It only took a moment but it drew a lot of attention.
Woody Harrelson recently hosted Saturday Night Live for the fifth time. Five appearances is supposed to be memorable as lucky celebrities receive an “honorary jacket”. Yet Woody’s gig will be remembered for him donning the cloak of conspiracy theory (see what I did there), during his opening monologue. After some surprisingly ordinary pot-smoker jokes Woody told viewers about a film script he had read as he smoked a joint leaning against a tree in Central Park. The same joint we’d just met in a prior joke.
So, the movie goes like this: the biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes.
And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over.
I threw the script away. I mean, who’s going to believe that crazy idea?
I reckon like most people and virtually all Aussies, I was drawn to the SNL footage by the reaction it generated. I expected that Woody had hijacked the bulk of his monologue to chuckle through Ye Olde grab bag of COVID conspiracy smirk. Yet it was a tiresome old line: Big Pharma Control of government and media, purportedly being the real cause of COVID lockdowns, with an ultimate of profit. It fell rather flat on the audience.
Condemnation was swift. “Woody sprouts COVID conspiracy”, read Forbes. Vanity Fair told us he “really blew it”. People suggested he “sparks controversy supporting the COVID conspiracy theory”. SBS noted he “pushes conspiracy theories”. A quick Google search yields much more of the same. It’s pretty clear that rehashing COVID-19 fakery is not a way to win respect.
Yet as one might predict, the COVID conspiracy mob loved it. Avi Yemini tweeted “Woody Harrelson sums up the Covid scam perfectly”. His followers eagerly agreed, each chipping in some meaningless confirmation. One offered, “Now you know who was happy to sell you out for their own enrichment”, as if the pharma cartel conspiracy was a novel idea. The clip hit YouTube as supporters backed Woody for “telling the truth”, or dropping a “truth bomb”. Commenters adored him. Yet what really stood out is that COVID conspiracy theorists crave affirmation.
Tireless anti-vaccine profiteer Meryl Dorey, took time off from her High Court mischief to write a post on Substack praising the embarrassing wobble. Woody Harrelson makes heads explode by telling the truth about COVID policies, her piece was headed. Meryl had also noticed the critical headlines and sagely observed, Truth is not the media’s friend. She went on to list a number of headlines variously dismissive of Harrelson’s “anti-vaccine” and “COVID-19 conspiracy theories” deemed “antivax nonsense”. Then as if to again confirm she rarely has a grasp of topics she claims to be expert in, Dorey writes:
Notably, the Youtube (sic) video on SNL’s own site had comments turned off but shows that there are over 27,000 likes and only 1 dislike. One has to wonder if producers are paying attention?
Actually one has to wonder if Meryl has been paying attention, because it’s been almost 16 months since YouTube removed public display of dislike counts. Making things worse, Meryl then referred to a video of Harrelson recently ranting to Bill Maher on Maher’s Club Random about Big Pharma profits, hydroxychloroquine and the unfortunate development when, “ivermectin got made into a horse tranquilliser”. Meryl hoped more “high-profile individuals” will follow his lead, because it might just make “complicity theorists” think. An absolute failure to read the room, as it were.
Cute terms like “complicity theorists” and the utterly boring repetition of thoroughly debunked claims seeking to cast doubt about the COVID-19 pandemic, the success of vaccination and the role of pharmaceutical companies are passé. Long gone are the days of potential recruitment to the cause of COVID conspiracy. All that’s left are the various misfits and cookers who cling to the idea that democracy is under threat, paedophiles are hiding children beneath the streets and our very status as free human beings needs to be fought for. Regrettably, there are those who continue to amplify absurd themes for their own profit.
The world is moving on from the initial, uncertain years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The frightening, dystopian world that conspiracy theorists insisted we were heading for never eventuated. All that’s left for them is to keep referring to past events in the hope of maintaining relevance. Harrelson’s SNL effort confirms this rather nicely.
It is quite apt that Woody Harrelson was trying to get laughs because one thing is quite clear: the continued obsession with COVID-19 conspiracies is nothing but a bad joke.
