Tag Archives: anti-vaccination

When is it OK to steal children?

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Health, Human Rights, Legal, Media, Meryl Dorey, Scam, Skeptic, Social Media by

How Meryl Dorey exploited a family to steal $12,000 from donors

An excellent question and I’m glad you asked.

It has been posed before of course. By the same person who opined, and in circumstances similar to that which elicited, “Court orders rape of a child” after a mother was ordered in the Family court to vaccinate her daughter. Although continuing on with, “Think this is an exaggeration? This is assault without consent and with full penetration too…”, Meryl Dorey AVN president did attempt to explain herself. Or rather, offer a kind of acknowledgement of her members who were not up with the gravity of assault by vaccination and thus took offence.

I don’t won’t to hype this up as it was pretty gross. Yet it undermines the straight faced denials of being antivaccination. Indeed, of being “for informed choice”. It brings in an emotional element impervious to the very rational compromise that defines advocacy in a democracy. It moves it to the extremes of activism. The type of placard waving, spittle flying abuse of the status quo that doesn’t help anyone. And if actions speak louder than words, the August 2008 debacle that Dorey initially wrote about under When is it OK to steal children?, long ago destroyed any semblance of bipartisan credibility.

This is when the AVN usurped the actions of a family hiding an HBV positive mother, husband, newborn and 3 year old from DoCS, police and NSW health to avoid the standard HBV vaccine regimen to protect the newborn. DoCS had taken out a Supreme Court order to ensure vaccination of the neonate – but not the 3 year old. The parents kept it up long enough to ensure the six day window of opportunity for protection had expired. Then the AVN abandoned the parents to the law and the father to a possible jail sentence – only prevented by DoCS in view of family cohesion. Dorey went on to milk her members for money via a Fighting Fund which she began within 48 hours after the birth, rising to a Donation Challenge with $500 being the magic figure. With a long history of misappropriating funds, this would be easy.

Almost $12,000 was raised. The parents received none of this money. Members were coaxed along as if they were receiving funds and later congratulated for “your help” in securing a victory for the family. They were housed with a sympathiser or living in a motel and met their own costs. Dorey’s trick was to plead about more families sure to face this on a regular basis.

In fact she boasted of inside information (from the father she exploited no less) that it occurred regularly. The AVN was financially in need and had to stay open. The NSW Attorney General might pursue the family (wrong). The AVN were to lobby parliamentarians on behalf of members, over this very type of threat (still waiting).

According to NSW Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing in a letter to Mr. Ken McLeod on October 18th, 2010, we can read on page two;

During the course of the inquiry evidence of possible breaches of the Charitable Trusts Act 1993 was detected in relation to the following specific purpose appeals conducted by AVN:

 Fighting Fund – to support a homeless family, allegedly seeking to avoid a court order to immunise a child with legal and living expenses. The appeal ran for a short time in 2008 and raised $11,810. None of the funds were spent on this purpose.

A similar case in QLD in which a 9 week premature baby was “vaccine injured” by the HBV vaccine (inexplicably leading to all three children being removed by DoCS) was set to cost the AVN $30,000. Apparently – as Meryl Dorey relays it – this family wished to refuse vaccination and so DoCS had deemed this worthy of removing all children. This resulted in “a challenge being set” by an anonymous donor and the infamous $500 Donation Challenge was born. All this just fades away as new scams arise. No accounts follow, no reports of progress, no follow up on expenditure.

This case began when a hepatitis B positive woman of Chinese heritage, married to a member of The Australian Vaccination Network gave birth to a boy in Sydney on August 19, 2008. NSW Health HBV policy directive January 27, 2005 states in part;

VACCINATION OF NEONATES
•    All pregnant women are to be offered screening for hepatitis B, surface antigen (HBsAg) and should be provided with verbal and written information about hepatitis B and the hepatitis B immunisation program. The health interpreter service is to be used whenever necessary.
•    Neonates born to HBsAg positive mothers are to be offered, hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) within 12 hours of birth and a total of four doses of hepatitis B vaccine to be administered at birth, two, four and six months of age.
•    All other neonates are to be offered a total of four doses of hepatitis B vaccine at birth, two, four and six months of age. The birth dose is to be administered using a monovalent thiomersal free vaccine, and offered within 7 days of birth. The subsequent 3 doses may be given in a combination vaccine as part of the routine Australian Standard Vaccination Schedule (ASVS).

First up, let me stress staff don’t bully, harass or intimidate parents. Dorey has made much of this fallacy, yet back in 2009 when investigating the veracity of another attempt to raise money to “steal babies” I was reassured by the head policy analyst of NSW Health and many senior hospital staff (who remembered this very case) that was a rather shocking, offensive and false accusation. The policy exists for staff – not as a directive for patient outcome. To this we can add that HBV is a notifiable disease, and the circumstances would have likely been submitted as a matter of course.

NSW Health state in Hepatitis B Control Guidelines;

Public health priority: High for newly acquired cases, routine for unspecified cases. PHU response time; Investigate confirm newly acquired cases and all other confirmed cases within 3 working days. Enter confirmed newly acquired unspecified cases on NDD (Notifiable Diseases Database) with 5 working days. Case management; Investigate likely source of newly acquired cases. Contact management. Ensure that contacts of newly acquired cases are offered post-exposure prophylaxis.

HBV is a public health risk. It must be reported and entered on a database. Case management includes tracking down the source of infection. Clearly this neonates welfare was paramount and perhaps an issue for health professionals before his birth. The HBV policy directive also stipulates that the Hospital Coordinator ensures parents and health care providers are made aware of the vaccination programme. Which means benefits and risks. HBV can be asymptomatic in pregnant mothers with high viral load, hence strong likelihood of transferring the virus. We may assume hospital staff were aware of this mothers status in this regard. Later news reports suggest this is the case.

Citing baseless concerns about aluminium (aluminum) in the vaccines causing more damage than hepatitis B the parents refused. Here’s where the danger of AVN misinformation kicks in. Aluminium is the most common metal in nature. Over our lifetime we accumulate between 50 – 100mg. During the first six months of life babies do receive about 4mg from vaccines in the form of an aluminium salt. There are various aluminium salts and HBV vaccine usually contains aluminium phosphate. Aluminium acts as an adjuvant – to promote immune response, concomitantly allow less antigen per dose and decrease toxicity of antigens. It’s worth noting that babies receive 10mg from breast feeding, 40mg from formula and 120mg from soy based formula over the same six month period.

