Tag Archives: anti-vaccination

Dumb and Dumber: Making antivaxxers look good

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

Sometimes what may seem like a good idea can backfire horribly because well, it really wasn’t much of an idea at all.

So it was with a post headed Australian Vaccination Network Seminars on the irreverent and uniquely themed blog, JABS, Loonies – Justice, Awareness, Basic Support and Mind Blowing Stupidity. Keep that last bit in mind – mind blowing stupidity.

Now, I get this blog. No problem. It’s giving voice to no-nonsense criticism using colourful language. The author, Rebecca Fisher or just Becky, set out to post a daily comment from JABS to reflect the tenuous grip on reality we see accompanying top shelf antivaccination beliefs. Then, to Becky’s horror JABS seemed to moderate the “loonies”. Enter Age of Autism and The Australian Vaccination Network. An excellent choice, I concur.

Becky sprinkled the above post with plenty of swearing and foul ridicule. If you know how Becky writes and appreciate her style, it may well be quite funny. I personally enjoyed the description of Greg Beattie’s book. Not that I’d describe it that way, but because Beattie is a smug, attention seeking liar happy to profit from the harm he inflicts on other Aussies. His book is banally deceptive dreck, the title of which is not worth repeating.

So, “used bog roll” does suffice although I would query the ultimate value of additional swearing. After all, describing the real Greg Beattie is far more shocking, sickening, disgusting and of course hilariously funny, than any colourful delivery could hope to accomplish.

Like the other person Becky ridicules, Meryl Dorey, he denies the origin of HIV/AIDS in favour of the notion it’s a vaccine wot dunnit. When Dorey’s “invitation” to genuine medical practitioners to present at these “seminars” was knocked back, Beattie “volunteered” to take the place of high caliber professionals. Managing in the same offer to personally sneer at another doctor. In accepting this mockery, Dorey cut her potential attendance figures significantly.

Jane Hansen admirably describes the Greg we all know and love in action at Lismore:

In the absence of a balanced debate, anti-vaccination author Greg Beattie says he is going to try to convince everyone that vaccinations are great. He confesses he did a 15-minute Google search on the benefits. “We see these recurring themes ‘vaccines saves lives, medical miracles, diseases used to kill children’,” he says, but his tone is dripping in irony. […]

He’s done a lousy job of explaining the benefits of immunisation. We did not hear, for example, that diphtheria – the biggest killer of Australians in the early 1900s – has virtually vanished. Or that the 150 deaths in Australia in 1963-64 became zero by 1998, or that the only recorded death recently was that of young woman from Queensland who was not immunised as a child. Her immunised boyfriend carried the disease back from an overseas trip. She died, at 20.

It’s plain from the petulant lead up and the reality described by Hansen that all Dorey’s propaganda on pro choice and respect for medical advice – she called one aspect “a crock” – was forgotten for what is essentially deceit. No doubt Becky is well aware of this, and in her unique way summed up Dorey’s sociopathic and narcissistic personality disorders by labelling her f***ing evil.

What Becky might not realise is that Dorey and her minions live for this very type of insult. In fact, whilst writing “in character” if I may employ a phrase, it’s easy to “hear” the tone in which it’s intended to come across. It may resonate like Penn and Teller. Or well known stand up comedians who leave us doubled over in tears, merely capable of nodding in agreement.

But the gamble is, will your audience always appreciate it? Well no, and I’m sure Becky is not that gullible nor rightly gives a toss for prudish criticism.

The problem we arrive at however is that Dorey will use this “attack”, as her personal academic-in-waiting documents such criticism, to garner sympathy with the very people Becky was hoping to persuade against tolerating such seminars. The bigger problem is that it’s a kick in the guts to those who have been tackling the AVN for years. Whilst it’s true antivaxxers use a similar template, AVN in-group management is a strictly coordinated affair.

Recently the AVN has been caught with little more than false tales of persecution. Turn up the brightness on this mess and it can be seen that their manufactured dissent is truly ridiculous, whilst a quick tally of vile outbursts, scams, intimidation and bullying puts the AVN in a league of it’s own. For the first time in two years, Dorey has not invented stories of being hassled and threatened by “the skeptics” prior to her seminars.

Well, now she doesn’t have to. The reaction to Becky’s post was swift. Cunning from the outset, notice Dorey doesn’t (or can’t) refer to herself. She claims the post is “attacking someone who believes in informed vaccination choice…”. No. It attacks only Dorey and Beattie. But almost exclusively Dorey. There’s some weird depersonalisation issues at play in that troubled, dangerous psyche.

Someone has just sent me a link to this blog Dorey announced on Facebook. And:

 – which is the foulest, most vile piece of rubbish I’ve yet to read from the pseudo-sceptics. This blog is written by a person who can’t seem to write a sentence without both attacking someone who believes in informed vaccination choice and calling them a 4-letter word.

Great. “Pseudo-sceptics” is Dorey-code for actual skeptics, science advocates and devotees of scientific skepticism. In using the term Dorey makes a mockery of herself because the definition encompasses AIDS denial, vaccine denial, indeed evidence denial in general:

Pseudoskepticism, by contrast, involves “negative hypotheses” – theoretical assertions that some belief, theory, or claim is factually wrong – without satisfying the burden of proof that such negative theoretical assertions would require.

