Tag Archives: anti-vaccination

Meryl Dorey’s ABC of immunisation incentive lies

Posted in Denialism, Health, Legal by

On Friday November 25th after Nicola Roxon and Jenny Macklin announced the Stronger Immunisation Incentives reform, Meryl Dorey went on a lying frenzy.

First up was ABC 612 Mornings programme with Terri Begley. You can listen in the player below or download the audio here.

Let’s deal with Dorey’s second lie first. That Nicola Roxon’s media release makes no mention of Conscientious Objectors. This is also being propagated on the AVN’s Yahoo! email list as “despicable” on the part of Nicola Roxon. There’s “no mention” of it cries another AVN member whilst yet another writes authoritatively:

That exemption is rendered effectively unavailable to all those parents who hear, officially or semi-officially, only that there is no exemption, as is implicit in Dr Roxon’s media release, which is therefore highly deceptive.

Highly deceptive? Implicit in Dr. Roxon’s media release? [R]endered effectively unavailable? What planet are these people on? You can read the release in my prior post in PDF (on page 2) or visit the Health Ministers web page here. And what do we read smack bang in the middle of this “highly deceptive… despicable” media release?

Existing exemptions will continue to be available for people who register as conscientious objectors to immunisation.

Oh.

Would that stop Meryl Dorey from lying on air? Surely our self styled guru would at least read the media release. Search for the words “conscientious objector”?  As Meryl told Terri Begley:

I have not seen anywhere in this information that’s coming out today to say that you are entitled to be a conscientious objector and still get the money. If the money is being given out it should be given out to all, whether you vaccinate or not, um, otherwise it becomes a matter of discrimination and I don’t think the Government wants to be discriminating against people, that is the wrong thing to do.

Frankly, that’s just not good enough. There are a lot of implicit accusations there, all wrong and all based on ignorance at best or Dorey’s own deception at worst. This is perhaps Roxon’s mistake here. She has failed to see that such a move will give the antivaccination lobby a soap box from which to embellish their misinformation and promote Conscientious Objection. Dumping the Maternity Immunisation Allowance and linking Family Tax Benefits as an “incentive” to complete vaccination schedules, may well become an incentive toward Conscientious Objection.

Earlier Dorey tries to make a link between pertussis vaccination of very young children in the ACT and the notification levels of pertussis in all age groups. National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System data do not provide notification for each state and territory by age. I’ll get onto that again after we visit Dorey’s second ABC interview.

You may remember Dorey’s reply to the HCCC over complaints made. In September 2009 she wrote [bold mine]:

… the current increase in the incidence of pertussis has nothing to do with any purported decline in the rate of vaccination. Instead, we are seeing an outbreak of pertussis despite a substantial increase in vaccination against it – an experience which is being duplicated in every country for which mass vaccination against this illness exists.

She cited articles with the opposite argument to hers and even went as far as plagiarising a WHO graph. Despite the HCCC finding against her Dorey has made this claim often only last July blaming the vaccine for an increasing death rate. She makes this claim again on air except this time implicates the USA claiming [bold mine]:

…they are actually blaming the use of the whooping cough vaccine for this outbreak that’s occurring in the countries where the vaccine is being used.

This has also been picked up over at Thinking is Real which includes a terrific piece by piece breakdown of Meryl’s earlier distortion of an article she’d posted to Facebook. Dorey claimed it as proof that the pertussis vaccine is “ineffective”, where it says no such thing. It’s essential reading for those interested in Dorey’s tactics. Indeed the article reinforces all we know about pertussis immunity and the newer acellular vaccine.

Then it’s on to Louise Maher for Drivetime on ABC 666. Again you can listen below or download the audio here.

By this time Meryl has discovered CO still applies but is arguing government flyers and media reports aren’t stressing this fact loudly enough. Dorey’s risk to public health is borne out again as she raises the need for parents “who have done their research” to be able to avoid vaccination, get CO forms signed and still be able to collect FBT, way above the vital need to have their children vaccinated.

Nicola Roxon’s intent to raise the profile of vaccination schedules as essential to public health is being outdone by a conspiracy theorist arguing that the vaccines we’re using are not even known to “be safe and effective”, yet parents are being “bribed” to comply. Instead the government should be testing these perhaps unsafe and ineffective vaccines and comparing the health of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children, Dorey suggests with a straight face.

Then the distortion about pertussis again [bold mine]:

… we’re finding in the United States and in all other countries that use the mass whooping cough vaccination that the vaccination is not leading to a decrease in disease.

No doubt Dorey would be aware that the ACT Government’s alert on pertussis includes informing the population about a targeted adult vaccination program and states under “What else can you do to protect your baby?”:

  • Ensure your baby is vaccinated on time, this can be done from 6 weeks of age.
  • Ensure everyone in your household is up to date with their vaccinations.

The efficacy of pertussis vaccination is beyond doubt. It’s role in saving infant lives is irrefutable. Whilst vaccinated children may contract pertussis they receive a much milder infection and experience non life threatening symptoms. All pertussis fatalities in Australia have occurred in unvaccinated children. It is quite outrageous on the part of the ABC that Dorey was given uninterrupted air time to spread her rapid fire calculated untruth designed to malign an essential vaccination for infant health and presently, infant survival.

Asked about pertussis Ms. Dorey answered in dissonance to government advice and claimed vaccination “doesn’t seem to be the answer”, then proceeded to present a statistically implausible correlation between the rate of vaccination of babies in the ACT and the notification level of pertussis across all age groups in the ACT. It’s simply the same old trick Dorey has been using now for years. Comparison of unrelated data sets.

The Dept. of Health and Ageing National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System represents the prevalence of legally notifiable diseases. It carries no information on the vaccination status, active immunity or lack thereof in the cases counted. Vaccine induced immunity for pertussis is temporary. It wanes and this is the primary concern in combating spread of pertussis. Of the 18 age groups covered, 16 are outside the age at which immunity can be said to wane. Of course, Dorey did not give age group specifics nor qualify her claim in the context of an epidemic.

Notification simply does not reflect the efficacy of pertussis vaccine induced immunity in vulnerable newborns. Notification does not reflect the origin of infection, but rather the location of diagnosis and compliance with the requirement to notify. This is further complicated by tourism, immigration, business travel, diplomatic and political visitors to our nation’s capital, potentially impacting on infection of the ACT populace.

Adults rarely experience the debilitating symptoms and as such represent a silent reservoir of infection. Around 11.3% of adults can be considered to have pertussis vaccine immunity. For this reason the ACT is offering free pertussis boosters. Authorities state:

Infants too young to be fully vaccinated are most at risk of catching the disease and suffering serious complications from pertussis. Most infants catch pertussis from their parent or carers.

Dorey claimed pertussis infection rates in the ACT were “seven times that of Tasmania and more than twice the level of most states and territories”. The second claim is false. No other state or territory is “more than twice” that of the ACT.

According to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System on pertussis notification, the rates per 100,000 citizens at present for 2011 are: ACT – 217.3,  NSW – 157.1, N.T. – 127.6, QLD – 167.7, S.A. – 128.1, Tasmania – 31.9, Victoria – 137.7, W.A. – 112.5.