All but 1% is eliminated. Elimination rates have been gauged at 50% in 24 hours, 85% in two weeks and 96% in about three years. Exposure via vaccines is significantly less than through food. Other medications and particularly antacids also present more aluminium. Over around 70 years numerous studies have found it to be safe. One of it’s tricks as an adjuvant is to keep antigens near the injection site to be more readily accessed by immune cells. This may cause irritation. There may be redness and at worst a nodule may form due to the aluminium. In view of hepatic damage, cancer, cirrhosis and towering lifestyle challenges from hepatitis, the risk/benefit is clear. [Source]

Naming the parents “Stephen and Cassandra” Dorey wrote on August 21st;

A NSW couple are tonight in hiding after hospital doctors and the Department of Community Services took out a court order insisting that their baby, who is now only 48 hours old, be vaccinated against Hep B.

Steven and Cassandra are the proud parents of baby Jonathan, born in Sydney on Tuesday this week. Cassandra had tested positive for Hep B several years ago and so, before leaving hospital with their newborn, she was advised to give the baby a Hep B vaccination. Having done her research, she believed that her child was at greater risk from the vaccine than from Hep B. She refused the shot as did her husband. After all, vaccination is not compulsory in Australia.

Because of this refusal, Cassandra and Steven were informed by hospital staff that they were not allowed to leave the hospital until the child was vaccinated. Refusal to do so would result in their arrest and a loss of custody. Due to these threats, they agreed to make an appointment at their GP on Thursday afternoon to have the shot administered. DOCs was called in to witness the vaccination and they were sent home with a warning that they had better show up for the shot. […]

The parents are now in hiding…

On August 23rd, the SMH reported;

A SYDNEY couple was on the run with their two-day-old baby last night after the Department of Community Services took out a Supreme Court order to have the boy vaccinated against hepatitis B. […..]

Professor Isaacs said the baby had a 5 to 40 per cent chance of contracting hepatitis B from its mother and “about 30 per cent of people with hepatitis B will develop cancer or cirrhosis and die young … I don’t understand why these people are willing to sacrifice their child for a warped idea when the benefits far outweigh the risks.”

LIVING WISDOM August 22nd 2008

It’s nice that the ABC refer to the AVN as an “anti-vacccination group” – twice – which Meryl denies constantly. Disturbingly as time went by Dorey’s ignorance about hepatitis B infection, viral load, symptoms, seroconversion, vaccine ingredients – in fact all the nuances she should know of became plain. Making much of the non compulsory nature of vaccination, Dorey also writes the next day under that image of antivaccination conspiracy horror we all know and love, Family forced into hiding because of vaccination;

Whilst it is true that the mother tested positive to Hep B several years ago, to say that she suffers from Hepatitis B is wrong. She has no symptoms of disease as most people who are exposed to this and develop antibodies to it don’t have any symptoms nor will there be any long-term problems as a result of their antibody status. The lack of knowledge about this status is shocking!

Yes the lack of knowledge is astounding. But on Dorey’s part. The above statement is shifting focus onto whether or not the mother is “suffering” as if this can qualify the scale of risk to the newborn. In fact it’s arguable, but not certain, that testing had revealed that this mother was presenting with high HBV DNA levels and/or was HBeAg-positive (indicating virus replication) whilst also being entirely asymptomatic.

Either way DoCS argued the the likelihood of neonate infection was high. Evidence supports action against hep B baby’s parents;

The Department of Community Services (DOCS) says it has compelling medical evidence to support the action being taken against a Sydney couple refusing to vaccinate their baby boy.

A court order forcing the parents to immunise their son against hepatitis B has been extended in the Supreme Court today.

DOCS spokeswoman Annette Gallard says it is highly likely the child will contract the illness from his mother if he is not vaccinated soon.

In all updates and gushing thank you blurbs, Dorey asks for donations. It was an ideal saga to groom members on an emotional level which is made clear by the many lies perpetrated. Like a rogue internet scam the real aim here is to make money. From Legal Update September 5th;

We are desperate to help these families as I’m sure many of you are too….. We are stretched beyond belief at this point in time and really need your assistance more than ever so please – if you have an extra few dollars there that you think you can spare, visit our web site and donate.

It contained an email that is almost too good to be true;

Dear Meryl

After the newsletter today I would like to donate more to the fighting fund. Can you let people know that if a further 10 people donate $500 each (or more) for this critical issue I will donate a further $500. Annonymously.

It could be any family in this position – if we act now it won’t be all unvaccinated families.
Thanks again for your untiring work and generosity of spirit

Kind regards
Name withheld upon request

September 2008, Update on Stephen and Cassandara;

…until we get legislation enacted in NSW specifically protecting the rights of parents to freely choose whether or not they want to vaccinate their children, this sort of discrimination will continue to occur and helpless, uninformed families will continue to buckle to the pressure to vaccinate their vulnerable children.

What will it take?

At this point, the AVN has been literally run ragged over this last 4 weeks. We have completely expended our very meagre resources and are in a very tenuous position indeed. Whilst we have raised funds to help Stephen and the other family in Ipswich (whose case is proceeding thanks to your help!) that we discussed in the last E-Newsletter, we ourselves have been left ragged and completely unfunded as a result.

Still later on September 25th, 2008 is Thank you doesn’t even come close. Something we’ve all heard before is the promise of missing magazines. But in bold is a clear breach of the Charitable fundraising act 1991;

Unfortunately, the AVN itself is not in such a good position. We have spent a lot of time and resources helping these families and it has taken a toll on both the AVN’s finances and on the production of our next issue of Living Wisdom magazine which many of you will have realised by now is running behind schedule […]

…many other families who either now or in the future may face a similar situation. We also know that many of you have been thinking – and rightly so – that if this sort of discrimination could happen to these families, it could happen to any one of us as well.