RationalWiki take it further such that one almost expects to read Meryl Dorey’s name as a famous pseudoskeptic. In effect, Dorey has confused notions from Hume’s philosophy of True Skepticism with a Facebook post an antivaxxer made one day using the term. Dorey delightfully called it “a keeper”, and along with her inability to research the rest is history.

Yet, as incredibly wrong as she is, her response to Becky’s post indicates a shift toward blaming her regular critics for being vile and foul mouthed attackers. Horribly she gets a free kick for that appallingly misleading “informed vaccination choice”, to describe the lockstep of vaccine conspiracy.

For impact Dorey copied in Becky’s list of top search results, then continues:

Notice the addition of “small hate group”. Suddenly Becky is a hate group? No. Dorey may follow this up with a letter blaming Stop The AVN and The Australian Skeptics. Directly pointing the finger for suppression of free speech, threats and footnoted with Dr. Brian Martin’s “research”. It’s vintage Dorey, twisting anything to her advantage and tutoring her minions to the nth degree.

Suddenly she’s gone all patriotic. One day Australia is a Health Fascist Scientocracy. Next we have our American loiterer, hell bent on destroying Australian public health, actually telling Aussies what the RSL stand for. Incapable of independent thought the flying monkeys screech into action:

Until then, Dorey hadn’t been urging her minions to write to the RSL or other Services clubs. Perhaps however, other diligent health advocates were in touch with various venues. Perhaps directing them to various accounts of Dorey’s first effort and her vicious ranting screeds in response to criticism.

Now these same clubs or individuals will read the far more offensive and pointless attack against Dorey, and associate every cautionary warning with that outburst. Those making the decision are unlikely to know the first thing about antivaccination deceit. They are far more likely to be the type of prudish critic Becky would not attract to her blog initially.

Dorey will win the sympathy vote and the persecution meme is off and running again.

The flapping, swooping and screeching actually gets worse. In this thread is a “Chris Savage” who earlier lied heroically:

I am an ex-Sgt of Police after 20 years in Queensland. Every SIDS mother told me their babies were healthy prior to vaccines and then deteriorated and died after.

So Dorey’s Darlings – and particularly stalker, poor Liz Hempel – are grabbing screenshots. Hempel has stalked one woman who jokingly said she’d throw fruit, found out she is a police communications officer from her blogger profile and urged for a complaint. Sergeant SIDS likes the idea and has chimed in with the details on where to lodge a complaint.

Now, I think that’s as pathetic as everyone else does. On a positive note it helps my steadily increasing dossier on how AVN members are demonstrably attacking people well outside of any “debate” that Dr. Brian Martin purports to be documenting.

I’ll spare you any more of the thread. It’s full of fawning and worship. At one point Meryl is likened to a giraffe and Becky’s post to a skinny, malnourished, barking chihuahua.

Whilst Meryl’s head is certainly in the clouds the problem with Becky’s post is not the suggestion to forewarn venues and certainly not the points listed. Meryl is indeed a liar, thief, scam artist, criminal and so disturbed on so many levels she appears to not care if children live or die or are brain damaged for life.

All these points can be made on merit. Not with abuse. Abuse only feeds into Meryl’s diversionary tactics and tend to lend credence to her schemes by lowering the tone of her opposition. Dorey has no evidence and that is plain. All evidence on vaccination shows her to be dangerous and all evidence on herself bears out what I just described above.

Now however, a very good opportunity to at the very least have her scrutinised at these venues has either been lost or markedly tainted. The tiresome and scratched record of persecution and abuse gets a new lease of life. Every audience will now hear of this “most vile piece of rubbish”. Every attendee will be told this is how all of her critics behave.

Personally I have no problem with Becky’s post. I think it’s entirely proper to place irrational enemies of reason in their proper place. That does include ridicule and free speech makes that everyone’s prerogative. What I am concerned about is the outcome, which was entirely predictable.

So what’s been achieved? Nothing. Backward steps. Unless one has personal contacts within the RSL it would be damaging to now write to them. Letters critical of Dorey will be associated with a senseless foul mouthed rant. The “loonies” Becky wants to launch into have a new lease on life and have bonded splendidly, reinforcing their beliefs. That is exactly what we don’t want.

There’s no doubt that abusing someone over their beliefs reinforces those beliefs. This holds true for onlookers and is actually helping Dorey. That’s bad for upcoming generations. It’s also true Dorey exploits abuse and criticism by injecting it with a dose of fiction. I doubt she’s finished with this one yet.

Doing the right thing for people that the Dorey’s of this world have abused – many of them now “loonies” themselves – doesn’t require mockery and ridicule. Garnering support and protecting children and future generations from the damage these creatures do is something that can, if not must be done on merit. Meryl Dorey might be cowardly, cruel and callous, but she still knows how to score points.

That’s no joke.

The Malicious is delicious

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Denialism, General, Health, Science by

In an upcoming work defending the Australian Vaccination Network it is postulated that Denial Of Service attacks might be a tactic used by critics of the AVN.