At the end of June this year I posted on a dubious-looking legal fundraising campaign announced by the Australian Vaccination-risks Network. They were, apparently, proposing private action against Australia’s federal health minister, Greg Hunt, and injunctive relief against the federal government.
It was not surprising to learn they were claiming the COVID-19 vaccine rollout was an experiment and must be stopped. The full 18 June letter to Hunt and Mark Butler MP is here. They had given Greg Hunt seven days to respond, and in the post I included part of their demands:
If you do not respond or if your response once again does not address our concerns, we would feel that we have no option but to consider legal action against you yourself, Minister Hunt, in the form of a private prosecution and against the Government to seek injunctive relief to immediately stop this current experiment on the Australian population…
Hunt, of course, did not respond. Meryl Dorey announced on the eve of day seven that, absent his response, a page would be set up for donations and legal action would proceed. Or rather it would if “our solicitors and lawyers and barristers say we are going to proceed”. What followed was… well, nothing. Or rather, nothing from deep in the AVN bunker. One suspects that this is because other actors, planning legal action against COVID public health initiatives, were drawing significant funds from motivated donors.
The AVN is an anti-vaccine pressure group with a history of dubious legal fundraising schemes. Last year all roads led to funding their Vaxxed bus tour. This has long since ground to a halt, as Meryl Dorey struggles to reinvent herself, yet again, to sell the unsuspecting the same decades old packages of vaccine disinformation. Dorey attracts reasonable numbers to her Facebook videos but this isn’t an income stream. One suspects the AVN is keen for an injection (pun intended) of donor dollars.
Recent failed COVID legal challenges
In June 2020, COVID conspiracy lawyer Nathan Buckley’s popularity grew when he advised Victorians to ignore lockdown directives. Eleven long months before AVN thought to raise money for COVID related legal challenges, Buckley had already suggested up to $10 million would be needed for a High Court challenge against Australia’s lockdowns. He further used the AVN playbook to propose action against flu vaccine legislation and No Jab No Play laws in South Australia. At the end of July 2021 he was still attracting attention in mainstream media.
Nathan Buckley reportedly raised over $575,000 via crowdfunding, to challenge vaccine mandates and public health orders related to COVID-19. An October report suggested he had raised $700,000. Both lawsuits brought before the NSW Supreme Court, targetting NSW health minister Brad Hazzard were dismissed by Justice Robert Beech-Jones on Friday 15 October. Buckley’s bizarre social media posts attacking Justice Beech-Jones and misrepresenting his findings, contributed to his suspension from the NSW Law Society. For the AVN, this meant Buckley’s generous donors were potentially available.
The efforts of Tony Nikolic and Matthew Hopkins of AFL Solicitors have also attracted a great deal of attention and donor dollars. Nikolic targeted Brad Hazzard and Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant. At one point antivaxxers contributed by publishing misrepresentations of evidence given by Kristine Macartney, the director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. The NCIRS published a statement addressing each item in the falsified court transcript. AFL solicitors, who had brought one of the suits, were moved to reject those antivax claims on Telegram.
After these cases had all failed, AFL and G&B joined forces in an attempt to force Australia’s Prime Minister to apologise outside the Polish embassy for “deceiving” Australians. The chosen location for the apology was based on COVID conspiracy theorists belief that “Polish government officials” had protested outside the Australian embassy in Warsaw. In fact the protest was not by government officials but members of a far-right political party, with a history of spreading COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracies. In another case challenging the human rights of vaccine mandates, Marcus Clarke QC representing plaintiffs, unsuccessfully called on Justice Melinda Richards to excuse herself from the trial.
Serene Teffaha of Advocate Me, reportedly raised over $654,000 before her practising certificate was cancelled in April this year. Even after this, her efforts continued to divert funds for vague and futile legal efforts, away from the AVN. Finally, Maatouks Law Group raised close to $100,000 for a NSW class action. At the beginning of September, Cam Wilson’s article in Crikey listed the main players crowdsourcing funds for eventually hopeless legal gambles. He rightly noted it’s not illegal to test the authority of public health restrictions. The text of his article captures the absence of transparency available to donors regarding the quality and integrity of expenditure decisions. There are many other examples, and appeals are still being heard.
