]:

As Petitioner’s testifying expert witness, Dr. Lopez maintained, reiterated, and elaborated upon this threshhold diagnosis.

Dr. Lopez’s diagnosis appears to conflict with the diagnosis given by Bailey’s pediatrician on 20 May 2004, who saddled Bailey’s condition with the generalized term “autism”; however, that pediatrician later acknowledged that use of the term autism was used merely as a simplification for non-medical school personnel, and that pervasive developmental delay “is the correct [i.e. technical] diagnosis.” Another pediatrician’s diagnosis noted that Bailey’s condition “seems to be a global developmental delay with autistic features as opposed to an actual autistic spectrum disorder.”

A footnote on page 16 reads [Bold mine]:

Respondent seems to have abandoned the earlier argument that Bailey suffered from autism, instead of PDD. The Court notes the various similarities between Bailey’s condition and autism as defined above, but nonetheless rules that PDD better and more precisely describes Bailey’s condition and symptoms than does autism. Respondent’s acknowledgment serves to reaffirm the Court’s conclusion on this point.

So, what does all this mean? The opening text of the ruling informs us that the court accepts that Bailey, “suffered a seizure and Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis” leading to PDD. The court also accepts that compensation should be paid because the court is of the view the seizure and condition would not have occurred without the administration of MMR.

Is the court right? It doesn’t matter. The legal decision must be respected. What we can clearly see is that PDD is considered quite different from autism. Bailey suffered a single traumatic event – not a gradual decline into autism as the customary antivaccination lobby tale goes. Autism is a collection of symptoms with a genetic component. Clearly in this case Bailey does not fit, nor has been found to fit a diagnosis of autism.

This makes his case no less tragic. I can’t stress that enough. What I will stress is that Meryl Dorey sourced her one liner from the same document I have quoted above. She is certain to have read that this child does not have autism and was not compensated for autism brought on by vaccination. She would have read that PDD is not the same as autism. But Meryl Dorey chose to select one line and alter it fallaciously to mislead her audience into believing compensation had been paid for autism brought on by MMR.

Meryl Dorey has again committed plagiarism and fraud in her quest to mislead the Australian public. Her disdain for this young boy is clear. Her disrespect for court proceedings and this ruling is manifest. Her callous disregard for Aussies at Woodford Folk Festival is exposed for all to see.

You may wonder where are all the other Baileys? Well, let’s meet 83 similar cases – an old trick of Meryl’s debunked back in May 2011 and covered here in June 2011. Just like PDD may produce symptoms like autism, so do many other types of brain injury. Add these to autistic children who are vaccinated and the language in VICP case files is easily abused.

Also on Meryl’s slide was this ambiguous claim. I’ve made it kind of easy to spot the semantics. “Associated”? Where is the cause? So, here we are almost 8 months since it was debunked and the best Meryl Dorey can manage is a semantic trick. The URL leads here to a PR Newswire article that has the same heading as on her slide.

It’s a SafeMinds.org media release. Safe Minds is non scientific and partisan. Led by parents of autistic children they seek to increase research into neurological damage from exposure to mercury in medical products.

I for one find it strange that Dorey was billed as an expert on autism yet was unable to source the original paper I’ve linked to below. Is this because she gets more bang for her buck with the tone of this heading? The article is biased in the extreme. There appears to be little doubt that the Safe Minds media release colours the issue in Dorey’s favour and away from the cautious approach of scientific inquiry.

Just how unreliable is this source from our self appointed vaccine expert? Back on June 7th, 2011 I wrote a piece called The “Groundbreaking” Vaccine-Autism Investigation Release of May 10th 2011. It addresses this caper which can only be described as an insult to her audience.

I focused primarily on the pseudoscience and demonstrably false fear mongering cobbled together under the auspices of “research scholar” Mary Holland. Mary is a vaccine-autism profiteer and co-author of Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed Biased Science and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human rights, Our Health and Our Children.

I also exposed Meryl Dorey’s stupendous deception a full week later on 102.9 KOFM that “hundreds perhaps thousands of families” had been compensated because their children “have become autistic after vaccination”. That it was “a fact” that vaccines cause autism.