This ever expanding list of “attacks” dreamed up by Meryl Dorey already includes causing Meryl’s ISP to experience a mysterious outage, having the Age of Autism’s Facebook page pulled, causing problems with the AVN website and attacking the site of a Living Wisdom advertiser. There are many but most reflect a variation on these.

In reality the suggestion that DOS was perhaps perpetrated by Stop The AVN with no evidence of this even occurring is indicative of the gulf between Ms. Dorey’s accusations and backing them with evidence. Equally, suggesting her critics have the means (or cause) to anonymously attack her ISP and Facebook, then squander such a coup on Age of Autism, is the stuff of conspiracy central concoctions.

The issue of the Living Wisdom advertiser – who probably wonders where the heck his advertisements are – is worth retelling. Members of SAVN became aware Ms. Dorey was accusing critics of having “hacked” this advertiser’s site. On examination it turned out the CSS file was not styling the site. If I remember, the index file and CSS file weren’t chatting. Ergo, a slight coding problem.

As it turned out, two AVN critics contacted the advertiser and happily fixed the problem for him. This entailed some degree of trust which clearly was not abused. Tally? Meryl rips him off for paid ads she never published. Stop AVN fix his site problems for free, but Meryl lies about it claiming SAVN “hacked” his site. Strangely, this “attack” has never been cleared up by AVN members with a dash of truth.

Poor SAVN is also accused of giving the AVN a poor WoT rating. Yet a quick visit to the AVN Facebook page shows a whopping 4,596 Likes. Fascinating for a page with about 10 – 15 active posters. Aside from scamming her own members out of approximately $180,000 in magazine subscriptions this figure gives you an indication of how many genuine parents, natural therapists and others have been accused of trolling. Posts deleted, access banned.

The same can be said for the AVN website. These are genuine issues of trust and vendor reliability. Genuine concerns that are raised about the safety of refusing all vaccines are never allowed. All censored by the AVN. The AVN have strayed very, very far from representing parents with concerns about vaccination. Perhaps the AVN should look further afield for who might rate them as shifty and dangerous.

Recently on AVN Facebook a desire to discuss the pros and cons of current policy was met with deletion, banning and accusation of trolling. In defence the AVN runs the mantra that the page is for AVN fans only. Which by extension means healthy discourse or independence is not tolerated by AVN in-groupies. Check this out-take from a thread, starting Saturday June 16th.

Oh yes of course. No way could they be genuinely interested visitors seeking to respond to the issue raised. That would be too logical.

It’s pretty messed up stuff. Either you ignore best practice and evidence in health, or you’re a troll and a paid Big Pharma shill. Yet the AVN is not anti-vaccination but pro-choice, we hear over and again.

Recently some genuinely childish attacks were made against this site and reasonablehank. A silly old meanie had gone and reported our URL’s to Trend Micro as dangerous, facilitating distribution of spam, malicious source code and software.

Trend Micro being none too clever don’t bother to check the site but do change the rating on their “safety page”. This changes how Trend Micro software reacts to URL’s. Someone had noticed;

“Dangerous, Verified fraudulent page or threat source”. Pathetic Trend Micro and a well known problem. This is a WordPress blog (as in, on their server) forbidding even JavaScript, Flash and HTML embed code for media or active widgets such as a trendy countdown clock. They are meticulous when it comes to ensuring safe sites. Suffice it to say Trend Micro is open to abuse. So I checked on my URL to find:

Dangerous! Malicious! Oh, how delicious! Visions of computer viruses flooded my head. If nothing else, at that moment I had a new term for unvaccinated children: Malicious. As in, “when will they test the health of vaccinated vs malicious children?” Oh, the LULZ dear reader, the LULZ.

The national childhood Immunisation Register would change to “Fully Vaccinated”, “Malicious (DANGER)”, “Unknown”, “Partly vaccinated”. The darlings could have T-Shirts at creche with big red crosses and DANGEROUS on front and back.

Novelty shops would sell DANGER: Malicious Child On Board badges for cars. Houses would need signs. DANGER! Latest tests show malicious children inside could infect visitors! Or UNSAFE PROPERTY! Please ensure your antivirus boosters are up to date. Schoolchildren could be scanned for Malicious blood types, with rating dependent upon antibodies for different VPD’s.

You should read Hank’s account of how our friend Liz above accused him of trying to infect her computer, when she got a similar warning. She was, er, trolling his site and got a fright. Then switched computers (and in the process antivirus programme) or went mobile which led to even more confusion and accusation about infecting certain IP addresses.

Liz might be happy to expose her child and innocent community members to potential viral infection but any suspicion over infecting a computer and you’re “involved in criminal activities”. But things were about to get funnier.

What with all this trolling AVN is subject to, and censorship of their pages it was hard to miss Liz trolling Dan’s Journal of Skepticism on this very issue. If that wasn’t enough Liz was also scanning for censorship:

Anyway, I’m pleased to report all is back to normal thanks to informing Trend Micro of this silly business.

The AVN ban, censor and cry troll. Their members troll, cry censorship, abuse and accuse. Meanwhile my money from Big Pharma still hasn’t turned up.

I bet Trend Micro are to blame.