With this in mind, it is vital that the AVN stay open for business and in a strong enough position to help any other families faced with something like this.  Currently the AVN is facing the serious prospect of having to close because of financial constraints. We therefore ask that if you have donated funds to our legal Fighting Fund in recent times, you consider allowing us to use a portion of that donation for our day to day running expenses and to pay some outstanding debts.

If you have made such a donation to the Fighting Fund and would rather it remains there to be used only to pay the legal expenses of families fighting this discrimination, please let us know either by telephoning or email. If you did make a donation but we haven’t heard from you by 7th October 2008 about this matter, we will assume that you have no objection to the AVN utilising your contribution for the administrative and operational purposes of the AVN and the Living Wisdom magazine.

Of course, no follow up of just how much money was nicked because the AVN “assume you have no objection” was ever published. Not until the OLGR informed Ken McLeod that it was 100%. The above also claims “… thanks to your help one of these cases has been settled with a positive outcome”. Well, that’s a complete falsehood. No money went anywhere. The couple remained in hiding for about four weeks. Eventually they fronted the Supreme Court and with the help of DoCS (who did not press any charges), were able to return home without the father needing to serve the prison sentence the judge dearly wanted to give him.

As for the impending forced vaccination of so many others that Dorey needed money to prevent, they simply vanish. There’s no AVN record of the couples three year old being vaccinated nor any “victory” preventing this. Perhaps she was, perhaps not. The family disappears from AVN circles, hopefully settling into sound advice.

Within four weeks Dorey shifts her attack on the HBV vaccine from forced vaccination of babies to making up stories of health workers who had no choice. They were being forced into vaccination and contacting her as a result. They had “life threatening” reactions.

These workers were eventually diagnosed with Lupus Panniculitis, Dorey tells us. Plainly she is inventing claims of evil hospitals and staff hiding the truth from these poor people. Who, of course, can only be helped by Dorey, Google and the ever-rolling donation machine. This time members are offered “Pain Free Funding”, as Dorey asks for their maternity immunisation allowance and to be nominated at Ritchies supermarkets.

It’s a sickening scam given the AVN is not responsible for any legislative structure and couldn’t lobby the entrance to a hotel;

A couple of our members have recently donated part of their Maternity Immunisation Allowance to us. They said that 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. We thought this was a great idea! If you are in a position to give us a portion of your Maternity Allowance, we would be very grateful – just one more idea that hopefully won’t put too big a hole in anyone’s pocket.

If you’re familiar with the AVN you can see what went on here with the HBV family. The archives are here in which you’ll find no further mention of how donations were managed or who won these dubious prize offers.

A year later, Meryl Dorey would try awakening the scam again. This time seemingly inventing the entire charade.

Newtown Community Chiropractic: referencing rubbish

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Chiropractic, Denialism, Health by

I’m good at knowing how to read a research article, and knowing whether it’s viable or not. I’m also good at collecting a lot of research. This vaccine topic I update every single week. So what we’re looking at is new as of yesterday morning.

Nimrod Weiner. Antivaccination Presentation recorded by AMA

Nimrod Weiner, anti-vaccination lobbyist and chiropractor from Newtown Community Chiropractic went into overdrive deleting and editing his online rubbish last week.

This followed a report in The Australian expressing valid concerns that a so-called health professional would be actively spreading demonstrable untruths about the safety of vaccination. In the opening of his talk on the audio recorded by AMA members, Weiner talks of his unique skill and superior position due to his reading of research. I’ll get to that. Yet, he also talks of the presentation “being about the best possible result” for participants. He’s going to challenge long held paradigms and “help you get through that”. To “look at the science…”.

The Nimroddery that Weiner presented is indeed due to his unique reading habits. Thanks to intrepid observers* of recent developments his ancient, cobwebbed “bibliography” of long debunked hysteria is below. Unwittingly accepting the advice I often give to all antivaccination advocates and general enemies of health science –  If it’s peer review, it’s not for you – Weiner has cobbled together some beauties. Exactly how anyone who makes money from government subsidies, Medicare and insurance underwriters can knowingly go forth and spread this tripe is simply outrageous.

What I’ve done for your reading ease dear easygoing reader, is highlight in yellow all the references we may quaintly label as pure garbage. Some of these such as Every second child and How to raise a healthy child in spite of your doctor are well known crackpot bibles. Not only antivaccination but anti-medicine and/or medical practice. That magnet for all things ridiculous, and creator of its own law, Whale.to lists Every Second Child. In part we read;

His experience showed that after being immunized, some of the animals died suddenly within 24 hours.  These deaths had been attributed to anaphylaxis…. I suggested that vitamin C deficiency was the cause.  Like primates they required it in their diet. […]

The importance of this discovery can hardly be stressed.  In Australia and all over the world, infants were being immunised.  Those whose vitamin C status was low were at risk.  here, at last, was experimental evidence that supported my claims that stepping up immunisation campaigns among Aboriginal infants increased the death rate.

You may know of the book. Cited often as proving vaccination seeks to purposely kill, it resurfaced recently here and there in defence of Viera Scheibner following a 60 Minutes episode espousing her wisdom, Getting the point. Of course we should remember Scopie’s law when we speak of whale.to. From Rational Wiki;

In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately …and gets you laughed out of the room.

Whale.to is a website run by Herefordshire pig farmer John Scudamore. It is a notorious dumping ground for all things pseudoscientific… as well as a few other things. Like the complete text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, documentations of Illuminati mind control plots, and articles about the Catholic world conspiracy. It contains every (and we do mean every) half-baked pseudoscientific theory ever concocted.

Shockingly, it was used as a source by the plaintiffs in the Autism omnibus trial, and it has seen increasing use as a “source” by anti-vaccinationists and propagators of the vaccine-autism connection.

Again Scopie’s Law is shown to be valid. Weiner indeed loses on many levels and should really have been laughed out of the room. I’ve popped a red square over the number signifying an Australian Vaccination Network publication offered as a reference. The circle around number 11 is a special award for Wilson’s Vaccination and Behavioural Disorders: a review of the controversy, just for emerging from Lismore and being in disgraceful company.