Dorey also said:

…even though we’ve had a huge increase in vaccination rates over 20 years it has not correlated with any decline in whooping cough, in fact we have more cases of whooping cough now than we’ve ever had on record and that is despite an over 95% rate of vaccination amongst children.

Again the irrelevance of quoting unrelated data sets is borne out. This statement falsely assumes pertussis vaccination that provides temporary immunity in small children should also be contributing to the eradication of pertussis in the entire community.

There are other very good reasons documented by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. In their November 2009 Pertussis Fact Sheet on page 2 we find:

In recent years, there have been periodic epidemics which have occurred at intervals of 3–4 years (1997–98, 2001, 2005–06, 2008– 09), set against a background of endemic circulation. However, increasing immunisation coverage has been associated with reductions in disease among immunised children and adolescents. Between 1998 and 2008, there were 84,758 notifications of pertussis nationally, ranging from 5,670 in 1998 to 14,347 in 2008. However, the increase in notification rates over time could also be due, in part, to better case ascertainment through the increased availability of serological testing and more sensitive tests (e.g. polymerase chain reaction).

Of the last 20 years only the last three show childhood infection rates that compete with adulthood rates. This is due to an epidemic, not a failure of vaccine efficacy. Pertussis vaccine induced immunity does not offer 100% protection against contraction of pertussis in all children. However it does provide sound immunity in the majority, and renders infections far milder than those that strike unvaccinated children saving the lives of those vaccinated.

The reason we have “more cases of whooping cough now…” is due to excellent reporting which shows up in Notification data and a present epidemic of pertussis. One contributing factor is the prevalence of misinformation such as that peddled by Ms. Dorey leading to a drop in infant vaccination. Ms. Dorey omitted to include a fall in immunisation rates predicates a rise in infection in both vaccinated and unvaccinated children. In fact her deception can be further borne out if we quote from the article posted on her Facebook page. The one in which she claimed Californian pertussis vaccination was “ineffective”.

Under Waning Pertussis Immunity Comes as No Surprise Dr. Carol Baker writes in part:

The California epidemic was caused by underimmunization of some children, and by waning immunity in fully vaccinated children. It showed that we are not where we need to be to have herd immunity. The 2010 California outbreak caught everyone’s attention.

In June 2009 the Journal Paediatrics published an article on the fall out from parents refusing pertussis vaccination for their child – Parental refusal of pertussis vaccination is associated with an increased risk of pertussis infection in children. The authors concluded in part [bold mine]:

Vaccine refusers had a 23-fold increased risk for pertussis when compared with vaccine acceptors, and 11% of pertussis cases in the entire study population were attributed to vaccine refusal.

Ms. Dorey’s statement of a “huge increase” in vaccination in the past 20 years is misleading. In 1989-90 71% of children were immunised. In 1995 61% of children were immunised. In 2001 71.6% of children were immunised. By March 2006 95.1% of children were immunised. There has been no steady increase in pertussis infection to match the increase in vaccination. This epidemic began in 2008. 2007 notifications were the third lowest on record since data collection began in 1991.

Pertussis infections rise and fall dramatically and until 2007-2008 the bulk of infections occurred in adults. In 2001 there were 48.5 cases per 100,000. In 2002 there were 28.0 cases per 100,000. In 2003 – 25.3, in 2004 – 42.9…. by 2007 there were 22.6 cases per 100,000. As mentioned this makes 2007 the third lowest year since records began. It is higher than only the first two years, 1991 and 1992 (1.9 and 4.5 per 100,000 respectively) when the notification of pertussis was still new to health practitioners. More so, Dorey has this very information in front of her but simply chooses to cite selectively. Consider the variation in Australian pertussis totals in the far right column. This does not show a steady increase:

Click to Embiggen

Little wonder the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission investigation established that the AVN:

  • provides information that is solely anti-vaccination
  • contains information that is incorrect and misleading
  • quotes selectively from research to suggest that vaccination may be dangerous.

The HCCC also stated that the AVN refusal to comply with requests may “…result in members of the public making improperly informed decisions about whether or not to vaccinate, and therefore poses a risk to public health and safety.”

Most frustrating is that this manipulation of unrelated data sets by Ms. Dorey has already been the subject of an upheld complaint, published on November 11th, 2009. Dorey’s obfuscation of her intent to mislead listeners and the failure of the ABC to properly disclose her biased agenda as an anti-vaccination lobbyist has also been the subject of an upheld complaint, published June 29th, 2010.

There can be no doubt that yet again Dorey has misled listeners in a most egregious manner that, in the context of the present epidemic, places the lives of Australian newborns at risk. The ABC has shown extremely poor judgement in putting Dorey to air as very few if any commentators can deal with the speed and volume of her misconception.

Dorey has absolutely no qualifications and as such should not be providing any on air information. She did not cite any scientific material, nor – for good reason – the source of her figures. Nor is her argument supported by any peer reviewed literature. Indeed quite the contrary.

In short the ABC has recklessly given Dorey a platform from which to seize control and misrepresent the Immunisation incentive, sway uncertain parents toward not vaccinating and repackage her lies on failing pertussis immunisation. In this light they have completely failed listening audiences.

Won’t they ever learn?

Textagate: telling lies can be profitable

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

A mere 15 days ago we had a look at the fact Consumer Protection in W.A. was investigating the Australian Vaccination Network as reported in The West Australian.

Along with an example of Meryl’s economic use of facts to construct fallacies it included this flyer given out during Dorey’s Supercalifragilistichomeoprophylaxis W.A. Tour 2011. Of course if you click, it will embiggen itself. We are interested in the far left panel. Yes, that’s correct that 33.3% of that side of the flyer. One third as it were. Under Become A Member Or Donate.
AVN donation flyer
It’s awfully interesting because when the OLGR revoked the AVN’s charitable fundraising licence they mentioned that the AVN – which basically means Meryl Dorey:

… is not entitled to accept donations from members of the public via any method of collection including face-to-face and online appeals. AVN is not prevented from receiving donations from its members as this is not considered fundraising for the purposes of the charitable fundraising legislation.

Dorey aka the Australian Vaccination Network was also prevented from taking new memberships when the revocation came into effect. At first glance this may seem strange, but the OLGR is there to protect the public from charity fraud amongst other things. As the AVN had refused to comply with HCCC demands to warn the public about it’s antivaccination stance, the OLGR took the view that receipt of monies could not be judged to occur in good faith. Ergo, purchasing a new membership could feasibly be done under the stupendously erroneous belief that the AVN was presenting accurate information.

The wording of the OLGR revocation is clear in that Dorey is forbidden to conduct fundraising. The above flyer is directly soliciting for donations and membership. The OLGR’s definition of a fund raising appeal is:

The soliciting or receiving of any money, property or other benefit from the public constitutes a fundraising appeal if a representation is made (this may be implied) that the appeal is for a charitable purpose or for the support of an organisation having a charitable object.

An appeal may take a variety of forms — donations, sponsorship, telethons, the conduct of lotteries and competitions, the supply of food, entertainment or other goods or services, or in connection with any other commercial undertaking. A membership drive undertaken by an organisation is a fundraising appeal if one of the objects of the organisation is a charitable object.