A response to the defence of chiropractic

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

Paul; your writings are amusing, but you have only 183 followers! My 14 year old daughter has three times that on a silly facebook page!

In the spirit of genuine laziness and as one of the “waspish witch-hunters of political medicine”, I’ve reproduced my response to a comment on the About page written by a giant in the art of selective topic pertinence.

Keith. Mate!

Your daughter has a bigger number than mine. On Facebook! Well, I’m sure that every one is a dedicated and true friend engaged in a deeply meaningful personal relationship. Or… maybe quality isn’t what matters, if I’m to take the meaning.

Yes I agree chiropractic will be around for years to come. Chiropractors will tweak and change to keep in line with shifts in superstition and trends in gullibility to ensure they maintain a large slice of the health scam market. They will also fight and defend like skilled con artists and fraudsters to hold onto the empty title of “doctor”, being only too aware of the psychology that drives the gullible to their doors. Mimicry of actual medicine and misuse of technology is vital to the illusion.

Also I agree on the history. Palmer certainly wasn’t the first person to rattle and dance, poke and prod whilst intoning godly laws about the human body and human health. He was however the first to market his touchy brand of magic as “science” and made liberal use of the most modern tools at his disposal.

I note your journey to last century to exhume the Wilk case. A splendid diversion. Yet since then, not only was your daughter born but chiropractic shifted into a fundamentalist ideology that denies every rule of medical science and the very laws of nature itself. Of its own accord it has become the “go to discipline” for glowing appraisals of alternatives to medicine and solemn condemnation of conventional medicine.

More so, it has again of its own accord inserted itself in serious health debates way beyond the beliefs ensconced behind the battlements of its extra-dimensional reality. The vaccination issue. Pre natal, neo natal and extended post natal proclamations designed solely to scare vulnerable and gullible new parents to sign those lucrative “treatment contracts”. Paediatric chiropractic – perhaps more amusing than you realise if not for the conclusive demonstrations of inefficacy.

To my knowledge the only scheme to actually provoke symptoms of Munchausens Syndrome By Proxy it is responsible for creating nervous wrecks and genuine psychological patients of innocent parents. The invention of “syndrome” after “syndrome” and the terrifying warnings of what awaits those who do not succumb to regular “maintenance”.

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

SCIENTISTS spent $374,000 recently asking people to inhale lemon and lavender scents to see if it helped their wounds to heal. It didn’t.

The National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the US also outlaid $700,000 to show that magnets are no help in treating arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome or migraines.

The centre spent $390,000 to find that old Indian herbal remedies do not control type 2 diabetes and $406,000 to prove coffee enemas do not cure pancreatic cancer.

It’s the same story around the globe. One by one, weirdo treatments are being exposed as bunkum.

Why are people so gullible, handing over their hard-earned cash for unproven alternative therapies? […]

Latest research says dietary supplements and megavitamins, acupuncture and chiropractic are of little use – and may even be harmful. […]

Chiropractors have now been discredited by every reputable medical organisation from the Royal Society down, yet people still spend up on these bone-crunchers and state and federal governments seem unwilling to shut them down.

Recently I reported on two experts on alternative medicine who reviewed all the evidence and concluded chiropractic was “worthless”.

“Harmful, worthless, discredited by every reputable medical organisation from the Royal Society down”. Keith, mate! And that’s coming from proponents of alternatives to medicine.

Like all magical claims chiropractic has been sternly examined and found wanting. Claims of efficacy crushed under the simple application of RCTs and its claims of safety evaporate before a monumental collection of research into death, permanent injury and disability or injury and complications with frequent cases of lengthy recovery. To be sure this happens in medicine also but to those already on death’s doorstep, significantly ill, disabled or in need of life saving surgery. And they are well informed of the risks that apply to a strictly evidence based choice.

That chiropractors scheme and trick people who are absolutely perfectly healthy – indeed many fatalities in robust health, the prime of life – to believe they need attention is itself a grave insult to common altruism and a thunderously immoral application of psychology. That healthy and vital people can be killed or injured and experience levels of morbidity that equal high impact vehicle accidents is a statement about chiropractic no-one can ignore.

Again addressing your mine’s bigger than yours argument I note the “fast-dwindling group of activists” reference. Of course nothing could be more inaccurate. Advocacy for science based medicine and skeptical defence and examination of consumer rights in health and beyond, is at an all time high. But it is not quantity that matters, and your obsession with quantity reveals your lack of appreciation for quality.

It is evidence that matters. Including evidence explaining what drives the interest in so many health scams we have seen rise up of late. The search for Truth is indeed vital, but skeptics and other scientists will accept the evidence as it comes. This happens to include that which explains the manipulation of individuals to believe the equivalent of magic is fact. Should the evidence indicate an increase in the future this too will be sought for further elucidation.

To comment on evidence gleaned from the methods that can be trusted to inform us of our world is not to be waging war. Much less a “self created turf war” as you put it. Of course people will continue to believe in fallacy and illusion. Magic has been a feature of our species for countless thousands of years, yet today we can discern the mechanics by which false displays are executed and the primary role of the believer themselves.