This organised, well funded action based upon disinformation and rampant conspiracy theories, stewing on encrypted social media, overly seasoned with offensive personal attacks on anyone who dare think differently, is common. That’s high praise indeed as to free democracy in Australia. A fact that does not resonate with Meryl Dorey’s 20 November opening line to the AVN’s latest legal fundraising blurb. On the pages of Christian fundraising site GiveSendGo [Archive], we read:
Australia is in a tailspin – descending almost inexorably into tyranny.
Orphaned donors an opportunity for the AVN
“Tyranny” has been a well worn word for COVID conspirators during the pandemic. The AVN has given “Medical Tyranny” and “fascism” ample airing, as Dorey urged followers to donate in support of the fight for freedom, and as a reason to attend illegal protests during lockdown. The AVN had frequently promoted the efforts of Buckley, Teffaha, Nikolic and Hopkins. Nikolic had cited AVN antivax material in a long letter to Brad Hazzard. The AVN has watched these fraught legal efforts with scrutiny. Is it cynical to suspect that as legal challenges fell to “fascist medical tyranny”, eyes in the AVN bunker also noticed increasing numbers of ‘orphan’ donors had lost their cause for donation?
The fundraising blurb continues:
We are not able to travel from State to State or overseas, work in our normal jobs – even when those jobs are part of our own business, go out to eat, drink, to the cinema, dance, sing, or do just about anything else without agreeing to take an experimental jab that has already killed hundreds of our countrymen and women and injured over 80,000.
It is obvious to anyone who has observed what’s been happening over the last 22 months that our governments – State and Federal – are determined to remove every right our parents and grandparents fought for in many wars over the last 100 years or so.
We at the Australian Vaccination-risks Network (AVN) have watched this with great dismay, as we know many of you have done as well. We have participated in protests, made submissions, written letters and for the most part, though these actions have put the government and their bureaucracy on notice, their course seems to have been set and unchanged through it all.
Court cases have arisen and been lost – and others are ongoing – we wish them all well. Though we have informed people of these cases and done everything we can to offer whatever assistance we can to the organisers, the AVN has not personally gotten behind any of them.
Until Now.
We recently met with a legal team that has rendered a legal advice that has been reviewed by two eminent Australian and English legal minds, (a former Justice and a current QC), that the case has merit and, if it wins (there is never a guarantee) .. of completely turning the current situation on its head!
The AVN claim to feel so strongly they have donated $20,000 into the “AVN Judicial Review Fund of our instructing solicitors Irish Bentley”. That might sound generous and is intended to motivate donors. Yet we must remember the AVN 2016 High Court challenge against “tyrannical ‘No Jab, No Pay’ federal legislation”. According to their own emails and website, this ultimately left them holding a minimum of $80,000 and possibly close to $110,000. These figures vary because their own published totals of raised funds and apparent legal expenditure both varied significantly. Was $160,000 raised or $152,000? Was expenditure around $70,000 or was it $50,000? This disparity remains online and has never been explained.
Money from this remaining kitty that the AVN might claim was spent on antivax pursuits, distills into two efforts. In February 2019 the AVN advised members they had donated $5,000 USD to ecologist James Lyons-Weiler, to help fund his crowdsourced “Vaxxed vs unvaxxed” study. Published in the International Journal of Research and Public Health, it was quickly demolished [2] by critics of the new and dubious methodology. The study was retracted in August this year. In March this year the AVN advised that £4,000 was apparently donated to Professor Christopher Exley of Keele University in the UK. This was to assist his work into linking aluminium to neurodegenerative diseases, including the long debunked “vaccine-autism” trope. That money supposedly vanished in the midst of controversy that saw Exley leave Keele University in August this year.
The fundraising blurb attempts to justify their position in defending all Australians, whether vaccinated or not. It’s about freedom and slavery, no less.
Now is the time for ALL freedom-loving people – those who have taken the jab and those who have not; those who are staring down unemployment and those who are still able to work; those who want to protect their children and grandchildren and those who simply believe that the government’s rights stop at our skin – to pull together as one.