You can find this nonsense along with other “related books” that Weiner has on his exceptionally biased bibliography. All on the one page of conspiracy and hysterically themed books on the internet. I think we can guess at Weiner’s researching skills and professional objectivity just from this one observation. As for updated information?

  • Every Second Child was published in 1981
  • How to raise your child… in 1983.
  • A shot in the dark, by Barbara Loe Fisher and Harris Coulter – 1991
  • Vaccination, social violence and criminality: The Medical Assault on the American Brain, by harris Coulter – 1990
  • Vaccination: 100 years of orthodox research shows that vaccines represent a medical assault on the immune system, by Viera Scheibner – 1993

There’s also In the wake of vaccines, by Barbara Loe Fisher and cited on whale.to by Nimrod Weiner – 2004. Yet the real herp derp kicks in with the citing of Informed Choice magazine, Wellbeing magazine, International Wellbeing and of course citations from Chiropractic Leadership Alliance.

Most of this misinformation is over a decade old, with some up to thirty. The AVN now push Living Wisdom. Before that it was Informed Voice and before that Informed Choice (the latter change in August 2006). Weiner only quotes from Informed Choice – defunct seven years ago.

Just how long has Weiner been sabotaging community health one may wonder? Without even updating his woo? Yet he begins his attack on vaccination efficacy and safety by telling his audience how well read he is. He sits on two boards – so it’s his business to read huge amounts of information.

“I sit on the spinal research foundation board. What that means is, everyday I’m reading a lot of research articles”. Weiner argues that he’s been “studying vaccination for hundreds of hours”. Whilst this makes him a lazy hobbyist, it’s worse to find he’s not studying at all. It’s like a psychologist boasting of research only to be found out reading New Idea.

Wellbeing magazine is another depository for anything irrational, non toxic and “natural”. Ditto International Wellbeing. He only cites antivaccination material. One stunner is the thrice listed AVN’s 1998 offence entitled, Vaccination Roulette; Experiences, Risks and Alternatives. 

All up we have;

  • 26 yellow highlights of discredited and dangerous misinformation, including…
  • 11 direct AVN references from non proven or reviewed magazine articles aiming to provoke fear, ignorance and hysteria
  • “Wellbeing” magazine articles
  • 2 Viera Scheibner references discredited across the globe
  • 6 notably unscientific book references of conspiracy theory proportion
  • whale.to
  • Mercola
  • Super Baby: Boost your Babyʼ s Potential from Conception to Year 1, 1998
  • And more…

Certainly Weiner does list a handful of actual journal articles but these have not been selected as balance to the insulting rubbish from the AVN, or to defend vaccination. Calmly exploiting the reality that vaccine science is not perfect, and that unlike chiropractic, medical professionals do report, research and strive to overcome adverse reactions. Australian government publications are there to back up his misinformation that they try to hide vaccine reactions.

His advice, in this era of pertussis epidemics and rising measles cases resulting in death and disability? Slide 82 from Weiner’s presentation, suggests;

Delay starting the vaccinations for as long as you can. A minimum of 12 months is favourable while a minimum of two or more years may be more beneficial… Ask for mercury free vaccines (they will still contain other toxic chemicals: formaldehyde, aluminium, antibiotics)

Nimrod Weiners bibliography for Vaccinations: An Informed Choice

*Thanks to @DrRachie for finding the references.

Child Health Safety: The Wakettes arise

Posted in Denialism, Scam by

I mentioned the blog Child Health Safety last post, alluding to Wakettism of the first order.

I recently commented under the post Wakefield and MMR – Brian Deer fails to answer. Apparently my observations deserved an entire blog post, headed Autism Figures – Existing Studies Show Shocking Real Increase Since 1988. This was copied and pasted back as a reply ignoring the content of my comment. The thrust was to debunk my claim of no real autism epidemic. I’d used Brugha et al. “Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Adults in the Community in England.” Archives of General Psychiatry  –  doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.38. This paper uses today’s diagnostic criteria and shows adults have autism at a rate of 9.8/1000 in adults.

Today’s rate is difficult to ascertain, but can be 10/1600 to 10/1000 in children. The latter is the more common – 1%, although this is probably high given other estimates. Brugha concludes no epidemic exists, but that diagnostic criteria has changed, suggesting he alludes to the 10/1000 figure. Many who point to large scale increases also support the reality of changing diagnostic criteria. Brugha’s paper is discussed here on Ars Technica, Autism Epidemic? More likely we’re just better at diagnosis which also uses the 10/1000 – or 1% figure today. Other publications discuss the findings: “Most adults with autism go undiagnosed” AlphaGalileo. “University of Leicester researchers present further evidence from first ever general population survey of autism in adulthood.” Disabled World

Our Wakette at Child Health Safety is claiming a 1200% increase in autism frequency in eight years. He chose an Israeli study – as is plain if you read his post above, with 0.84 cases per 1000 – Advancing Paternal Age and Autism by Reichenberg et al. Then he uses Baird’s well known figure of 11.6/1000 to get his 1200% increase. Just one lone paper no doubt chosen to sustain this 1200% increase claim. The three variables impacting on frequency are criteria, age of cohort and geographical location. Age and location impact on our friends mythical 1200%.

So, over to this new post I went. Now, you may wonder what the relevance of a comment stream is. However, I found this typical of antivaccination lobbyists particularly those who seek to maintain the autism myth. I’ve always wondered what made the crackpots behind this site tick. They have “secrets” on Wakefield. Brian Deer and the BMJ are the real fraudsters. “Governments” have been exposed. Typical conspiracy central meanderings.

Rather than address the clear challenges we find a challenging tone and combative presentation. Combined with false dichotomies by association, censoring of comments by deletion then eventual banning. I actually began by apologising below for sending them off in a huff. One comment (under a piece defending Wakefield) that nailed them left them pleading inability to understand. Anyway, I commented;

I’m sorry but you’re markedly in error.

You quote Reichenberg et al’s Israeli study from the Archives of General Psychiatry to “set a benchmark”, which you then compare to Baird’s UK figures. Yes both use DSM IV. But the genetic and environmental differences in two races/nations present challenges to your theory. No offence but you can’t just make up relationships between unrelated data sets without correcting for other variables. You need to show statistically why the individual sets relate to your argument. This is a common flaw. Genetics, environment, parental education and rearing techniques… etc.