There had been ample media prodding in the lead up to May 10th with the word “groundbreaking” popping up quite a lot. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) had been “quietly” and “secretly” working in the shadows it seemed “paying off” vaccine injured children with autism. On May 10th itself, Meryl Dorey claimed:

You cannot hold the truth back forever. And when that dam breaks, the flood will wash away those who have suppressed these facts to the detriment of our kids. It is time for the piper to be paid.

Oh my!

The “groundbreaking investigation” turned out to be an enormous flop. As promised at high noon on Tuesday May 10th 2011 Holland’s team assembled on the steps of the US Court of Claims at 717 Madison Place in Washington DC. They were presenting a paper of sorts, Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A review of compensated cases of vaccine induced brain injury. By the end of the lengthy live press statement, the caper had been largely dismissed and debunked as wordplay.

As you can read in the post linked above, certain media outlets were contacted by Pace Law School students, using the Pace Law School name. This was of course, news to Pace Law Administration. From Lisa Jo Rudy writing for About.com [bold mine]:

I just heard from a representative from the Public Relations department at Pace University School of Law. She wondered why a press release cited in my earlier blog would say that members of their law school had been involved with the investigation into and presentation of “Unanswered Questions From the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury,” when there was no such involvement in either the investigation or the presentation.

I did respond to Danielle Orsino, who sent out the press release, asking the question:
Were there cases in which the vaccine court awarded a settlement for damage that manifested itself as the symptoms of an autism spectrum disorder? Was the term “autism” ever used to describe the outcome of vaccine damage (eg, “the child suffered from neurological damage resulting in autism”)?
Danielle responded quickly, saying “The study strongly suggests a link between autism and vaccines. The study found that of those who had been compensated for brain damage due to vaccines, a much-higher-than-average number also had autism. The study makes an extremely strong case for the vaccine-autism connection, which is why the study’s authors are urging Congress to investigate the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.”
This response seems to suggest that the simple answer to my question is “no”.

I wrote at the time, Reading the document reveals ample use of terms such as “settled cases suggesting autism”, “language that strongly suggests autistic features”, “published decisions that used terms related to autism”, “payment of vaccine injured children with autism”, and not – as Seth Mnookin pointed out – “because of their autism”. More so, the authors spend some time arguing why there should be no distinction between autism and autism-like symptoms. This is a major concession they award themselves. The paper includes caregiver opinion, parental opinion, phrases from doctors who gave evidence at hearings and provides a case table of “Language suggesting autism or autistic-like symptoms”.

It further emerged that only 21 cases came from the VICP case files. 62 were gathered by phone calls and social communication questionnaires with other compensated families. It went as far as referencing The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine and a Manmade Epidemic [2010] by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill. There was no ethics approval, and no independent evaluation. Many were children with autism who received a vaccination and reacted. Others were children with mitochondrial enzyme disorders known to lead to encephalopathy. Most were genuine cases of encephalopathy following vaccination at the rate of about 1 in 1 million. That’s up to 1,000 times less than measles induced encephalopathy.

For our purposes, we need to note that Meryl Dorey was claiming “possibly thousands” of compensation cases when only 21 already dismissed cases could be found. Then before heading to Woodford Meryl spoke to Helen on 3CR and, whilst now aware of the sample size, still falsely claimed:

Um, autism is I believe, related very strongly to vaccination… and in the United States they’ve actually paid compensation to at least 83 families who children became autistic after vaccination whilst claiming that vaccines can’t cause autism.

Meryl’s other slide – number 17 – can be dismissed instantly. Her claim on that slide is that diagnoses are rising. This has nothing to do with vaccination and everything to do with diagnostic technique. Her cited South Korean study sampled students in mainstream schools managing 12 hour days six days per week. This is indicative of how wide the spectrum is. The autism rate in Australia is officially 1 in 160. In the UK and USA it is 1 in 100 – 1%. Some research suggests 1% in Australia also.

There are five reasons posed for the rise in autism. None mention vaccination.