Whether you are able to donate $5 or $5,000, we need you now! And if you have no money to give to this cause, we need you to share this with everyone you possibly can – both here in Australia and overseas.
What we do here and now can have wide-ranging and positive influences on the entire world. There are more of us who believe in freedom than there are those who want to enslave us.
Cleaning Up Their Act
What’s notably different about this fundraising attempt is that the AVN have provided terms and conditions. They actually name real solicitors and refer to a trust account. It’s now clear to those who read the terms that the AVN is not a charity. That last point is a hard learned lesson that previously cost them significant funds. The 2016 High Court challenge ceased abruptly and the reason, is something the AVN has tried to keep secret. After announcing $160,000 had been raised, and that double that was needed, the AVN suddenly went silent. Three and a half months later, on Christmas day, they quietly revealed by email that, “counsel has advised us not to proceed due to the poor chance of success and the high costs of a High Court challenge”.
That was not accurate. What had actually happened was the AVN (then ‘Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network’) were advised of an upcoming NSW Fair Trading investigation into the fundraiser. The Australian reported the facts two days after the AVN had formally ceased fundraising. An August 2018 letter from Fair Trading, eventually advised then-AVN president Tasha David of the outcome. Essentially, the High Court fundraiser had indeed broken the law, but the AVN would not be prosecuted.
It included:
The Inquiry has found AVsN’s representations as to the money solicited on its website, and received by it, include a charitable purpose in that it purports to be for the promotion of education and learning. A copy of s. 9 of the Act is attached. […]
On this occasion NSW Fair Trading does not intend to initiate legal proceedings. However, AVsN must immediately cease the conducting of unlawful fundraising. If AVsN fails to comply, a further investigation may be conducted. If a future investigation finds that AVsN is continuing to conduct fundraising unlawfully, Fair Trading will consider appropriate enforcement action.
NSW Fair Trading investigations are bound by the limits of the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991. In simple terms that means they can act if non charities, such as the AVN, appear to be raising funds for a charitable purpose. By stating now that they are not a charity, the AVN hope to avoid accusations of unlawful fundraising and the promised “enforcement action”. Naming their solicitors, as opposed to previously alluding to anonymous representation, is something they had to do. For almost two years now, proposed crowdsourced legal action against public health directives and COVID-19 vaccination, has had names and faces. The AVN pre-COVID claim of needing secrecy to avoid revealing their strategy to the government and “the pharmaceutical lobby”, will no longer work.
I suspect that now having actual solicitors whose professional reputation is involved, means that a trust account has been strongly recommended. Legally, as the AVN is not a charity, the Charitable Trusts Act 1993 does not apply. In 2016 donors were asked to identify payments with the initials “NJNP”. All routes of deposit led to a long standing Westpac “AVN Community Solutions” account. There simply was no dedicated bank account, and if donors did not initial cheques, money orders or PayPal donations, the AVN advised, the money would be assumed to be not for the High court challenge and used as they saw fit. It may not be essential to provide a dedicated account for funds raised, but it is sound practice and the AVN have learned not only from their own mistakes and critics, but quite likely from recent critics of Serene Teffaha.
The Terms and conditions are as follows:
The goal is $300,000. Total to date since 20 November, is $123,040. Two realities have emerged with respect to recent legal challenges of this nature. The chance of success is unlikely in the extreme. The chance of significant profit is high. Item 10 in the terms and conditions allows the AVN to spend donor monies on what they may deem related administrative costs. Item 11 states that only donors who contribute over $500 “may elect” to receive a pro rata return from surplus funds, if over $5,000 is left.
If at the completion or cessation (for whatever reason) of the proceedings (which may include appellate proceedings) there are monies exceeding AU$5,000 remaining in the AVN Judicial Review Fund (i.e. surplus funds), donors who have contributed an amount greater than $500 may elect to receive a pro rata return from the surplus funds (i.e. their total donation as a proportion of the total funds raised). Any funds remaining after such pro rata return will be paid to AVN.
Following a complaint to the ABC in the wake of a 12 August interview with the founder of Reignite Democracy Australia, Monica Smit, Audience and Consumer Affairs concluded that it was a “serious editorial misjudgement”.