Still, let’s go with it. 8.4:10,000 or 0.84 per 1000. Then Baird’s UK figures of 116.1:10,000 or 11.6 per 1000. From this you argue a 1200% increase insinuating vaccination. Yet Baird had written.

“Whether the increase is due to better ascertainment, broadening diagnostic criteria, or increased incidence is unclear.”

Thus, you make conclusions from Baird’s work that even he did not. I shall argue you selected the lone Israeli paper for it’s dramatic impact. Now onto research that seeks to determine if any increase at all has occurred. We can stay in the UK eliminating the genetic and environmental confounding variables of Israel data. Let’s examine adults using the same diagnostic criteria.

Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Adults in the Community in England – Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011;68(5):459-465. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.38

We find 9.8 per 1000 (95% confidence interval, 3.0-16.5). The author’s write:

“The prevalence of ASD in this population is similar to that found in children. The lack of an association with age is consistent with there having been no increase in prevalence and with its causes being temporally constant.”

It’s documented by Baird that younger children – indeed younger subjects often have a higher score in diagnosis. Using this reality we expect to see significant decreases in adults. But we have Baird’s 11.6 and Brugha’s 9.8 per 1000. Given the approximation of these figures using today’s diagnostic criteria and the huge age difference one may assume autism is falling as we’d expect to see a much lower rate in adults. More so, in 2003 Baird himself writes in Diagnosis of autism – BMJ;

“… several factors account for the increase–for example, changing conceptualisation to a spectrum rather than a core categorical condition; changes in diagnostic methods; …”

That’s probably enough. Although consider:

1 in 150 (1988-1995; Bertrand et al., 2001)
1 in 175 (1990-1991; Baird et al., 2000)
1 in 85 (1990-1991; Baird et al., 2006)
1 in 150 (1992; ADDMN, 2007)
1 in 160 (1992-1995; Chakrabarti & Fombonne, 2001)
1 in 150 (1994; ADDMN, 2007)
1 in 58 (1993-1997; not published)
1 in 170 (1996-1998; Chakrabarti & Fombonne, 2005)

– which is markedly inconsistent with the myth of an epidemic. it is consistent with methodology. Selecting data to suit your argument will not change reality.

I apologise for having such fun with your bag of errors. It was an appalling reply and a ridiculous blog post however. The above post is very plain in showing that you’re inventing a phenomena not supported by research nor even by Baird himself. Autism rates have not changed. Diagnosis has. A decrease is most likely.

Thank you.

And;

Your comment in blue above:

We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.

… is meaningless. I stressed this in another comment but you couldn’t answer. Let me be quite plain. Compensation for encephalopathy or general brain disease is due to vaccination. It may be accompanied by…. autism. It may also be accompanied by blue eyes, blonde hair or bad breath. None of these are due to vaccination. This comment is one of many that stress compensation for vaccine induced autism has never occurred. Even Poling had a predetermining mitochondrial disorder.

As I stressed elsewhere. Only reading something like; “This child was compensated due to autism developing directly as a result of vaccination”, will sustain the allusion above. As I said elsewhere, defeating your ability to reply – Even the recent Pace Law school student foray into 21 VCIP cases and over 60 biased phone call interviews offered “it strongly suggests” a link. (Quoting Danielle Orsino media rep).

That paper is “Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A review of compensated cases of vaccine induced brain injury”. But as Orsino says, there’s a “suggestion”. Period.

You contention is demonstrably flawed on many levels.

Thank you.

Apparently no point to answer exists;

Paul @ 2011/08/20 at 2:01 am

I’m sorry but you’re markedly in error.

Really? In an earlier comment elsewhere you drew our attention to the letter in the peer reviewed Journal of the Israeli Medical Association which draws attention to the figures from the Paternal Age paper. Thanks for that. We did not know and have added a reference to this article so it now can draw on authority of a peer reviewed journal.

You seem not to be able to agree with any medical experts. That’s fine. We are letting you let off steam here.

And;

Paul @ 2011/08/20 at 3:02 am

“Your comment in blue above:

We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.

… is meaningless.”

Oh dear. You just cannot trust governments can you? The US Health Resources Services Administration give a quote to a journalist of a national TV news broadcast network confirming the US government has compensated cases of children who developed autistic conditions from vaccines and paid out lots and lots of dollars to them and it turns out to be meaningless.

LOL. Back to the drawing board for everyone.

I replied;

I think you have seen the flaw. That comment is all over the place here. Yep – meaningless.

“Autistic conditions” are not vaccine induced autism. You’re at least changing language – the first step in accepting facts. Sadly, there’s no LOL. I’m glad you think it’s funny. One in 1 million children suffer encephalitis from vaccine reactions. They are compensated as is just. Many have autism. The comment is debunking the very untruth you seek to make.

“…. may be accompanied by an array of symptoms”.

Until you can produce “compensated because of their autism”, you have no case. The facts and government positions are against you. Global research is against you. From ethyl mercury to vaccines to numbers of vaccines no link can be shown.

Accept it.

Thanks again.

Then horror upon horror, they clicked on my URL and delivered;

LOL, Rant on Paul.

We are content to rely on a peer reviewed journal. Thanks for drawing our attention to it – so we could add the link to the article.

You might as well let everyone know you are a friend of Peter Bowditch and the “skeptics” crowd who are happy to victimise and attack people personally on the web, spread misinformation lose legal actions and then claim they have not. Similarly Terry Polevoy – Terry Polevoy vs Ilena Rosenthal.

Birds of a feather flock together. What a lot of flockers.

Those nasty skeptics all linked up like a hive… I tried again;

I thought this was about debating and/or defending the premise of your post?

I think given the tone and lack of substance of your replies, it’s clear I’ve upset your apple cart here. Again I ask that you refute my sources. Eg; Baird 11.6/1000 in 2006 followed by Brugha 10/1000 in 2007 shows a 13.7% decrease in just one year. Why can’t you address this simple reality? The above reply is most unbecomming.