The term is not limited to simple collections from the public.

If you have embiggened you’ll notice that (apart from charging $15 per head for attending her seminar), that the options for donations and membership include:

  • Membership – digital editions of Living Wisdom at $50 per year
  • Membership – hard copies of Living Wisdom at $75 per year
  • Basic Professional membership at &275 per year
  • Premier professional – Bronze ($500), Silver ($1,000), Gold ($1,500) per year
  • DONATE: I would like to make a monthly / one off (please circle) donation of $ ______ to the AVN

My understanding is that any number of people may have queried the legality of this grab for cash, not least because Living Wisdom is several editions behind and may not rear it’s woo again. The initial news item that Consumer Protection was “investigating” the AVN came from Cathy O’Leary. Meryl, calling herself a “Consumer Watchdog Advocate”, emailed her list subscribers on November 12th with the following media release. It wasn’t actually released in any media, but was emailed to Media Watch where it was seemingly ignored. So I guess it’s just an email.

Basically Meryl is trying to sully Cathy’s reputation by alluding to a Media Watch article on O’Leary. Needless to say this has no bearing whatsoever on the content, accuracy or implications of her article Anti-vaccination Group Under Scrutiny. In part O’Leary wrote:

The NSW-based Australian Vaccination Network held public forums in Perth, Busselton, Jurien Bay and Geraldton, charging $15 and giving out brochures asking people to donate to the group.

Notice Dorey does not actually refute the claim of asking for donations. Rather, she refutes the claim of there being an investigation. Dorey claims to have contacted Consumer Protection who “confirmed” this. She also makes the claim of discovering that Cathy O’Leary is a sole complainant – also “confirmed”. That strikes me as unusual. O’Leary did not lodge any complaint.

So in effect this “media release” is just another falsehood created by Meryl Dorey. It also goes on to say she filed complaints with MEAA and the Press Council. No-one cared. A “nameless” ABC contact suggested sections 1 and 5 of the Journalists Code of Ethics had likely been breached, Dorey thundered. Nothing happened. I do know that Cathy O’Leary is one of Australia’s most loved journalists since reporting on the AVN. Perhaps that was the real problem.

As for likening four small paragraphs in The West Australian to the News of the World’s demise and the scandalous abuses involved one can only call our new advocate for consumer watchdogs (which is what I presume a Consumer Watchdog Advocate is) quite deluded.

More to the point it seems things didn’t go to plan in dismissing this caper as the dastardly work of one journalist. Today on Facebook Meryl Dorey blamed volunteer group Stop The AVN for pretty much the same thing. Does she even pay attention? Apparently not. It seems the penny has dropped regarding being caught out asking for donations and more, a full 16 days since Cathy O’Leary’s article. Or perhaps some type of mail arrived? If so, I wonder if the word “investigation” was used.

Pleading innocence Dorey claims this flyer was inadvertently handed out at The Conscious Living Expo in Perth where they were being given away “for free”. Yes, free! Wow that’s mighty generous. You see, the requests for donations and option for membership had been crossed out with a “black texta”.

Meryl wrote:

Stop the AVN, in their usual vile manner, is in the process of filing complaints everywhere they possibly can, saying that we took donations or memberships whilst we were out in Western Australia. Their evidence is a flu vaccination flyer that was supposedly handed out at the Conscious Living Expo. This flyer was being given away for free (we have updated the flyers to change the membership information – all the other information is unchanged).

I had crossed out the membership / donation information in black texta but either the person from SAVN who picked one up at our stand got one that had been missed or else, they were using an older copy that was not blacked out – because when these forms were originally printed, we were still able to take members and accept donations from the general public.

How absolutely amazing. What are the odds, eh? It’s all an oversight. A complete fluke that someone happened to pick that one up. Stupid, stupid Texta. Just another little error. Like with the OLGR. Saying 23 breaches of the Charitable Fundraising Act is so excessive as Meryl pointed out last October. Just little errors:

… the simple errors …errors which any small, volunteer-run organisation can and does make

She continued on with Textagate:

As I have said numerous times, both here on Facebook, in our magazine and in other locations as well as at my seminars, the AVN is not allowed to take on new members or donations from non-AVN members because this group and various government departments have blocked that in an attempt to – as they say – stop the AVN. The fact that this assault on our freedom of communication has been allowed is a black mark against Australia and proof that it is very far from a democracy. […]

in (sic) the meantime, as much as I hate to respond to those horrible, abusive, heartless people who do not care one little bit about your children who have been killed or injured by vaccines, it was necessary to do so because they just love to sling the mud around and I value the trust and respect of our AVN members.

Is anyone keeping tally on the lies?

“… I value the trust and respect of our AVN members”. Gosh. Have I been a bit harsh judging Meryl as ripping off AVN members? What comes next?

If you believe that what is happening is wrong. If you think that the government should not be trying to shut the AVN down and that groups like SAVN that are – let’s face it – not information groups but simply hate groups who don’t want you to have the right to make informed health choices, then please support us with your subscription and / or by purchasing books. Use this link – (link here) to read our recent newsletter and then, subscribe as a digital, hard copy or professional subscriber. If you are already a member, please renew.

Spend as little as $25 to strike a blow for freedom and if you have friends or family or clients who you think would like to know about this issue, please sign them up for a gift subscription for as little as $25.

Hmmmm. Apparently not. Emotion, conspiratorial plotting, callousness toward your children[s] vaccine injuries/deaths and then more pleading for money via the incredibly inflated AVN Shop or the non existent hard copies of Living Wisdom. A link to AVN rubbish packaged as Christmas goodies. Would anyone fall for that?

Thank you? Really? Thank you!? Sigh…

What do we see above? On the one hand Dorey attacks a journalist for (supposedly) complaining about her, “giving out brochures asking people to donate to the group” at W.A. seminars. Dorey at no time refutes this. Then suddenly when aware of presumably more complainants she has a ready excuse. A Texta no less. With this Bart Simpson excuse she vilifies those who would challenge her antivaccination message, places herself so far above the law as to ridicule Australian democracy then asks for even more money. I’ve no doubt that stash of flyers has a bunch nicely blacked out in Texta now.

More to the point as well as being duped by Meryl Dorey, once in her clutches existing members (financial or group) are the target of back to back scams. Dorey invents stories that are designed to keep alive the myth of regular vaccine injuries, big brother callousness and abuse of your steadily eroding civil rights, along with the terror of mandatory vaccination. In this scam Dorey invents fictitious nurses that she diagnosed via Google with Lupus Panniculitis, brought on by compulsory HBV vaccination. What can members do? Why, donate their Maternity Immunisation Allowance of course. And why do this? Well fictitious members are already doing so because:

…without the AVN’s lobbying Parliament to get legislation put through to ensure their rights to government entitlements, they wouldn’t have this money or the Childcare Allowance anyway so they felt that we deserved part of it for our support of them.

Which is all a load of fiction in itself. Dorey and the AVN have no history of lobbying beyond writing offensive and ranting letters. Manipulation of emotion and embellishment are constant features in her scams. Donors never receive updates or breakdowns of where this money goes. This advertisement scam and this absconding family scam are two the OLGR confirmed raised money that vanished into Dorey’s pockets. In fact check page 81 of Ken McLeod’s comprehensive Meryl Dorey’s trouble with the truth part 3 to note:

A calculation of the total amount raised from all these appeals and scams, and others not mentioned here, approaches $500,000. None of it was processed according the relevant NSW legislation; where did it go?