  • The actual frequency of autism may have increased, meaning more children have it
  • There is increased case reporting, leading to greater findings, better use of funding and hightened awareness
  • Changes in the DSM-III-R and DSM-IV diagnostic criteria may account for more cases
  • Earlier diagnoses have essentially added a new younger demographic to the the existing demographic of children – ie; it spans more years
  • When we examine rising autism figures we find a corresponding drop in other types of mental disability and retardation, meaning they are now within the autism spectrum

Research using modern diagnostic criteria on adults also finds a 1% rate in adults, suggesting changes in mode of diagnosis play a huge role in perceived “epidemics”. In Brugha’s survey [ doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.38] he found not one adult diagnosed with autism knew they had the condition. This tells us the criteria to diagnose them a generation ago did not exist.

All up it seems Meryl Dorey has a lot of explaining to do. Debunked scams, fraud, a useless “association” and unverified musings. It’s nice to know some things remain predictable.

For Aussies, the news remains good. Vaccines do not cause autism.

My personal request of Meryl Dorey

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Health, Immunisation, Media, Meryl Dorey, Scam, Science, Skeptic by

We (antivaccination lobbyists) are the real Australian skeptics

Meryl Dorey Jan. 4th, 2012

As many of you may have noticed, the rapidly rising pertussis epidemic in W.A. was reported by the ABC today.

This predictably sent Meryl Dorey of the AVN into histrionics. One of her ridiculous claims is that pertussis has increased “10,000%” with a 25% increase in vaccination. If you choose the figure of 332 from the very first year – 1991 – of compulsory reporting (which actually reflects sloppy reporting, gradual awareness and slow administrative changes) and compare it to today’s epidemic figure as Dorey does, it’s a dodgy trick.

A Stop the AVN member snapped this tweet from a cast iron flying pig that appeared on ABC News Breakfast

Because the “25% increase” comes from a 70% vaccination coverage in 1991 and a 95% coverage now. Strange, because a decade later in 2001, vaccination was only 70.6% and the figure of notified cases is 9,541. Sure we do have an epidemic figure for 2011 of over 36,000. But choosing a different year shows an increase of 3.8 times – not 10,000% – despite almost an identical increase in childhood vaccination.

I’ve laid it out all below. The entire method Meryl uses, and offered it back to her as actually showing a decrease of over 50% in 6 years. It’s her technique using her data sources. It’s rather silly as one cannot compare unrelated data sets. But in an attempt to draw some sense from Meryl on a fairly clear point I’ve (yet again) worked through the figures to seek a reply.

Meryl Dorey’s extraordinary claim about ABC journalistic integrity

I posted it twice today on the ABC News Breakfast Facebook page and also on Stop AVN. No “coward” stuff as Meryl alleged to Tiga Bayles. No “hiding behind anonymity” as Bayles suggested. No “suppression of free speech”. Just open and honest requests for a reply, based on evidence. Meryl’s claimed forte.

Originally I asked for a point by point response. Yet, I’m asking Meryl now, to respond to just one of my points. Just one. So far, there’s just silence. We shall see.

Summoning help, Dorey writes about: “…the rabid pro-vaxxers who would happily see all of our children dead or injured if they thought it would protect them or their families.”

Above Meryl you write:

…it’s all across Australia – why they chose WA I have no idea? (sic)

Well Meryl, whooping cough in WA has increased by almost 500% since 2009.

ABC News Breakfast

Also Meryl, WA has the lowest rate of child vaccination in the country. According to Julie Leask, senior research fellow at the National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases, “Delay might be due to [WA’s] adolescent vax policy”.

Julie Leask Tweet

As “Australia’s leading vaccination expert” I thought you’d know these things, Meryl.

Anyway, as on Facebook here’s the same request for a reply. All I’ve updated from Facebook is the NNDSS pertussis notification figures accessed now, at time of writing, and changed it to a first person address.

As I stressed Meryl, failure to address this surely indicates admission that your claim on pertussis is false. You may very well believe it, but if so, it must stack up to scrutiny. No agro, no bullying, just a golden opportunity to speak freely. So, excuses to not answer are thin on the ground.

I hope that’s not too annoying and I’d be delighted to have you. Fire when ready….

Here’s the original from Facebook.

Hi Meryl.