Yes I know of Peter and enjoy the skeptic community. So, you clicked a link to my site. Welcome. I’m ignorant as to the case you refer to or Polevoy. I do know Peter posts everything on his site so is unlikely to spread misinformation. Either way I could be head of GSK yet I still have a valid argument you avoid. No laughing matter. Autism is decreasing if we involve your figure from Baird.

Also, go back to my original comment. You have much work to do. Don’t feel embarrassed – science is all about being proven wrong. No need to turn aggressively defensive. I’m not judgmental.

I await your reply with eagerness.

All the best now.

Next, missing the point of Brugha’s comparison to contemporary childhood figures;

Paul @ August 21, 2011 at 2:04 am

Again I ask that you refute my sources. Eg; Baird 11.6/1000 in 2006 followed by Brugha 10/1000 in 2007 shows a 13.7% decrease in just one year.

Shame you have not read either paper or maybe you have and you know you are talking rubbish. Comparing chalk and cheese just like your mates Bowditch and Polevoy to lie about the facts. Baird was dealing with children. Brugha was dealing with adults. So you are saying the same children Baird covered became adults in one year and 13.7% of them simultaneously were cured.

LOL. Nice one.

Pretty good refutation we think. But then that is just the style of Bowditch, Polevoy and friends.

The old, “tar ’em with the same brush trick”, eh? I continued self flagellating;

I may have been generous with my stats. It’s a 13.79% decrease. My bad… apologies.

Pretty much a 14% decrease in autism in the same nation in one year. Geographic location is a plus. Age is a plus. Criteria is a plus. The 3 variables effecting frequency of autism. You still need to address your “theory” using Israeli data to compare to a different location & age group.

All the best.

Things deteriorated along those lines. More allusion to “Bowditch and Polevoy” and whatever case of which I had no knowledge. Sadly, my dear comment protagonist first began censoring comments that refuted his ongoing claims, then banned me altogether. Perhaps referring to “the awesome Ben Goldacre” was pushing my luck. Back in 2007 he’d written an excellent article. Clearly whomever it is holding the reins at Child Health Safety has a thing about Polevoy and dear Peter Bowditch. He/she/they did have one point. I mentioned Brugha as “citing” the 10/1000 figure of todays frequency vs his adult findings of 9.8/1000. I was in error. Brugha studiously avoids picking any of the many autism frequencies out there today.

Yet Brugha’s 9.8/1000 in adults advanced as showing no change to todays child frequencies of 10/1000 (the widely used 1%) leads me conclude it’s safe to argue with the 10/1000 figure. That’s rather clear in the post deleted but found here. Also Brugha et al. wrote;

The prevalence of ASD in this population is similar to that found in children. The lack of an association with age is consistent with there having been no increase in prevalence and with its causes being temporally constant.

From Alpha Galileo we have;

Dr Brugha said the new scientific article confirms the already published report from the survey (2009) that 9.8 per thousand adults in England meet official diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder. There was no evidence of an ‘autism epidemic’ of marked increase in people with the condition.

He said: “Overall our findings suggest that prevalence is neither rising nor falling significantly over time. This favours the interpretation that methods of ascertainment (case finding) have changed in more recent surveys of children compared to the earliest surveys in which the rates reported were considerably lower”.

I could have chosen the 10/1600 figure, rendering Brugha’s finding more compelling. It’s fascinating to consider that adults today may present at 9.8/1000 vs children at as little as 10/1600. Knowing that increases in cohort age correlate to a reduction in frequency diagnoses, and adults have learned many skills that also lower overall score, we’re left to consider an actual drop in autism over the last generation. How wonderful if that were true and perhaps due to the protection from measles induced encephalitis due to MMR vaccination.

In conclusion, this poor author has unwittingly proven my point. Had he shown the courtesy of reading my sources he’d have noted studies devoted to examining the very question, don’t support an epidemic. Had he even read Baird’s papers he’d have seen Baird herself doesn’t claim an absolute increase but stresses causes are unclear and changing diagnostic criteria are a variable. I guess what got up my nose is fishing for an obscure study, comparing it to Baird’s work and using this to conclude there’s a 1200% increase in autism due to vaccination.

Not only is this not repeated anywhere no attempt was made to eliminate confounding variables. No understanding of using unrelated data sets or attempt to justify correlation between them exists. Just a very low figure plucked out and used “as a benchmark”.

Moving away from Baird and Brugha we find a range of diagnostic papers that fail to support the contention of a steady increase. I’ll give the last word to Ben Goldacre from 2007, writing About that surge in autism, in The Autism Crisis;

Autism advocates are free to seek that recent surge in autism–that catastrophic epidemic–in anecdotes, in education numbers or the CDDS, in sensationalist headlines and so on. This is all in keeping with the rotten standards of science and ethics they’ve imposed on autistics, and with their own steadfast resistance against verifiable information. But on the off-chance anyone’s interested in the published, peer-reviewed data, I thought I’d go fetch some. If anyone finds any factual errors in the information I’ve presented, I’d greatly appreciate knowing. Accurate information is always good for autistics.

Indeed.

The Wakettes

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Denialism, General, Scam by

As many readers will know there’s been a hysterical spike in attempts to exhume the corpse of the vaccine/autism myth this year. Certainly this has reached fever pitch since Wakefield was expunged from the registrar of humane beings.

Like watching a religion evolve his adherents have been gripped in ecstasy, rejecting evidence for fantasy. I mean, just check out the font size at Dr. Wakefield’s work must continue. You can imagine them living on a small island that time forgot – much like out of a King Kong movie. Dressed only in loin cloths, bodies glistening in the fire light given off by burning effigies of Paul Offit, carrying Wakefield on a sedan chair made of discarded MMR syringes and the bones of dead Pharma executives held together with saliva soaked vaccine package inserts.

You may laugh but it appears this is indeed what has happened. The audio below was captured by intrepid journalists on an off the map Pacific island covered in deep jungle, behind the walls of an ancient stone fortress just as Wakefield was carried past his adoring crowd.

We had the Groundbreaking vaccine-autism investigation, promising to shatter the earth only to fizzle to muffled laughter back in May this year. Despite promises of putting Big Pharma to the rack it emerged that a bunch of Pace Law school students produced “Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A review of compensated cases of vaccine induced brain injury”.