In my mind it’s very clear who is vile, hate filled and cares naught for children.

I don’t believe her for a second.

PS: Do pop over to the site by @reasonable_hank, who had earlier published on Textagate. I mean, it’s not until you actually see a flyer with all that Texta….

With friends like these… Meryl Dorey’s exploitation of Saba Button

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

Over the past few months I’ve come to accept that there is one Australian absolutely delighted with the fact that (then) 12 month old Saba Button suffered organ and brain damage following febrile convulsions brought on by Fluvax.

Meryl Dorey of the AVN has enveloped herself in the tragedy of the Button family, declaring long and loud she is their unofficial antivaccination representative. She claims to have twice met with them and had been, “in contact by both telephone and email many times over the intervening period…”. Finally, after 18 years of fabrication, untraceable images, offensive claims and being a danger to public health the woman who likens vaccination to “rape with full penetration” has landed her fish.

She writes in a conspiracy piece on her blog:

I can also tell you that this reaction was entirely preventable because neither they nor any other parent who gave permission for their precious child to be vaccinated in this campaign was informed that their babies were being used as guinea pigs in a trial that was paid for by the drug companies involved. Neither were they aware that those payments going to people who ostensibly worked for the government (both state and federal) and who were considered to be – but actually were not – independent.

All of this is a complete fabrication. No trials are conducted surreptitiously. Ethics requirements aside exactly what data could those conducting Meryl’s pretend trial hope to collate? By who, how and when would subjects be monitored, what tests would be carried out and for how long? Indeed Dorey is suggesting this “trial” was simply a stab in the dark to see what happened. No such trial took place and thus was not paid for by drug companies. Worse, this is knowingly exploitative of the Button family and reduces their personal tragedy and grief to yet another of the thousands of tactics Meryl Dorey has used to mislead Australians.

Morally it is no different to her claim yesterday that infants who die in a co-sleeping arrangement are likely vaccine induced fatalities. Why? Because GP’s point out the danger of this arrangement, so it must be an abuse of “natural instinct” and thus a conspiracy is in order. Or her ACTION ALERT! announcement that supporters of vaccines were mobilising to harass the author of Virus in the system – an article that recounted Saba’s experience.

CSL does carry out yearly trials following strict protocols on an informed, compliant sample, the results of which are published in peer reviewed literature. This is mentioned below. Yet I’m not here to make excuses for CSL whose conduct surrounding Fluvax, their economic handling of certain legitimate trial results and adherence to Good Manufacturing Practice leaves a great deal to be desired. Nor am I by any stretch of the imagination a fan of Dr. Rohan Hammett, head of Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration. One cannot however make conclusions without evidence. Unless of course, one fabricates.

As an update, one commenter below has pointed out there was a trial to gauge the epidemiological impact of the present schedule, in response to infant fatalities from influenza the year before.  I’m perhaps duty bound to note that infant fatality from flu was mentioned by Judy Wilyman at the AVN’s first Perth trip on June 30th 2010 at the State Library, W.A. Judy informed the audience that the media report such fatalities as scare campaigns to “coerce us into vaccination”. This is because, “We’re being educated by the media who have pharmaceutical interests”. I should also point out that W.A. was the only state to use seasonal influenza and H1N1 together for children under five, which can be regarded as novel and thus raise concerns about earlier trials, particularly on sample size. Yet there were no guinea pigs, or state sanctioned, profit driven guesswork.

Regarding “those payments going to people who ostensibly worked for the government…”, that too is fallacious. TGA national manager Dr Rohan Hammett was before a Senate estimates committee on October 19th, being quizzed over the very nature of Fluvax, CSL, trial results, the febrile convulsions in W.A. and payments from drug companies.

Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, quizzes Dr. Hammett beginning with justified concerns that the TGA knew of high fevers in 2009. Yet more disturbing is that 2005 trial data yielded fever rates of 22.5%. The 2006 fever rates were 39.5%. Despite this, CSL advised the TGA in 2009 of the 2005 figure [pp.42-43]:

Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: Are you demanding an explanation? You should be.
Dr Hammett: We are. We have written to CSL.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: It emerged that the company knew two years ago about research suggesting a sharp rise in feeders linked to its seasonal flu vaccine but omitted this from information given to doctors. We have canvassed this in these estimates. My question is: when did you and when did the government first know about this? Is this the first you have heard of it? That is really what I would like to know.
Dr Hammett: No, it is not, Senator. In 2009 a study was published which related to clinical trials undertaken in 2005 and 2006. That study was published in peer-reviewed scientific literature. We were advised by CSL of its publication at about the same time as it was actually published. You will recall that that in the years before the Fluvax incident with febrile convulsions—and, indeed, for the last four decades—seasonal flu vaccine has been regarded as an incredibly safe vaccine. In 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 there was no suggestion of safety problems with the flu vaccine.
In retrospect, knowing now what we know in 2010, that there was a problem with the 2010 vaccine, people are going back through clinical trials and saying, ‘With the aid of the ‘retrospector scope’, could we have picked anything?’ Indeed, in those earlier clinical trials there were rates of fever for the Fluvax vaccine that were higher than some other comparable vaccines. However, as noted in yesterday’s article, most of those fevers were mild or moderate and there was no sign of a febrile convulsion signal. Febrile convulsions were not occurring in those studies that were done.
As I have said, we have written to CSL and made inquiries as to whether there was any delay in notification of us of these issues and have sought to gain a greater understanding of what they knew when. We have not yet received a response, but we are awaiting that.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: Can I ask you to take on notice how much money has been paid to CSL? It is an enormous amount of money that you pay them. You obviously must have a very close relationship with CSL—and I mean that simply because of the nature of the work that they do and how much they provide in terms of products to the Commonwealth. Surely, Dr Hammett, you must have been aware of what this company was doing and certainly known about its research in relation to these fevers.
Ms Halton: Let’s just back up a second. There are a couple of things. Dr Hammett is the regulator. He does not pay the CSL anything. He has a very clear role, which is as a regulator. He takes that role very responsibly and very seriously. There is a separate part of the government which purchases vaccine, including from CSL. So I think we need to make a distinction here about who is paying what for whom and what the nature of the relationship is, because I do think it is—
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: I am happy for that to happen, Ms Halton, but the point that I am getting to is, given the close relationship—whether it is on the side of the purchasing arm or on the side of the TGA—this is a serious issue. Two years ago, at a period much earlier than has been previously canvassed in these estimates, there was an issue about fever. My question is: when did the government first become aware of this?

Senator Nick Xenophon later cuts to the chase addressing Hammett [p.44]:

Because time is so limited, I will put some questions on notice for you. First, can you provide details of when the TGA first became aware of the peer-reviewed article? Second, at what point was action taken? Third, did the TGA embark on other inquiries as a result of that peer-reviewed article? Fourth, do you agree with Professor Peter Collignon’s view? It is:
The TGA should be ensuring companies do update their data—it should be compulsory that the TGA should be informed of any new information, and the TGA should ensure the product information is updated to reflect that.