Many things will persist with health scams. Wars, cults, belief in the supernatural and our disposition to internalise superstitious belief to name a few. People are hard wired to believe in fantasy. Yet in a democracy I would not have it any other way for it reflects on my freedom. Your real concern should be with a.) the lack of evidence for chiropractic and b.) the ultimate goal of regulators.

Seeking to impede exploitation of fellow community members when evidence irrefutably confirms this, is the democratic right of skeptics and science advocates. When perpetrators of scams confirm malignant intent by misrepresenting evidence it becomes a moral obligation – a duty to our species.

Of course, with real freedom we find expression and belief should not be inhibited. In this light the freedom to be stupid is your democratic right.

I too have found great amusement in this exchange.

I fear however, your return to the lives of schoolgirls on Facebook is perhaps well justified.

Here’s lookin’ at ya Keith.

Judy Wilyman named and shamed as cruel attacker

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Denialism, Health, Human Rights, Judy Wilyman, Legal, Meryl Dorey, Scam, Science by

An anti-vaccine lobbyist who contends that children should die from illness to prevent the “genetic deterioration” she believes is being caused by vaccination, made front page headlines today.

Judy Wilyman argues that vaccines contain proteins and poisons that have a “synergistic, latent and cumulative effect” ultimately causing autism, arthritis, anaphylaxis, ADHD, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, asthma, etc, etc. This generation of children is “the unhealthiest yet” whilst no evidence that vaccines prevent disease actually exists – anywhere – she has asserted.

41% of today’s children are “chronically ill” primarily with auto immune and neurological diseases that arise from vaccines, Wilyman claims, suggesting that “good science would be investigating all possible causes of these diseases“. Yet whilst Wilyman is well known for drawing conclusions from remote correlation and blaming conspiracies for the absence of proof, today it was the latter obsession that drew journalistic interest.

So corrupt is the pharmaceutical industry, she has long reasoned, that to support vaccination must involve financial incentives. Any claim that vaccines actually do prevent disease is a simple lie. It would be “a crime against humanity” to provide incentives for immunisation and the media (who have pharmaceutical interests) seek to coerce and educate the public through fear campaigns involving stories about children ill or dying from vaccine preventable disease.

UOW researcher targets grieving parents ran the subheading of the Illawarra Mercury. Wilyman is the student of AVN defender and anti-vaccination supporter Dr. Brian Martin, professor of social sciences at UOW. Beginning with a comprehensive rundown of recently made accusations against parents who had lost their daughter to pertussis, it continued to a double page spread.

The main story by Cydonee Mardon, Grieving parents slam researcher covered what many already know.

Judy Wilyman, a PhD student and former Illawarra high school teacher, questioned whether Toni and David McCaffery had been paid to promote the whooping cough vaccine.

Ms Wilyman said the State Government was using four-week-old Dana’s death and “the mantra of seeing sick babies gasping for air” to push the vaccine.

Dana died of whooping cough, or pertussis, in March 2009. Her parents have since worked with health authorities to raise awareness about the infection and gave permission for their story to be used on a NSW Health Department campaign. […]

[Toni McCaffery said] “Dana is not an anecdote. We do not receive money for warning people about whooping cough. That is the most disgusting allegation.

“The money we received [from] the Australian Skeptics we donated to research to save babies from pertussis. Government has not ‘used us’ to promote vaccines in recent media stories. We agree to such interviews in our own time without any agenda other than to give people the warning we did not receive.”

Mrs McCaffery said Dana’s story appeared in a government brochure because “parents have a right to be warned about whooping cough and given accurate information”.

“We did not get that warning. It is up to parents if they want to vaccinate. It is also up to any parent to go public and speak to media. Do not use us against other families.”

The Mercury contacted Ms Wilyman who has so far declined to comment.

It was also another blow to the public face of the AVN who were correctly reported as hosting Wilyman’s letter to the Australian Human Rights Commissioner in which she also referred to the “mantra” of seeing sick babies gasping for air.

In W.A. in 2010 Wilyman used a 60 year old quote to suggest that infant and childhood mortality is a necessary price to pay in preventing the diseases she believes arise through interaction of genes, the environment and timing. By stopping vaccination which is switching on otherwise dormant disease-causing genes, and allowing vaccine preventable deaths we could improve “the overall health” of children, Judy Wilyman believes.

She informed her audience:

In 2010 it is known that environmental factors can switch genes on, that would otherwise remain dormant. This is called predisposition to disease. Resulting in epidemics of genetic diseases. Things like autism, diabetes and asthma.

I’ve got a quote from Macfarlane Burnet… 60 years ago. Macfarlane Burnet said:

In future years we may have some hard thinking to do. It may be that we will have to realise that mortality in infancy and childhood in the past has been the necessary price that had to be paid to prevent genetic deterioration and that some of our modern successes in preventative and curative medicine, may on the longest view be against the best interests of the state.

In the 21st century it is known that genes and environment and timing interact together in the occurrence of disease. The overall health of children in the 21st century would appear to be supporting Burnet’s prophecy.