Media spokesperson Danielle Orsino must have felt a goose when all she could muster was that this “strongly suggests” a link. In fact it suggested naught but the reality these unfortunate cultists will continue to manipulate, abuse and obfuscate data whilst lying to the public and exploiting those with autism and their families. Meryl Dorey took the results – debunked 10 days earlier – by the horns turning the meaningless review of 21 VICP cases into “the vaccine court… has paid compensation to hundreds, possibly thousands of families [for autism]” as she lied on air to David and Tanya on 102.9 KOFM last May.

Tanya on KOFM was carelessly querying Dorey about parents who have a child vaccinated, then “… suddenly have an autistic child on their hands….. Fact or fiction?”. “Oh Tanya, I wish I could say it’s fiction but it’s fact”, Dorey lied. Later Tanya argued with David (who to his credit says parents who don’t vaccinate children are selfish), saying to listeners “aren’t you scared with statistics mentioned by Meryl… thousands of cases of autism, ADD, ADHD…”.

The VICP associated court has paid no-one compensation for autism due to vaccination. Hannah Poling herself has an underlying mitochondrial enzyme deficit. Hannah does not have autism. Hannah has encephalitis. Hannah’s parents believe vaccination triggered the encephalitis. Her mitochondrial disorder is documented as causing encephalitis between first and second years of life. Vaccination is not documented as causing autism. The Polings are very lucky the court erred in allowing compensation. One case, and a shocking anomaly it is.

The tragic thing about how easily Tanya was scammed by Dorey is that the “latest figures from the USA” Dorey alluded to came from the above paper. Crucially there’s not one statement to the effect “this child was compensated due to developing autism as a result of vaccination”. Children with autistic like symptoms are compensated quite rightly for demonstrable vaccine injuries. Children with autism who develop encephalitis as a result of vaccination are compensated. These poor children are exploited ruthlessly via the false insinuation there’s causality between the vaccination and autism. Yet I stress again there’s nothing suggesting compensation “because of their autism”.

Like something out of a Wakefield cultists version of Mission Impossible this paper would self-debunk in 10 seconds. Filled with self-serving nonsense such as “acknowledged autism or autism-like symptoms through vaccine induced encephalopathy and seizure disorder”, “settled cases suggesting autism”, “language that strongly suggests autistic features”, “published decisions that used terms related to autism”, “payment of vaccine injured children with autism”, even providing a case table headed, “Language suggesting autism or autistic-like symptoms”. But no, nothing definitive. It was a sham from day one.

Consider this oft’ repeated quote on that dumping ground of all things grossly offensive Child Health Safety. You may have recently read Dorey’s links to this blog claiming that the real fraud was by Brian Deer and the BMJ. Under conspiracy speak headings like “Secret British vaccine files on MMR forced open by legal action” then “read here what will be discovered and more”, we get… nothing. Granted it goes back to January 19, 2011 before the epic failure of May 10th. But we’re told breathlessly this quote is from an email to CBS written by the Health Resources Services Administration of the US.

We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.

I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. As I’ve commented over yon scribe, encephalopathy may be accompanied by blue eyes, blonde hair and bad breath but nor are these linked to vaccination. The statement is clarifying the very lie the author has attempted. Compensation for vaccine induced encephalitis for a child who also has autism, is not compensation for vaccine induced autism. Encephalitis can effect measles sufferers at a rate of at least one in 5,000. MMR vaccination presents a rate of less than one in 1 million. Given the size of the USA, UK and European populations we are going to see large numbers of children with encephalitis following vaccination.

Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis hits one in 8,000 children under two with measles. MMR vaccination yields zero cases. Measles causes death in one in 2,500 – 5,000 depending on age. MMR vaccination results in death in zero cases. 15% of SSPE children will die. SSPE can strike at a later age after measles resolves, and is often fatal. Still however, we have people feverishly working to allow these horrific realities to increase. Misinformation and lies are created and fed to people by deluded and insistent miscreants who cannot admit their error. Wakefield’s continued defence is testimony to the misled. But the perpetrators are something altogether more malignant.

So prevalent are people who keep doing this in the face of overwhelming evidence, and so unconscionable are their tactics we really need a new term to describe them. They represent the nadir of intellectual and humane evolution of our species at present, and thus deserve to be recognised. I propose Wakette. 

As in “… well known Wakette, Meryl Dorey wrote a piece on Wakefield’s Kangaroo Court“. Or “… and in other news, over at Child Health Safety we read yet another typical Wakette piece that invents associations of hilarious proportions”. Or Erwin Alber…. er, no. Come to think of it I don’t want to Alber anything unless absolutely necessary. [group involuntary shudder]

For the record, Skeptard is lurking in the urban dictionary. Definition;

Any one who is blindly skeptical to the evidence around them, regardless of research done on any given topic, in addition to any one who refuses to do the research necessary, before jumping to conclusions.

So for Wakette we can propose;

Any person who continues to maintain that vaccines cause autism, despite being aware of the Wakefield fraud and the abundance of dissenting evidence, in addition to any person who sets out to misrepresent research to claim this link can be revived anew.

So let’s take Wakette for a test flight. Say in 15 years or so:

“Hey remember that Nimrod Weiner guy?”.

“Sort of, who was he again?”

“The wakette who didn’t even know where Wakefield’s fraudulent paper was published”.

“Oh, yeah… I remember him. What about him?”

“Saw him chirobusking* in the subway at Central Train Station”.

“Huh, figures. He had a carny gig at the travelling circus next to the fortune teller for a while”.

“Yeah, heard that too. Most of those wakette’s are history now”.

(High fives and laughter)

[* – “chirobusking” is the term given in future to chirpractors who busk alongside magicians, mimes, acrobats and musicians for small change. They have little fold up tables and have swapped white coats for coloured robes]

See! It works quite well. Plus serves as a handy mnemonic device. As the science of Wakettism improves we’ll be able to distinguish between Alpha Wakette’s like… er, Wakefield, or Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill (from Age of Autism), or dominant and submissive wakette’s. Dorey’s a rather dominant wakette on her Facebook page and the submissive wakette’s members just go along, knowing they’ll be banned if they happen to speak the truth or produce any evidence.