What really stinks coming from CSL is that the 2010 product information did not include the already documented 2009 higher fever rates. It is true these fevers are usually mild to moderate and of short duration – a factor which influenced the TGA to take no action.

It is here – and only here – that Meryl Dorey is more than welcome to raise concerns and recount poor practice or lack of insight and follow up on the part of either CSL or the TGA. However perhaps the greatest damage done by CSL is to public confidence in the safety of influenza vaccination, particularly for at risk children.

So what of actual febrile convulsion? Dorey variously claims hundreds of hospitalisations or hundreds of cases. The ABC reported “hundreds of reactions” on April 18th, 2010 with 47 taken to hospital reported on April 23. The West Australian on the same day reports 23 admissions. This led to the suspension nationwide by Commonwealth chief health officer Professor Jim Bishop.

Fluvax was given to W.A. babies resulting in a seizure rate of 3.3 per 1000. On this point MJA Insight write:

This rate of febrile convulsions [noted in 2006 trial data] (1 per 272) is similar to the estimate for the 2010 season (3.3 per 1000) which led to the unprecedented decision by Australia’s chief medical officer to suspend the use of paediatric flu vaccines.

A TGA spokeswoman told MJA InSight that a single adverse reaction report within a clinical study was not usually regarded as an adequate signal of a major safety problem. Lead author of the clinical study, Professor Terry Nolan, also told MJA InSight that the small sample size of the study meant the rates of febrile convulsions were not comparable with those seen in the community in 2010.

“We did a clinical study. It was published in a peer-reviewed journal. The serious adverse events were notified to the sponsor [CSL]”, said Professor Nolan, who is also head of the school of population health at Melbourne University.

It is not Professor Nolan’s role to inform the TGA. Nor do other members of the ATAGI receive special bonuses or payments from drug companies to influence perception of vaccines. Nevertheless Dorey manufactured a letter from a supposed “whistleblower”. A sordid tale about another W.A. based ATAGI member being handsomely rewarded by evil drug companies led her to wind up her article with:

In fact, we are told that all of our medical advisors must be paid by the drug companies because it seems to be impossible to find qualified people who haven’t been tainted by drug company cash.

This is why the AVN says that we can’t trust our government when it comes to their assessment of the safety or effectiveness of drugs and vaccines. There is a holy trinity comprised of the government, the drug companies and the doctors. This triad is protected by self-regulation (via the TGA which is completely funded by pharmaceutical licensing fees) and a complicit media which is beholden to drug company advertising.

Sounds conspiratorial? Well I’m sorry, but these are the facts.

No Meryl, that is simply fantastic conspiracy twaddle wasting good space on your blog when the real facts are far more convincing and indeed far more concerning.

But Meryl wasn’t finished with that simple post-W.A. trip tantrum, presumably to let off steam after her enormous W.A. tour flop. Last Wednesday November 16th she posted:

We read fiction:

I personally know of one 70 year old woman and a 19 year old man who were hospitalised within hours of getting the shot and who died within 7 and 2 days of that (respectively) Those deaths were never reported as being related to the vaccine.

More accusations are made about the TGA “knowing” and the CDC not buying Fluvax for this reason. No sources are cited. Then most offensively:

I will check and see how donations can be made to Saba’s fund. I know there is one that was set up for her when she was first injured. Her parents could not possibly be taking care of her in this way if it weren’t for that fund. Here’s hoping that compensation will be swift and generous for this poor victim of vaccines.

So far there is no word and I imagine no feedback will be forthcoming. In all the press surrounding Saba Button Meryl Dorey and the AVN is totally absent. Dorey has never breathed a word of the lawyer acting for the Buttons. History shows exactly what will happen to any money she would have gleefully collected and pocketed before the OLGR revoked her charitable fund raising licence for exactly that reason. Members of Stop the AVN can be proud they have this time stopped her stealing money from another family in need.

Those familiar with Dorey know if this was a death from a vaccine preventable disease her accusations would be of earlier vaccines – especially HBV leading to the death, possible antibiotic induced fatality, a lack of breast feeding or a simple media fabrication designed to scare people into vaccinating. Without sighting the medical records Dorey might well deny any disease at all. “You didn’t die from [measles or whooping cough] thirty years ago and you’re not going to die from it today”, she announced on national TV. All that’s needed is homeopathy, fresh air and clean water. Avoid doctors and hospitals.

Let’s face it. Dorey cares little for children, vaccine injured or maimed by the diseases she has helped bring back to dangerous levels. On either side they are tools to help her to offend, mislead and to cultivate fear. Snaring an innocent family with a very rational view of the world in her web of deceit can only be a negative for them. There are ample facts that assist their case. Facts Dorey is largely ignorant of. I fail utterly to see how lies and conspiracy theories manufactured by a proven threat to public health can be welcome.

Saba Button is in need of constant care via conventional medicine. Dorey is an out and proud enemy of conventional medicine. Despite the catalyst for her injuries Saba will forever be an at risk patient and need vaccination and conventional prophylactic measures to protect her from future viral threats. She will be surrounded by doctors, specialists and hospital staff perhaps for most of her life. The very people and places Dorey insists keep people sick – for profit.

It’s time Meryl Dorey did at least one morally correct thing and just left the Button family alone.

Measles: A Gift from a Goddess?

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

One of the more ridiculous falsehoods spread by Meryl Dorey in her promotion of disease as better than vaccination, is that in ancient Sanskrit “measles” means “gift from a goddess”.

She further claims that this is so because robust health and “huge” growth follows measles. Which is not exactly what I’d expect to see in a child who’d been bed ridden, suffering fevers perhaps seizures, diarrhea, exhaustion, malnourishment, drowsiness, muscle pain, photophobia, dry cough, bloody nose, possible brain damage, etc, etc and of course the chance of death. This entire claim is utterly bogus and toweringly irresponsible given that some listeners will be influenced by it.

From page 26 of Dorey’s Iverell Forum presentation slides (AVN seminar teachings)

In fact the Sanskrit मसूरिका or “masuurikaa” translates variously as measles, lentil, eruption of lentil shaped pustules, procuress (female procurer) and smallpox. So, with apologies to Sanskrit we shall move on to examine exactly what relationship a Goddess may have with this disease and why. As with many early cultures and belief systems, significant phases in life are assumed controlled by divine power. Diseases are believed to come in response to divine retribution, anger, punishment or even the working of an evil witch or sorcerer.

With respect to this Merylism we at least have enough to visit the beliefs of rural Indian folk. Here we find the goddess Sitala Mataji also known as Shitala, Sheetala or just Sitala. Broadly speaking Sitala Mataji is the Hindu pox goddess, worshipped in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and particularly in Northern India and Western Bengal. With Bengal situated in the north-east of the Indian sub-continent geographical proximity supports a common anthropological view of infectious disease.