Could you address this point by point please. It’s the same post as above, but I reckon it’s about time you helped clear the air. If not, do I assume you agree that your claims on pertussis are invalid?

Thanks very much:

Contrary to your claims, the epidemic began in your backyard with low vaccination rates and spread out from there. From SMH, October 2010:

“The highest rates of so-called “conscientious objectors” to immunisation are in parts of the north coast – such as Byron Bay – where 12 per cent of children born between 2001 and 2007 were never immunised for any condition. […]

An epidemic of whooping cough in 2008 and 2009 began on the north coast. It quickly swept across the state driven by low vaccination rates in some wealthy parts of Sydney. Low-income areas in western Sydney also had less immunisation and were linked to outbreaks, Dr Menzies said.”

Now, let’s debunk your claim of high vaccination rates causally equating to high pertussis infection, using – not other information and techniques – but your actual tables and own technique.

You source your 95% from under 2 year olds in a 2006 table (as per Woodford slides on your blog). Also, here it is – http://i.imgur.com/w9I9g.jpg. This makes up one half of 1/18th of all age groups from your next source, a NNDSS table of whooping cough notifications: http://i.imgur.com/XOrUY.png

These are the 2 tables you sent to the NSW HCCC in September 2009 (see p. 6 http://www.mediafire.com/?dw32azbk97obakm) to whom you made the very same claim, in response to a complaint.

You only quote absolute figures about pertussis after all – not percentages, or age groups, or if a notification is asymptomatic, or was a tourist, or international flight attendant/maritime worker/business traveller/etc.

Here’s the NNDSS age groups showing the highest infection rate is between 40 – 65 years in 2007. Before the epidemic.
http://i.imgur.com/0eGTw.png

Although now, the three age groups up to 14 years show large increases, if we add up the notifications above this we see that most notifications still come from adults who have no immunity. It has waned and they need a booster. Their vaccination (booster) rate is 11.3% – not 95%. We need to increase this by about 7 times to reach herd immunity.
See p. 18 of Adult Immunisation Survey to confirm 11.3%.

You are using “unrelated data”. Just like the rise in driving licences is not causally related to the rise in road trauma, or that the best safety advice (according to your thinking) would thus be to abandon licence testing. You are wrong to quote these NNDSS figures in this way, because we know nothing about their vaccine status or immunity. All we know is that most are adults who have no immunity.

So, in effect they cannot be compared – but for the record I’ll continue on as if they can be compared.

We do know pertussis fatalities occur in the unvaccinated. Vaccinated can of course catch pertussis yet experience far milder symptoms and faster recovery. The claim that vaccination for pertussis is an impervious shield has never been made by health authorities. But the claim that it should be and if not, it’s useless, is being scurrilously made by yourself.

Okay, let’s use your method on another year.

We can see (using the same NNDSS data) that 2007 was the lowest year of infection on record since 1999 – http://i.imgur.com/XOrUY.png. It is also the 5th lowest year since records began.
Many discount the first recording years of 1991 and 1992 as very, very low anomalies that show a slowish start to new legislation requiring reporting of whooping cough. This would make 2007 the 3rd lowest ever. But I’m happy to take the 5th lowest year ever.

Rather different to your claim, no? But from your data source no less.

Now, looking again at your vaccination rate table (http://i.imgur.com/w9I9g.jpg) we see 2001 had only 70.6% vaccination. Infection was 9,541 Aussies. By 2007 – still using both your data tables we see 95% vaccination of babies and 4,864 cases of pertussis (http://i.imgur.com/XOrUY.png).

So, using your “technique” on merely another part of the same NNDSS table we can also claim vaccination more than halved pertussis notifications in a mere 6 years.

Your data, your method, the very same tables you quote from. Why then is this not your message? Why don’t you tell Aussies that these sources show a greater than 50% drop in whooping cough in just 6 years?

Because it’s selective statistical sleight of hand, is it not? We both can’t be right. It’s a simple trick – and I’m arguing that you know it is.

You are intentionally misleading Australians. This is why the NSW HCCC issued a public health warning that you “quote selectively from research to suggest that vaccination may be dangerous.”