Then there’s loner wakettes who wish to be Alpha Wakettes. Here’s where our friend at Child Health Safety comes in. Master of deceit, obfuscation and pure invention with a talent for plumb conspiracy language you probably know the site.

Having a look at this will be the subject of my next post.

Newtown Community Chiropractic present Weiner… Nimrod Weiner

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Chiropractic, Health by

Weiner. Nimrod Weiner. Shaken and stirred. We’ve met Nimrod before, whilst taking a look at chiropractors and their brave observations on vaccination. Including it being “the biggest sham since bloodletting”. 64% of The Australian (anti) Vaccination Network‘s members are chiropractors – a damning statistic indeed.

Nimrod Weiner: Prominent Anti-vaccination lobbyist

Weiner, as I noted before is from Newtown Community Chiropractic and is prone to run anti-vaccination seminars. Exactly why Newtown Community Chiropractic would want to run anti-vaccination seminars and use slides with Newtown Community Chiropractic emblazoned on each one is a mystery perhaps known only to Newtown Community Chiropractic. I can’t find out because visiting their vaccination events page seems to yield a hastily emptied office.

Nimrod thinks vaccines are nasty things because when you look at humans we’re sick. Sick dear reader, very, very sick. The sort of sick only Newtown Community Chiropractic can fix. Because as Nimrod Weiner says, you don’t see animals with diseases and cancers. No Sir!

Those horses with Hendra virus – dying and killing people due to the lack of a vaccine and those Tasmanian Devils with incurable cancer with a 100% fatality rate aren’t as sick as we are. In fact you don’t see cancers in animals Nimrod Weiner from Newtown Community Chiropractic tells us. This must be bemusing news to those at The Australian Animal Cancer Association or the scientists that documented the many variations of the four primary animal cancers.

Australia’s list of 93 notifiable animal diseases is clearly just taking up valuable internet space. Not to mention the many non notifiable diseases that just distract us from our own sickening sickness. What with our living longer than ever before, beating diseases more than ever before, curing disease during gestation, preventing disability from birth, rehabilitating post illness and injury and of course having almost wiped out vaccine preventable diseases that killed our ancestors we’re obviously so very, very sick.

Could vaccines be doing this? You can talk about vaccines without any qualifications for 2 1/2 hours, “But that’s nothing, let me tell you”. Obesity, lack of exercise and predicted consequent cardiovascular disease are just some of the problems that effect children but not animals Nimrod from Newtown Community Chiropractic intones. Todays children could be the first generation to not live longer than their parents he warns ominously dangling the “V word” but giving absolutely no evidence as to why. So, why?

This is certainly due to the fact life expectancy has sky rocketed in recent decades with medical advances, improvements in safe living and the big one – vaccination. Children born over the last couple of decades were born into a world of scientific achievement allowing sedentary lifestyles and buffets of junk food. This explains why they may not live notably longer life spans than their parents. Gradually we’ve been getting more sedentary in recreational pursuits, spending less time doing physical labour, enjoying wonderful advances in labour saving devices and worshipping the silicon chip.

It isn’t that children are “sick” at all – they’re not. It is true that their parents were particularly healthy, active and enjoyed largely unpolluted environments. The younger the parent the more sedentary their lifestyle also. In fact today a child’s potential for longevity at birth and for the first few years remains higher than ever before. It is lifestyle habits and how long one maintains them that dictates. But anti-vaxxers love to use these fake scare tactics to claim children are sicker than ever before. Simply put: sedentary lifestyle, changing familial habits, processed food often due to time constraints, affluence in eating and rising obesity. From here we have predicted a slightly shorter lifespan.

The lie of an autism epidemic continues even though we know it’s down to entirely different diagnostic criteria. Some children on the ASD spectrum are indistinguishable from other children until critiqued via diagnosis. Using todays criteria we find adults present at a rate of 9.8/1000 and children at a rate of 10/1000. In a UK survey, none of the “new cases” discovered knew they had autism. This speaks volumes as to how wide the spectrum now is. Strong arguments suggest the 2% difference is due to learned skills, and may likely be more – increasing the adult rate above children. Which ultimately suggests we have less autistic cases today provided we stick with today’s diagnostic criteria across generations.

The Australian reports that the Australian Medical Association condemned as “outrageous” claims made by Weiner. One has to agree;

In a public talk, the Sydney chiropractor linked vaccines to asbestos, thalidomide and cigarettes, and said they contained bits of aborted fetus. The chiropractor backed the debunked research of deregistered British doctor Andrew Wakefield – which suggested the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine might cause autism – as “scientifically good”.

The parents and pregnant women who attended the talk in March were told “homeopathic vaccines” – which are regarded as scientific nonsense by most experts – were safer than conventional vaccines. [….]

Adelaide chiropractor Phillip Donato, chairman of the Chiropractic Board of Australia – one of the 10 national registration boards that are part of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency – said chiropractors were expected to offer advice that was “absolutely balanced, non-biased and evidence-based”.

“It appears at the very least that he (Mr Weiner) is misinformed, and at the worst may be providing misleading information,” Mr Donato said.

“We would encourage people to put in a notification (to the board), and we would deal with it.”

Weiner made Radio National today:

Or download audio here.

Newtown Community Chiropractic slides include:


The Australian had more on the bizarre, ignorant anti-vaccination fear mongering standards and Nimroddery from Newtown Community Chiropractic;

In his talk, Mr Weiner said vaccine makers grew germs such as the chicken pox virus “on human fetus, because it’s the best medium to grow it on”.
“What happens is they take a scraping of that aborted fetus with the virus on it, and put that into the vaccine itself,” he said.

In fact, a federal government guide says while fetal cells are used to make some vaccines, these are the lab-grown descendants of cells taken from three fetuses aborted for medical reasons more than 40 years ago, since when no further fetuses have been used.

What these cowboys of new age mumbo jumbo are doing discussing immunology is patently clear. Creating a market based on fear. Weiner’s product is ignorance and fear and we’d all be wise to have nothing to do with his ilk. They are even keen to blame the Australian Skeptics for reasons I can not begin to comprehend.

When it comes to vaccines speak only to a real doctor.