Source: W.A. Audio (at 28min, 30sec)

Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet was a Nobel prize winner and Australian of the year born in 1899. A brilliant virologist and immunologist the Burnet Institute in Melbourne is named after him. It is almost beyond belief that in the same talk Wilyman uses influenza as her example of a disease for which the vaccine is more dangerous. Could she possibly know of Burnet’s work in advancing influenza immunisation and how it still influences progress today?

His search for vaccines, particularly for influenza and massive inoculation studies (20,000 subjects) during the second world war, earned him global recognition. Under his guidance progress on polio, pox viruses, herpes, Murray Valley encephalitis and myxomatosis were added to this contribution. Simply put the man was a giant in the progress and necessity of immunisation with vaccines.

This post has no chance of doing Burnet justice other than to highlight Wilyman’s calculated deception in her abuse of research. It is enough that the “mandatory and coercive” monitoring of vaccination status – the “crime against humanity” Wilyman and Dorey ignorantly rail against – owes no small amount to Burnet’s input into keeping records on individual vaccination history.

Also in today’s Mercury is a moving open letter from Toni and David McCaffery. It happens to include reference to the reality of encouraging parents not to vaccinate:

We moved to the Northern Rivers to bring our family up in this pristine environment. However, we did not realise this was a hotbed for contagious and potentially deadly viruses.

Our sweet Dana is the innocent victim of dangerously low levels of awareness and even lower vaccination rates. Instead of her photo winning baby competitions, she is the tragic face of a Whooping Cough (Pertussis) epidemic and sparked a national vaccination debate. […]

Please learn from our past. Vaccination was introduced because there is no medicine to stop these bacteria that killed and maimed thousands of children. Now, these third-world diseases are on the rise again. In NSW it is Whooping Cough. In Queensland it is Measles.

Do you want to live in a country where we are too scared to have friends or family visit our babies or we won’t leave our homes?

As has become a brief tradition of late we might consult the work of Judy’s supervisor Dr. Brian Martin. Dr. Martin accuses opponents of the AVN of launching “attacks”, even inventing his own list of “attack modes”. He writes in the conclusion of When Public Health Debates Become Abusive:

Debates  over  health-related matters  are  often  extremely  bitter. Usually,  though, more attention  is  given  to  the  content  — the  facts,  which  position  is  correct,  and  policy implications  — than  to  the  way  a  debate  is  carried  out.  Yet  the  methods  used  are important.  Heavy-handed  and  abusive  techniques  can  discourage  participation  and distort outcomes, affecting health policies and practices. […]

Science,  as  a  model  form  of  truth-seeking,  is  based  on  rational  assessment  of evidence. Health policy disputes can only partly follow the science model because they also involve differences in values. […]

The  question  then arises: what can be done to shift debates towards more participatory, respectful modes of engagement? […] The next question is, what should be done about those who engage in personal  abuse  and  who  attempt  to silence  opponents? A  first step  is  to  expose  and criticise  these  sorts  of  methods,  especially  when  used  by  those  on  one’s  own  side

Certainly then, more and more of Dr. Martin’s work can be seen as applying not to those who raise dissent about the privileged status of the AVN, but to members of the antivaccination movement itself.

The University of Wollongong did respond, striving to distance itself from Ms. Wilyman. I have no issue with their general position although I would hope immediate steps have been taken about Wilyman signing the letter to the AHRC as PhD Candidate. This of course is not the only example of egregious conduct on Wilyman’s part bolstered by her affiliation with UOW. From The Mercury:

The UOW issued a statement distancing itself from Ms Wilyman’s comments.

“Articles and associated comments published by Judy Wilyman on the internet, on vaccination issues, are her own personal views and not those of the university,” the statement said.

The larger problem includes the academic succor given to the evidence denial on her part, the extensive involvement of Dr. Martin that raises a clear conflict of interest and the ethical and moral obligation that UOW has to public health. To support and legitimise antivaccination propaganda is not a reflection of academic integrity. To continue to label Wilyman a “researcher” is absurd. She is a reviewer, admitting to “scouring peer reviewed research for ten years”, simply twisting selected material to her own aims.

As with parents who claim to have “researched” the science of vaccination and decide to deny vaccination, questions must be asked about evaluation. Exactly how does one conclude vaccination is entirely dangerous or that it is responsible to deny ones children protection if they have actually engaged in “research” as we understand the term?

What if Wilyman been informed by the university that claims of vaccine induced diseases have been utterly debunked? That if she wants to persist arguing that aluminium adjuvants and ethyl-mercury are causing autism and asthma she must produce compelling evidence? Where would she be today? Clearly still blaming conspiracies for the lack of that evidence but not under the banner of “PhD researcher at the University of Wollongong”. This lends false credence to misinformation and the university must take it’s responsibility to academic truth as absolutely paramount.

Finally we get more Meryl Dorey channeling Brian Martin these days. The main article notes:

AVN president Meryl Dorey said the McCafferys had chosen to go public and had to expect comments from both sides of the debate. “If one side has the right to say something and the other doesn’t, then we are not a democratic society,” she said.

Let’s check that. “Something to say” can include just about anything. For someone who labels her critics as fascists, pond scum and communists with a vendetta Ms. Dorey seems to hold a strange view of both “commentary” and democracy.

Yet again this looking glass model of dissent and attack can be clearly identified.