Also, it’s strange that you cite 1990 vaccination coverage of 70% vs 2006 coverage of 95%, omitting to say it dipped to 61% in the mid 90’s and had only increased by 0.6% in the 10 years from 1991. Could this be because you want to create an impression? Perhaps.

It’s all in your table. Should you not address all figures? Why do you not address all figures?

Also, a good look at any NNDSS notification table shows rises and falls in infection. Contrary to your claim of a steady increase in infection as vaccine coverage rose, pertussis always rises and falls.

In fact the first 10 years when coverage went from 70% to 61% to 70.6% corresponds to notification levels similar to and greater than the second 10 years (http://i.imgur.com/XOrUY.png).

1997 is almost as high the 2008 epidemic year and vaccination coverage was under 70%. So, again we must ask – are you seeking to create an impression?

Epidemics are a different ball game. Once immunisation fell below a safe level in Byron Bay it took off like lots of little fires in low immunisation areas joining to create a massive bush fire.

So, low immunisation caused this outbreak not any problem with the vaccine. The answer? Get adults immunised and ensure babies get cocooned and immunised ASAP.

There’s nothing to stop me using the very same data and going around saying Australia had one of the lowest pertussis levels since notifications began, until your, Meryl Dorey’s lobbying against vaccination led to the 2008 epidemic (and cite Dr. Menzies, plus news reports etc to back me up).

But science doesn’t make leaps like that. We’d need better research. You really don’t use science, despite boasting of such – just tricks with scientific data hoping nobody will check. Please prove me wrong.

Let’s recap: I’ve used only your tables and your own argument style to a.) debunk your claims on pertussis vaccination = infection, b.) shown how it can be used to show a vaccine induced 50% plus reduction in only 6 years [2001 – 2007] and c.) pointed out some curious gaps in your coverage of the data that don’t seem to support your claims.

I look forward to your reply,

Thank you,

Paul Gallagher

(emailed to Meryl Dorey on Jan. 7th, 2012)

Vaccination Saves Lives

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Denialism, Science by

Stop The AVN Media Release

♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

Imagine you’re listening to the radio one day and the discussion is on government funding and community education about road fatality and driver education.

A woman is invited to speak. You catch her name as Peryl Clawy. She’s president of The Australian Road Safety Network. Impressive. She claims to be for “informed choice” on your safety as a driver. Her only aim is to educate drivers about driving skill so they can choose what’s best for them and their family. She wants to present both sides of the argument. Sounds great. You pay more attention.

The announcer asks her about the condition of roads and of railway crossings, during peak periods. There’s been a report linking speed, poor road maintenance and traffic jams to accidents on the open road and at crossings. It’s been suggested licencing fees may increase to help cover costs to improve the condition of roads. The woman answers;

“Well, we at the ARSN would take that with a grain of salt. This fee increase – or extortion to keep your licence as we prefer to call it – seems to be just another Big Brother tactic from the government, road authorities and road-way developers to keep drivers under the impression that safer roads save lives. But who did this study, and who paid them? Was it an independent study or by someone associated with road development?

The reality is that study after study shows that dangerous driving on difficult surfaces is an excellent way to improve driving skills, and more to the point we at the ARSN have thousands of reports of people killed and maimed whilst driving on perfect roads, under perfect lighting, in perfect weather conditions whilst under the speed limit. Despite big auto promising to make cars safer we have reports of children decapitated by air bags and adults sustaining crushed ribs and perforated lungs from seat belts, during accidents. The overall effect of all this safety is to deny the body’s natural driving skill from maturing.

Before the road safety industry began these highly lucrative fear campaigns urging people to listen to the police and to these so-called scientists, cars had no seat belts or safety devices and roads were made of dirt and sand. Children were carried on their mothers laps, and windscreens were clean non-toxic glass. Now, we’re trapped behind toxic lamination full of chemicals, that break away and float about the interior of the car causing illness, cancer and failure to thrive in children. They also poison breast milk. Since the baby capsule and booster seat laws came in the number of babies killed in motor vehicle accidents has increased ten fold and babies dying from SIDS in Australia has almost tripled.