Sitala Mataji loves cold and coolness and this is reflected in her name. She likes cold food offerings cooked the day before. One derivation Shitala Devi means the Cold Goddess. Measles is caused by the anger of Sitala Mataji. When we talk about measles and this goddess it’s important to realise this is understanding measles in strictly religious terms. Hindus may refer to measles as choti mai or choti mata (the smaller mother) whilst smallpox is bari mai or bari mata (the larger mother). Before the eradication of smallpox in the 1970’s Sitala was associated with smallpox.

According to legend Sitala is one of seven sisters who live in the neem tree and who bring epidemic diseases. She is often in the company of Gheṇṭukarṇa, the god of skin diseases, Jvarāsura, the fever demon, the Cauṣaṭṭī Rogas, (the sixty-four epidemics), Olāi Caṇḍi/Olāi Bibi, the goddess of cholera, and Raktāvatī, the goddess of blood infections. The measles rash represents “heat” and “dirt” that must come out lest the child die. Child talismans of goat, lion or bear hair warding off the fear which measles brings, and indeed the way measles “frightens” children strongly reflect links to the spirit world.

Shrines to Sitala Mataji can be found near neem trees. Other talismans against evil spirits and fear include spreading neem leaves and rose petals across a child’s bed in the case of Punjabi Christians who also spread neem leaves on the floor and use them to brush the measles rash. Hindus place neem leaves over the entryway to the house and under the infected child’s bed.

They would also keep a can of wet cow dung at their door or child’s door so that people entering – who may be “impure” – can put their feet or leg in the wet dung which is “pure”, before entering to visit the victim. A herb kala dana which is also used for Evil Eye infections should be burnt as it’s smoke is good for measles, assisting the rash to “come out”. Some herbal teas assist in promoting fever which is viewed as assisting the heat and rash to leave the body.

Although Sitala looks out for children and mothers she is simultaneously destructive and protective. In An anthropology of infectious disease: international health perspectives, Inhorn and Brown (1997) cite a number of authors, writing:

Although Sitala is by nature cool when she is angry she becomes heated and attacks with pox diseases, overheating her victims as well. Excess heat in the body then causes the skin rash to appear. The idea is that the disease of measles is the goddess and that when measles occurs the goddess herself is within her victims, burning them. From this it follows that measles victims themselves are in something resembling a “godlike” state and it is appropriate for them and their families to follow a restricted “purification” diet while the disease is in progress [p. 308].

In order to placate Sitala Mataji parents wait until about the fifth day and having wrapped their child tightly in a white cloth take them for a blessing at the temple. The tight wrapping also increases perspiration and the progression of the rash. On returning from the temple wet cow dung is used to make symbols resembling ⋂ on the wall of the house or house compound.

Cotton wool is spaced out evenly stuck to the dung. Red ceremonial worship powder is dabbed onto the cotton wool as Sitala is further encouraged to chill out (no pun intended) with prayers said in the child’s name. The symbols also serve to warn others away.

As expected in areas of counterfeit vaccines/medication and where less than half of “allopaths” are properly qualified there are stories of families following doctors orders to the letter only to loose the child. Others who sought to placate Sitala Mataji and went to the temple found their child recovered. Some Hindu women suggest these beliefs and strong relationship between measles and Sitala are a “carryover” from when smallpox was a major killer.

The legend of the vengeful burning arises from the story of a poor daughter in law ordered by her cranky mother in law to prepare sweets and food for the Sitala Satam celebrations, which were the next day. The daughter in law did but exhausted and having fed her child about 11pm, fell asleep. At the stroke of midnight Sitala Mataji came by and was burnt by the stove which had not been put out. Sitala cursed this woman and said “As I was burnt so let your child be burnt”.

On waking the woman realised her folly and saw her child was burnt. Other villagers pointed out it was the young mother’s fault that Sitala had been pained by the hot stove, become angry and thus, that her child had become burnt. The woman got permission to seek Sitala in the forest and eventually came upon an old woman with dandruff and “some tiny microbes” in her hair. The old lady asked where she was going and if she could spare time to clean her hair of insects and such. The young mother being a rather selfless type complied, handing her baby to the old woman.

After about an hour the baby revived and cried and the mother suddenly realised the old woman was Sitala Mataji in disguise. Showing devotion she fell into the holy lotus position and begged forgiveness for her mistake. This made Sitala very happy who forgave the young mother and promised to always be helpful to her – as long as no stoves were left on on that particular day. The next year the young mother’s jealous sister in law purposely left her stove on so her child would be burnt by Sitala Mataji. She journeyed into the forest but ignored the old woman and returned with a dead baby.

Devastated, crying, seeking forgiveness from the young mother and praying with true devotion to Sitala Mataji she begged the goddess “to make the dead child alive”. Sitala Mataji then blessed this child and later the jealous daughter made a confession and asked for forgiveness. So, the festival became one celebrated with devotion. All sweets and food are prepared the day before. Stoves are turned off and sprinkled with water. Devotees have a cold bath in the morning, and it is women and small children who worship mostly seeking blessing from the goddess Sitala Mataji.

The impact of this legend may be rightly gauged as profound. The life and death of a child is solely down to offending or proper appeasement of the goddess Sitala Mataji. In some North Indian villages as reported by Inhorn and Brown [p. 311] 74% of mothers believe measles cannot be prevented “whether through immunisation or otherwise”. It is a dangerous yet essential part of life. 70% believe no doctors should be seen lest the goddess – who resides within measles – is offended. Of 18 cases among Sikhs in India none were taken to a doctor. Three died [p. 313].

Apart from increasing perspiration, wrapping also prevents “measles-associated pneumonia” – a widely held fear. It is believed pneumonia is caused by cold. Even after recovery, isolation and wrapping continues to prevent “breathing problems”. Sitala has a brother god who causes the gasping for breath seen in pneumonia which suggests measles-pneumonia is also a part of Hindu mythology. In families with severe poverty and illiteracy other children die of dehydration from measles induced diarrhea, which is also seen as a means of removing the heat inflicted by Sitala Mataji.

In simple terms, in the cultures Dorey was misrepresenting, measles is seen as a curse from a goddess. One who demands in response such absolute devotion that children die as their superstitious parents fear offending her with medicine and instead smear cow dung on the walls of their home, pray and burn ritual herbs. In a fit of anger she attacks and burns small children through the fault of the mother who must then carry the burden of hit and miss spiritual appeasement. It is these very beliefs and others like them that will for a long time prevent significant reduction of measles in developing nations.

Clearly there is no gift from any goddess. No “huge” growth spurt. Only a pitiful struggle for survival and the fear of Sitala’s brother god. Ken McLeod on page 24 of Meryl Dorey’s trouble with the truth part 3: lies and fraud offers [bold mine]:

In a Sanskrit dictionary the word “masuri ” means “small-pox,” and the Sanskrit equivalent of the English word “measles” is “masurika मसूरिका”, from ‘a kind of herb’, ‘lentil’ or ‘pillow’, as in “an eruption of lentil-shaped pustules.” There is no etymology involving gifts from goddesses. The World Health Organisation tells of a superstition in the Indian subcontinent that smallpox resulted from a wrathful kiss by the Goddess of Smallpox, Shitala Mata. That is quite the opposite to Dorey’s claim.