Manufacturing dissent: double standards in defending vaccine denial

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Health, Human Rights, Judy Wilyman, Legal, Meryl Dorey, Scam by

If you happen to pop past the AVN Facebook page you might notice this entry:

Pretty straightforward. A post with three comments. The three comments are…

Oh. So there seems to be a comment missing. In fact it was the original comment, and here it is:

A paying member was censored. In fact their comment was deleted so that a fairly basic request to have emails answered could be hidden. The issue at play is that the AVN owe over $180,000 in magazines for which they have already taken fees. 11 magazines have not been delivered. Already 2 this year on the back of 5 last year. Yet this member appears to have sent at least two emails requesting clarification and they have clearly been ignored. Still the AVN website censors the fact it is in trouble. It is brazenly seeking new members claiming:

Membership includes 6 editions of Living Wisdom magazine (either hard copy or digital or both if you choose) and there are discounts available for 12 and 18 issue memberships.

If you pay extra as a “professional member” you get a “free listing” in the AVN magazine that does not exist.

In the conclusion of Making Censorship Backfire, co-authored by AVN supporter and full member, Dr. Brian Martin, we read:

An examination of cases where censorship backfires provides some valuable lessons in how to make this happen. The first important point is that the censorship should be exposed to audiences who will be outraged by the act of censorship itself or by the disproportion between the act (speaking out) and the censoring response (a heavy-handed attack). It is essential to have solid documentation, which means that only some cases of censorship can be exposed in this way.

It is important not to be intimidated. Censorship is often backed up by threats of what will happen if those who are censored do not acquiesce. It can be rewarding to see these threats as potential opportunities. By exposing the threats, the backlash can be made all the stronger. Targets of censorship need to be prepared for further attack – including personal invective – should they challenge the censorship.

It is unlikely wide exposure of this would help the member Dorey has ripped off. The information quoted above is interesting in that the best response would be to politely reply arguing that Meryl has had ample time to respond. Furthermore you have serious concerns about the AVN selling magazine subscriptions when overdue issues are now clearly unlikely to eventuate. This raises questions of Fair Trading and advertising under false pretences. It would be in the interests of all concerned if members could discuss this in an open forum fashion.

Of course, as has happened many times before, this member would be banned (if that hasn’t happened already) and the entry deleted. What follows is touched upon in the quote from Dr. Martin above. Dorey writes scathing and vicious reviews of individuals and her loyal members swoop in to attack them on other social media. Claims of being threatened and bullied and having to hire security to defend herself from bullies who don’t believe in free speech, health choices and your right to choose gradually take on a life of their own. The “backfire” works to Meryl’s advantage.

Dr. Martin’s writings on censorship are part of his much larger body of work on dissent, including struggles for autonomy and democratic rights for citizens oppressed by malignant governments. His work often has an artistic choreographed appeal that whilst interesting reveals an untested work in progress.

What is of interest to this article is his defence of antivaccination lobbyists censoring information in order to convey a fallacious and sometimes dangerous message of authority and accuracy to unsuspecting readers. As I suggested recently extremely serious questions can be asked about Dr. Martin’s moral and ethical conviction. This is only reinforced in finding that altruism is not a feature of his work yet saying and doing what one wants, when one wants regardless of the consequences, are features of those he willingly assists.

Muddying the waters further are his attacks upon community volunteers who have themselves raised dissent. The failure of government regulators to challenge what is a litany of legislative transgression, charity scams and antisocial behaviour by Australia’s so-called Australian Vaccination Network is undeniable. Devoted to attacking conventional medicine and vaccination, the group continued unimpeded for 17 years until individual activists raised dissent with government agencies.

Dr. Martin holds his PhD in physics but does not work in any related area. Apart from being president of Whistleblowers Australia, he is presently Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong. Thus use of the term “Doctor” is quite misleading in qualifying his skill as a social scientist. It is unclear if he has any requisite understanding of ethics or moral responsibility as it pertains to social sciences and indeed, society as a whole.

One may venture to suggest it is of course unsurprising then, that Martin also writes about “dissident scientists” who work in dissent of what he terms “paradigms”, disagreeing as to what theories are correct. We are left only to ponder how a physicist has found himself well versed in the mechanics of “scientific dissent” whilst at the same time defending the denial of evidence as if it were dissent.

In startling misunderstanding of the scientific method and the value of evidence he notes incorrectly in Grassroots Science:

Dissent is central to science: the formulation of new ideas and the discovery of new evidence is the driving force behind scientific advance. At the same time, certain theories, methods, and ways of approaching the world – often called paradigms – are treated as sacrosanct within the professional scientific community. Those who persist in challenging paradigms may be treated not as legitimate scientists but as renegades or outcasts. […]

For example, there are many individuals who have developed challenges and alternatives to relativity, quantum mechanics, and the theory of evolution, three theories central to modern science. […]

Western medical authorities at first rejected acupuncture as unscientific but, following demonstrations of its effectiveness, eventually accepted or tolerated it as a practice under the canons of western biomedicine, rejecting its associations with non-Western concepts of the body. […]

At the same time, some mainstream medical practitioners and researchers are hostile to alternative health. This is apparent in pronouncements that taking vitamin supplements is a waste of money or in police raids on alternative cancer therapists, the raids being encouraged by mainstream opponents.