They found that ABC Far North Drive breached the ABC’s editorial standards for accuracy, harm and offence. A correction has been published and, after the finding is reported to the ABC board, it will be published under upheld complaints.
A post here on 18 August, examined in depth a series of bogus claims made by Smit (pictured), and touched on the importance of editorial accuracy. On 13 August I’d submitted a complaint to the ABC summarising the most significant points made in that post.
As mentioned in the post under Editorial Standards?, after the interview, presenter Adam Stephens did clearly outline his reasons for having Smit on. He thought it is interesting people hold such views and that, as evidenced by RDA pamphlet drops, some residents around Cairns had been swayed by Smit.
He also added:
Whether you wanted to hear from Monica or not there are people that are listening to her message, and sometimes it’s… I think worthwhile in actually learning about the motivations of some of these groups in our community, and some of the people that feel strongly enough to actually join groups like this and distribute their information.
This sounds reasonable, but the problem is that Smit is a skilled manipulator. She is well versed in faux justifications for anti-vaccine, anti-mask and anti-lockdown claims. The RDA site leaves no doubt that they present harmful and divisive claims backed up by legal loopholes and the misrepresentation of studies. At the time, Smit had already incited a number of illegal protests. It was clear she had no regard for community safety. It is a factor that ABC management should have proactively made clear to programme producers across the country.
In an ideal world, disinformation would be refuted on the spot. In reality, because Smit (and others like her) cover such a range of topics, and use obscure details, this is impossible. The answer is to never provide air time. A decade ago, anti-vaccination activist Meryl Dorey was given ABC air time to discuss an immunisation incentive. She used both opportunities to spread disinformation. Complaints were upheld and Dorey hasn’t been on the ABC since. Let’s hope a similar fate awaits Smit.
ABC Far North: On 12 August, ABC Local Radio Far North Drive interviewed a member of anti-lockdown and COVID-19 conspiracy group Reignite Democracy Australia (RDA). The program failed to explain that the interviewee had no medical or pandemic expertise; and that the group is anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination and encourages illegal lockdown protests. This context was material to the audience’s understanding of the issues to hand. During the interview it was stated that mask wearing is dangerous; this is inaccurate. The interviewee made repeated erroneous claims about important public health matters which were not adequately contextualised or corrected by the presenter. The program failed to take the opportunity after the interview to directly correct and debunk the claims made.
ABC’s editorial standards are covered in the Code of Practice. Ultimately, Audience and Consumer Affairs found that the interview breached the ABC standards for accuracy 2.1 and 2.2, and for harm and offence 7.1 and 7.6. The full email response from Audience and Consumer Affairs is below (with permission of ABC).
Dear Mr Gallagher
Thank you for your email regarding the 12 August edition of ABC Far North’s Drive with Adam Stephen, which featured an interview with Monica Smit of Reignite Democracy Australia (RDA). I apologise for the delay in responding.
Your complaint has been considered by Audience and Consumer Affairs, a unit which is separate to and independent of content making areas within the ABC. Our role is to review and, where appropriate, investigate complaints alleging that ABC content has breached the ABC’s editorial standards, which are explained in our Code of Practice. We have carefully considered your complaint, sought information from ABC Regional management and assessed the content against the ABC’s editorial standards for accuracy and harm and offence.
Drive has explained that local Cairns businesses had received flyers from RDA, and that they broadcast an interview with a business owner who expressed his frustration with the “irresponsible” behaviour of this group which would “put everyone else in danger”. Following this, the editorial decision was made to interview Monica Smit from RDA.
Audience and Consumer Affairs have concluded that within the context presented, this interview was a serious editorial misjudgement. Our findings are set out below against the relevant editorial standards.
Accuracy
2.1 Make reasonable efforts to ensure that material facts are accurate and presented in context.
2.2 Do not present factual content in a way that will materially mislead the audience. In some cases, this may require appropriate labels or other explanatory information.
As you explain, at no point was it made clear that Monica Smit and RDA have no medical or pandemic expertise, nor are they advised by medical experts. It was not made clear that their flyer and website provides no reputable or evidence-based information. Further, it was not explained that RDA is an anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination activist group which attends, supports and encourages illegal lockdown protests and other activities. This context was material to the audience’s understanding of the issues to hand and in particular to the credibility of the claims made by Monica Smit.