I had a mother call me recently saying she picked up her sleeping baby from a capsule one night, placed her in her crib to sleep and the next morning discovered she was dead. Who takes responsibility for this? The baby capsule manufacturers? The road safety authorities? The media who continually hush up these cases? I mean I believe every life lost on the roads is tragic but why are babies who die in a crash whilst sitting on their mother’s laps front page news, and those that die from baby capsule induced SIDS never even reported? Children’s health in all nations with mass production of safer driving practice and so-called better roads is under attack. Chronic disease is at an all time high.

The fatality rate 80 years ago in Australia is a fraction of the total today. When they first made cars they just allowed the public to buy them. Now they fill them with dummies and crash them at full speed recording in detail every bit of damage that can happen to the human body. But do they tell you this when you buy a car? Do they show you a dummy and say, “See. this is what happens when you crash this car wearing all the safety gear”? No, of course not. Back then many drivers didn’t even have licences. More so, look at the percentage of drivers killed on our roads who hold full driving licences. It’s something like 99.99999%. If we look at the rise in licences over the past few generations we also see a steady increase in fatalities. So, it’s clear this licencing system plays a significant role in fatalities. And these aren’t my figures these are the government’s own figures.

We also have thousands of licence induced injuries on record. Humans are born with natural driving skills, just the way we’re born with the ability to walk, but these are trained out of us when we sit for a drivers licence. Now, we’ve been asking the government to run a trial of licenced vs unlicenced drivers with natural driving skills for years now to see whether artificial – or “learned” as they call it – skills are really better than those with natural or “unlearned” skills. But they don’t care. The government just doesn’t care.

So licencing and the teaching of driving skills has never been tested properly. The gold standard of science is the randomised control trial. Yet no studies actually exist that compare unlicenced driver skills in dangerous conditions, vs licenced driver skills in dangerous conditions. People are just expected to follow along and listen to road traffic authorities, ignoring their own instincts along the way. What’s worse is not only is there no evidence licencing doesn’t kill drivers, but they hold off allowing the unlearning of natural skills and the learning of unnatural skills until the late teens.

So the normal skills and curiosity all toddlers and children show as they’re growing is suppressed when it comes to driving a car, when study after study shows that children learn so much from interacting with their environment. We’ve also asked the government to run trials comparing toddlers and children who are allowed to play-drive for a few years with adults who have been forced into the artificially taught skill set, but again the government just doesn’t listen. They obviously just don’t care.

When I arrived in Australia almost 30 years ago there were no boom gates or lights at railway crossings and all the roads were unmade and full of pot holes. But since the bitumen has gone down and crossings have been developed fatalities have slowly increased. Now, we have all these scientists saying if you drive over the speed limit without a seat belt or drive through a railway crossing with flashing lights without looking you could die from it. Well, you didn’t die from it 30 years ago and you’re not going to die from it today.

Plus there’s now hate groups who insist we don’t have the right to say these things, to tell the other side of the story. The Australian skeptics, they set up a group call Stop The Australian Road Safety Network and they say that we don’t have free speech in Australia and that you have no right to get access to both sides of the story. They don’t want you to have this information, despite the risks of not knowing. They say you aren’t allowed to ask questions about driving or what might be best for you.

They just argue that it’s better to seek out “reputable” information and do what your driver instructor tells you or what your advanced driving skills instructor tells you. You know, um… pay attention to road conditions, adjust your driving for lighting and weather, observe the speed limits, take care in unknown areas, ensure your car is road worthy and has good tyres. Don’t think for yourself or follow what you think is best for your children – despite the carnage and the licence induced injuries.

So, it’s all about suppressing free speech and free choice. Just like in a communist country. Science doesn’t have all the answers so why we should trust science with something as valuable and potentially dangerous as driving is a mystery. Not one car is 100% safe and even the manufacturers admit this. But they don’t tell you up front. It’s time Australians stood up and raised their voice about these Licences Of Death, forced acceptance of so-called safety standards and returned to the old ways of doing things naturally. Free from interference and free from the lies of big auto backed by big government.”

The announcer quietly says thank you and hangs up.

You wouldn’t listen to this rubbish, so why bother when “safe driving” is swapped for “vaccination”?