Many proponents of alternative health say that mainstream medical science is distorted by corporate, government, and professional pressures. In this context, grassroots medical science presents itself as being truer to the ethos of science as a search for truth unsullied by vested interests.

Whilst one is grateful to Dr. Martin for seeking to identify certain dynamics it is apparent that his reinterpretation of the facts serves evidence denial and pseudoscience very well. Arguably “dissent” as he terms it here may well prove valuable to science. But one might venture to add it’s primary value has been in provoking the need to examine dissenting theories such that they ultimately bring about their own demise.

He has misrepresented vitamin therapy and acupuncture, falsely accused scientists of holding “paradigms” sacrosanct and completely ignored the value of randomised controlled trials in revealing the validity or not of “outcasts” theories. I think it’s fair to accept the final paragraph as an observation, whilst also noting it’s inexcusable to omit that the evidence favours this as a distorted conspiracy. Alternatives to medicine have flourished in Australia, crept into educational institutes and been subsidised by health insurance for many years.

It would be pointless to continue with examples, which go as far as criticising the dismissal of anecdotal evidence by mainstream science. For the purpose of this article this would include vaccines causing autism, SIDS, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and diabetes. I have chosen those examples deliberately. Whilst The Australian Immunisation Handbook specifically states research has constantly replicated no link Martin is supervising a PhD student conducting a literature review, but no research, who continually states vaccines have been shown to cause these conditions.

What is clear from the errors above and the Grassroots Science article in general is that Dr. Martin either has no grasp on the concept of evidence and it’s importance to science, or seeks to misrepresent application of the scientific method to the extent of devaluing it to the status of merely discerning an opinion. One cannot ignore the parallels between the tone of his writing and that of his PhD student Judy Wilyman.

Many have sought to have Brian Martin answer how he can ignore the devastating impact of his support of the AVN. As I noted recently this goes as far as making excuses for Ms. Dorey’s refusal to engage in scientific discourse with those who seek to challenge many of her claims. A substantial amount of his work claims to expose censorship and the tactics of those who refuse to accept “dissident” or “grassroots scientists”.

Thus it is deeply troubling that he defends Ms. Dorey’s censoring of material. More troubling is his making excuses for Dorey’s refusal to accept to enter into discourse as a “grassroots scientist”. Yet most bizarre is his championing of Dorey actually censoring material to sabotage engagement as a “grassroots scientist” – and actually blame this on those who were censored despite them offering Dorey an avenue to provide evidence.

Consider this recent censorship by Dorey. It served to censor the truth and defend several demonstrable errors. In Martin’s view Dorey has no need to engage because people have “attacked” her. Despite this being a self serving interpretation, what it demonstrates is the perpetuation of misinformation. This is exactly why individuals have raised concern about overlap as an academic, an advocate for truth in evidence, the supervisor of Judy Wilyman and defender of Meryl Dorey.

This post below appeared on AVN’s Facebook page with the following comments. The first from Dorey makes the head spin. There is only one type b strain of Haemophilus influenzae (called Hib). Yet she informs readers that the Hib vaccine caused an increase in diagnosis of other types of Hib caused by yet even more Hib strains. Later she mentions “Hib (all strains)”:

Later this reply was added:

And yes, it was part of the thread:

Now if you pop back you’ll find it has been deleted and the other poster to take issue with Ms. Dorey’s creativity has now taken issue with Tristan’s rather divisive “us” reference.

The individual censored is also a member of the AVN and yes, is also wondering whatever happened to the magazines promised so long ago. Is this honestly how paying members are treated by Meryl Dorey? If so then one must begin to wonder exactly how Dorey and Dr. Martin are so certain that anonymous threats apparently come from people who have not been schemed, dismissed and discarded.

In Suppressing Research Data: Methods, Context, Accountability, and Responses, Martin writes:

Censorship, fraud, and publication biases are ways in which the availability of research data can be distorted. A different process is distortion of the perception of research data rather than distortion of the data itself. In other words, data is openly available, but efforts are made to shape people’s perception of it.

There appears to be little doubt of a significant conflict of interest. Martin is well aware of and extremely deft with tactics used to deflect the problems noted above. He is defending censorship and fraud at the AVN and his student has an exclusive history of publication bias. More recently Martin himself has distorted data by selectively using a misrepresentation of usual chatter on the Stop The AVN Facebook page. The aim – as he himself offers above – is to shape the public perception of those who challenge Ms. Dorey in such a way as to vilify and defame them.

As time passes I’ll endeavour to look closer at Martin’s work attacking those who essentially accept the overwhelming evidence on vaccination. Already we can dismiss his defence of impartiality. Yet so blatant and unethical is his present state of evidence denial a close look at parallels between defending antivaccination groups and his earlier work is warranted.

Given that Judy Wilyman and Meryl Dorey rely almost entirely on imagined conflicts of interest, this very conflict of interest within a conflict of interest to bolster manufactured dissent from outright denial and censorship is beginning to look very tacky indeed.

I do hope the University of Wollongong have a clear conscience.