As you point out, Monica Smit made numerous inaccurate and unsupported statements in this interview which were not corrected or adequately challenged by the presenter. The claims made by Monica Smit regarding mask wearing and lockdowns were both alarming and erroneous. The interviewee was allowed to make repeated inaccurate claims about important public health matters which were not adequately contextualised or corrected. Further, the program failed to take the opportunity after the interview to directly correct and debunk the claims made.
Audience and Consumer Affairs have concluded that Drive breached the ABC’s editorial standards for accuracy 2.1 and 2.2.
Harm and offence
7.1 Content that is likely to cause harm or offence must be justified by the editorial context.
7.6 Where there is editorial justification for content which may lead to dangerous imitation or exacerbate serious threats to individual or public health, safety or welfare, take appropriate steps to mitigate those risks, particularly by taking care with how content is expressed or presented.
Audience and Consumer Affairs observe that reliance by listeners on the information provided by Monica Smit during this interview about public health orders was likely to cause harm. This includes the inaccurate information about mask wearing, lock downs and comments made by the interviewee on how to breach / avoid health orders.
The likely harm was not justified by the editorial context. Issues around groups like RDA are newsworthy to a degree, usually because of the threat or harm they present to the wider community and their illegal activities. An interview with a fringe activist with no medical expertise talking about public health matters requires very solid context and rigorous debunking; that did not happen on this occasion.
The material propagated by Monica Smit in this interview put RDA followers and the people around them at risk, and the editorial context did not justify the likely harm. The program did not take adequate care with how this content was expressed or presented, particularly in relation to accuracy.
Audience and Consumer Affairs have concluded that Drive breached the ABC’s editorial standards for harm and offence7.1 and 7.6.
ABC Regional apologise for this serious lapse in editorial standards. This matter has been discussed with the program team and a correction published here. In keeping with Audience and Consumer Affairs’ usual processes, this finding will be reported to the ABC Board and a summary published here.
Thank you again for bringing your concerns to the attention of the ABC. Once again I apologise for the delay in responding. Should you be dissatisfied with this response, you may be able to pursue your complaint with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (www.acma.gov.au).
Yours sincerely (redacted) Investigations Manager Audience and Consumer Affairs
Following the development and subsequent global rollout of successful COVID-19 vaccines one particular anti-vaccine trope has been delivered with increasing gusto. Namely that the administration of these vaccines is in breach of the Nuremberg Code.
This isn’t the first time the Nuremberg Code has been used by the anti-vaccination lobby in an attempt to argue against the legality of vaccination. It is however the most widespread use of this piece of disinformation to date. It also includes the threat that health professionals will be tried as war criminals. To arrive at the conviction that COVID-19 vaccination is in breach of the Nuremberg Code, a triumph of non-critical reasoning is necessary. Specifically that the vaccine rollout is an ongoing experiment and that recipients have not given informed consent.
The latter is a misguided application of the first point of the Code. Global, real time scrutiny of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout means recipients are better informed when giving consent than for any other vaccine in history. Whilst the first point of the Code includes the most lengthy accompanying explanation of all ten points in the Code, it opens with the requirement:
The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
Background
An early claim that vaccine recipients are denied informed consent can be found in a 1997 NBC interview with Barbara Loe Fisher and her related article on the NVIC website [Archive]. Loe Fisher provides five bullet points contending there is inadequate knowledge of injury, death, side effects, vaccine failure and that vaccination, “could reasonably be termed as experimental each time it is performed on a healthy individual”. The postulation at play here is that if such uncertainty exists then informed consent cannot be given. Another ambitious claim is that post-marketing surveillance of vaccines is “a de facto experiment”.
Further on in the article the Nuremberg Code itself is addressed and the deception immediately begins apace. Loe Fisher exploits the words of physician and ethicist Jay Katz. His work is included in Nazi Doctors and The Nuremberg Code – Human Rights in Human Experimentation. Loe Fisher selectively chose in part:
The rights of individuals to thoroughgoing self-determination and autonomy must come first. Scientific advances may be impeded, perhaps even become impossible at times, but this is a price worth paying.