One must pause and wonder if Dorey has any remote appreciation of the harsh living conditions and unbridled suffering such villagers may endure. Or if she understands their struggle as she sprouts her own cow dung over the simple truths that control their quality of life. If she is so inclined then why not smear cow dung on her own walls or offer a can full at the next pox party?

Strange isn’t it. We won’t see the antivaccination devotees stepping in wet cow dung before crossing the threshold to visit a sick child. Nor would we see devotees of Sitala Mataji giving their children the saliva of children already infected with measles. All things considered I’m pretty sure who is the most misguided.

Gift from a Goddess? I call cow dung.

Wakefield innocent, Deer lied, Earth flat

Posted in Denialism, Health, Legal, Science by

The good citizens from The Twilight Zones of teh interwebs keep us reliably informed, in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, that Wakefield is “innocent”.

Andrew Wakefield is infamous for the fraudulent invention of ileal hyperplasia and non-specific colitis induced by the measles component of MMR. Leaving the bowel damaged and “leaky”, this allowed the escape of opioid peptides into the bloodstream and eventually the brain whereby they caused autism. So infamous, that two words, “Wakefield innocent” are only rivalled in this story by “Deer lied”, yet another commandment from The Twilight Zone.

Yet innocent of exactly what aspect of the raft of calculated, cruel and callous transgressions committed? Or what part of his planning and financial inducements leading up to his academic fraud? The invasive abuse of his small sample and manipulation of data gleaned? The fabricated patient selection criteria, clinical histories, and neuropsychiatric diagnoses? Or how his filing for a patent for a “safer [monovalent] measles vaccine” in June 1997 predicated his surprise (in fact well kept secret) announcement to the press in February 1998 that MMR was a likely cause of autistic disorders?

In general it doesn’t really matter. So distorted has the issue become in almost 14 years that specifics don’t count. In effect “Wakefield innocent” is a vaccine myth with multiple faces. A licence to not vaccinate. It means that all vaccines do horrible damage to children. That they do so due to ghastly toxins with long dastardly names, heavy metals that poison the brain, alien cells and viruses that ravage young bodies, promote disease, drain vitality, bring death and much more.

“Deer lied” is the inescapable binary to this scenario. It signifies his mythical role as a Big Pharma hit man paid a whopping journalists salary with expenses to destroy Wakefield. To keep the truth hidden by governments, pharmaceutical companies and medical establishments. That vaccines are not only unnecessary but experimental, or knowingly useless poison pushed for profit. The conspiracy is all powerful and so encompassing it accommodates any bizarre fantasy. Evidence has no impact.

Today “Wakefield innocent” can also mean all vaccines cause autism and brain damage. That they do not prevent disease. That they are not needed. That today’s children are the sickest of any generation in memory. That vitamins, a few herbs, some homeopathic hanky panky and a connection with the cosmos is all that’s needed to defeat vaccine preventable disease.

The real point is, those defending Wakefield have just as much a predetermined agenda as he did. Facts will not get in their way. The BMJ is “disgraced”, in a “panic” or existing in terror of the day Wakefield is “vindicated”. As Meryl Dorey puts it, “digging a deeper and deeper hole”.

Three weeks after the BMJ published Brian Deer’s How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed, eminent enemy of conventional medicine Mike Adams gushed, Documents emerge proving Dr Andrew Wakefield innocent; BMJ and Brian Deer caught misrepresenting the facts. Really? A Trifecta Mike? Do tell:

Newly-revealed documents show that on December 20th, 1996, a meeting of The Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group based at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School featured a presentation by Professor Walker-Smith on seven of the children who would later become part of the group of patients Dr Wakefield wrote about in his 1998 The Lancet paper (which was later retracted by The Lancet) […]

These documents reveal that the British Medical Journal has been caught in its own fraud for willfully ignoring this evidence, which was presented to it long before its recent publication of Brian Deer’s article calling Dr Wakefield a fraud […]

[Brian Deer] lied about his identity and entered the home of one of the parents of the autism children. Specifically, he claimed he was working for The Sunday Times even though he was never a Sunday Times employee.

It’s pretty much a direct copy and paste of Wakefield’s own document. That and email correspondence with Fiona Godlee is here in PDF under the amusing Gaia Health heading DR. ANDREW WAKEFIELD WAS RIGHT. BRIAN DEER IS THE LIAR. THERE WAS NO FRAUD. NO HOAX. HERE’S PROOF. Age of Autism, Vaccine Safety First, Child Health Safety…etc, all crowed vindication.

The nonsense about Brian Deer is hearsay from a “letter to The Sunday Times”, seeming to serve no purpose beyond trying to label him a liar. Wakefield himself also alludes to the BMJ not “checking facts”. Yet the actual “proof” strikes me as tenuous. Wakefield confidently writes:

I present evidence that completely negates the allegations that I committed scientific fraud. Brian Deer and Dr. Godlee of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) knew or should have known about the facts set out below before publishing their false allegations. [….]

His [Professor John Walker-Smith’s] notes of the presentation continued: “I wish today, to present some preliminary details concerning seven children, all boys, who appear to have entero-colitis and disintegrative disorder, probably autism, following MMR.

Speaking of not checking facts. Deer had already quite arguably dispatched with Wakefield’s chronological innocence in writing How the case was fixed…:

Curiously, however, Wakefield had already identified such a syndrome before the project which would reputedly discover it. “Children with enteritis/disintegrative disorder [an expression he used for bowel inflammation and regressive autism] form part of a new syndrome,” he and Barr explained in a confidential grant application to the UK government’s Legal Aid Board before any of the children were investigated.

And that grant application happened to be submitted 6 1/2 months earlier than Walker-Smith’s presentation. It was:

Proposed protocol and costing proposals for testing a selected number of MR and MMR vaccinated children (and attached specification). Submitted to the Legal Aid Board 6 June 1996. [GMC fitness to practise panel hearing in the case of Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch. Day 11.]

We can even get more fussy and note the language used in describing bowel inflammation and autism. Entero-colitis (used by Walker-Smith) is inflammation of the colon and small intestine. Enteritis (used over 6 months earlier by Wakefield) is inflammation of the small intestine. Both use “disintegrative disorder”. Confidentially Wakefield was postulating a “new syndrome” well before Walker-Smith offered “preliminary details”.

Just recently on November 9th this year some new information arose when David Lewis published a letter in the BMJ. Lewis came to review histopathological grading sheets that Wakefield claims were filled out and solely interpreted by co-authors Dr. Amar Dhillon and Dr. Andrew Anthony. This was after Lewis attended, “a vaccine safety conference in Jamaica, where Andrew Wakefield discussed his research”, that was a five star extravaganza paid for by the “vaccine-safety” promoters. Wakefield was the headline act.

Lewis argued in the BMJ that he did:

… not believe that Dr. Wakefield intentionally misinterpreted the grading sheets as evidence of “non-specific colitis”.

So, who is David Lewis? Well for Aussies or anyone familiar with the Australian Vaccination Network and their main academic supporter, Dr. Brian Martin, supervisor of anti-vax conspirator and PhD candidate Judy Wilyman, this is a bit creepy. Lewis is from the US National Whistleblowers Center. Brian Martin is president of Whistleblowers Australia.

Brian Martin wrote the “document” the AVN have used to dismiss the HCCC public health and OLGR charitable status findings as an attack on free speech. He has written on successfully raising dissent against scientific, government and academic consensus. He has also written extensively on challenging the origin of AIDS, going as far in 1998 to link it to the polio vaccine. He denies having any position on vaccination.

Lewis bills himself similarly:

My responsibilities include investigating “institutional research misconduct” in which government, industry, and academic institutions use false allegations of research misconduct to suppress research.

Nature News reports that Lewis claims he was “falsely accused of misconduct after alleging links between human illness and the spreading of sewage sludge”. Either way he was ejected post haste from the EPA. The US National Whistleblowers Center is listed under “Suppression of dissent” Contacts on Brian Martin’s website. Both Dorey and Wakefield have indisputably been shown to cause damage to public health and act illegally. Ironically, Wakefield’s treatment of one whistleblower is available thanks to Brian Deer.

Before publishing Lewis’ article the BMJ had gastroenterologist Ingvar Bjarnason review the material. He claimed there was insufficient evidence to support a new disease, as Wakefield et al. had done. He also notes that “The data are subjective. It’s different to say it’s deliberate falsification”.

The last sentence caused some in The Twilight Zone to go into overdrive. Brian Deer’s Charges Against Wakefield Are False: Documents Analyzed by Outside Expert offers Gaia Health. Who regrettably also adds the somewhat partisan claim:

In the end, as with most things involving conventional medicine, it’s all about money. The lives of children have been sacrificed—and continue to be laid on the altar of Profits and Greed.

Age of Autism also seize upon the few words to suggest the BMJ is crumbling and attack BMJ editor-in-chief Dr Fiona Godlee for “declaring war” on University College London. Rather, Godlee wants a parliamentary investigation. She is quite rightly stressing that UCL, who it’s been alleged used Wakefield’s claims to get money, must finalise their own inquiry having had 8 months to begin. Medical News Today quote Godlee who wrote to UCL:

Continuing failure to get to the bottom of the vaccine scandal raises serious questions about the prevailing culture of our academic institutions and attitudes to the integrity of their output. Given the extent of involvement of senior personnel at the highest level, only an independent inquiry will be credible.

This is not a call to debate whether MMR causes autism. Science has asked that question and answered it. We need to know what happened in this inglorious chapter in medicine. Who did what, and why?

The fact that the grading sheets from Dr. Dhillon show no abnormal pathology raises the question of Wakefield’s falsification of “non-specific colitis” and ileal-lymphoid nodular hyperplasia in autistic children. Wakefield omitted that Ileal-lymphoid nodular hyperplasia was viewed as benign and “normal” in children by gastroenterologists.

His supporters now seem to argue he did not intentionally misrepresent histopathological data. This is strange given the mammoth effort to show that inflammatory disease has been confirmed in the intestines of autistic children, and “in five different countries” according to Wakefield on Age of Autism in April this year. Yet Pediatrics published findings from an expert panel in January 2010 stating no GI disturbance specific to autism had been established.

Wakefield seems content to pick and choose, shaping his innocence in retrospect. The original paper states he “assessed” biopsy specimens. Wakefield claimed two years ago, “Dr Dhillon’s diagnosis formed the basis for what was reported in the Lancet, I played no part in the diagnostic process at all.” Which is also strange given that Dhillon did not report any children as having enterocolitis. Yet Wakefield’s paper argued a finding of “autistic enterocolitis” which formed the basis for the primary submission of lawyers in the failed multi-party MMR lawsuits in Britain.

For colitis to be present epithelial damage must have occurred. But Dhillon recorded nothing of the sort. Deer writes:

No cell counts or clinical diagnoses appear on the forms, and neither Crohn’s disease nor ulcerative colitis was even considered “possible” by Dhillon.

Nor did Dhillon use the term “non-specific colitis”, reported in 11 of the 12 children five of whom were acute. Dhillon’s grading sheets did have a tick box for “non-specific” and from here Wakefield took his cue to claim “non-specific colitis”. Paola Domizio, a consultant histopathologist and professor of pathology education at Queen Mary’s College, London who was “astonished” at the normality of the specimen findings suggests the “non-specific” option allowed Dhillon to note “changes of uncertain significance”.

Walker-Smith conducted blood tests and colonoscopies – both of which showed no pathology. Still in search of abnormality Walker-Smith ordered ileocolonoscopies on these very ill children. The biopsies returned normal findings. All these tests were omitted from the final paper. Only when Wakefield got hold of Dhillon’s grading sheets – which also showed nothing abnormal – did “autistic enterocolitis” emerge.

Consultant histopathologist Susan Davies had documented healthy biopsies which were reported as diseased in a draft paper. After raising concerns about reported “colitis” she deferred to Dhillon after a research “review”. It seems clear that the team was intent on showing this “new condition”. In the case of one 3 year old boy Susan Davies and Amar Dhillon “found mild caecal inflammation, with no abnormality or changes in other biopsies”. When the final paper was published the same boy had the mild inflammation changed to, “Acute caecal cryptitis and chronic non-specific colitis.”

Even had the dodgy data been sound the omission of the fact almost all the children had chronic constipation would have clinical implications. Deer writes:

This omission of constipation was no small matter. It went to the heart of how the paper would be read. Specialists told me that both mild inflammation and prominent lymphoid follicles may be expected to be associated with this sign.

“The increase of colonic lymphoid aggregates found in severely constipated patients may represent a protective mucosal mechanism toward the chronic fecal stasis,” suggests a team of Italian and Swiss researchers, for example, in a study of adults.

But such prosaic observations would not have helped the lawsuits—for which Wakefield was hired before any child was referred, and which in the UK paid him more than £400 000. Five other Royal Free doctors—Davies and Dhillon were not among them—shared more than £100 000 to back him.

If there is one word that does not apply to Andrew Wakefield it is “innocent”. Fiona Godlee estimates at least six more of his reports need independent investigation and the exact role of the other authors must be elucidated.

£400 000 to push along lawsuits against MMR, plus vaccine patents, plus income from treating this new “syndrome” is a lot of reasons for Wakefield to lose his objectivity. Supporters need to snap to and remember this is not about vague interpretation of histology samples.

Labelled dishonest, irresponsible, unethical and showing “callous disregard for the distress and pain of children”, Wakefield was eventually struck from the medical register. “Erased” is the term used. His syndrome was a foregone conclusion. He joked about buying blood from children who vomited and passed out.

His fraudulent paper was retracted by Lancet editor, Richard Horton. Expunged from the evidence base of our species’ medical knowledge library to be a tad dramatic. But not before ten of the thirteen authors had removed their names, stating there was insufficient evidence for an association between MMR and autism whilst also expressing regret over the “major implications for public health”.

Another paper attempting to link thimerosal – he was learning on his feet – with neurological problems was withdrawn from the journal NeuroToxicology. He has never apologised, nor admitted his obvious guilt. He has become a beacon for disturbed and mistaken followers and quickly turned that fact into a huge income, feigning compassion as a seeker of truth. Wakefield can never be “innocent” for his crimes are so multitudinous.

So next time you hear of another anti-vaccine zealot bellowing “Wakefield innocent”, you’re entitled to ask, “Of what exactly?”