As the tone indicates, this is a quote about human experimentation, not vaccination as Barbara Loe Fisher is suggesting. The article trots on to mislead readers that, “bioethicist Arthur Caplan concurred when he said”:
The Nuremberg Code explicitly rejects the moral argument that the creation of benefits for many justifies the sacrifice of the few. Every experiment, no matter how important or valuable, requires the express voluntary consent of the individual. The right of individuals to control their bodies trumps the interest of others in obtaining knowledge or benefits from them.
Jay Katz passed away in 2008. Arthur Caplan is a professor of bioethics at New York University and in June last year informed FactCheck.org that the NVIC use of his quote is “completely erroneous” and reflected “ignorance of history and ethics”. He also observed that it is:
… a gross disservice to the victims of brutal Nazi experiments to distort my words for lame anti-science that will kill people if this bilge is taken seriously.
The above quote is no doubt not lost on those familiar with the harm anti-vaccine activists ultimately achieve and the disrespect they so often reveal in doing so. It also brings to mind the reality surrounding the Nuremberg Code. It is the result of one of the Nuremberg trials that followed the Second World War. The Doctors’ Trial (USA vs Brandt) focused on 23 German doctors and administrators who performed unethical, inhumane experiments in concentration camps and 3.5 million sterilisations of German citizens.
The Nuremberg Code itself has a controversial history surrounding authorship and was largely ignored for 20 years following the Nuremberg trials. In The Nuremberg Code and the Nuremberg Trial: A Reappraisal, Jay Katz wrote that careful reading of the judgement indicates it was written:
…for the practice of human experimentation whenever it is being conducted.
The vaccine ‘experiment’
This helps us appreciate the importance of, and the rationale behind, insisting that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is an experiment. In the last post I covered another reason as to why the anti-vaccine lobby pushes this line. Namely to wrongly claim that hospital cover for adverse events following immunisation will be withheld by insurance companies on the basis that the vaccine is an “experimental treatment”. The trial it is alleged runs until 2023.
Helped by a widely disseminated video from the UK (here), misinformation regarding the Pfizer Phase III clinical trial is sustaining the belief that a long term “experiment” involves all vaccine recipients. This is demonstrably false. In fact the clinical study description cited in the video refers to the original participants who will be followed on a post-marketing basis until 6 April 2023. In a comprehensive 10 December 2020 article Pfizer report under Adverse Events:
Safety monitoring will continue for 2 years after administration of the second dose of vaccine.
In Australia Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination-risks Network has been quite vocal about Nuremberg Code breaches. She contends the “experiment” is admitted to by the TGA, FDA and European Medicines Agency. In fact the Australian TGA provisional approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine is valid until February 2023. This is almost certainly a source of added confidence regarding the false claim of an ongoing experiment.
On 13 March 2021 during Under The Wire (Source) Dorey spoke about, “crimes against humanity as determined by the Nuremberg Code” due to COVID-19 vaccine administration and the so-called ‘vaccine passport’. At one time she challenged, “if you even believe that COVID exists”. Download the MP3 here or listen below.
Meryl Dorey followed this with a firm message warning medical professionals. MP3 here or listen below.
War crimes
During the same episode Dorey presented a flyer (below) warning “all medical practitioners” involved in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout that they will be on trial for war crimes and held accountable. These flyers continue to be letter dropped, faxed and placed on car windscreens to reach doctors and nurses.
To suggest that medical practitioners will be subject to war crimes is as baffling as it is offensive. The claim is international and again hints at a massive break down in critical thinking. Only cursory reflection is needed to realise that administering a vaccine during peacetime cannot possibly constitute a war crime regardless of the human rights issues one may think apply. The Nuremberg Code reflects not only what happened during the Second World War but also the ethical standards that existed in Germany before the war.
Nuremberg Code and ‘No Jab No Pay’
Use of the Nuremberg Code as an argument against vaccination legislation was honed in Australia in response to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (No Jab, No Pay) Bill in 2015. The legislation ensures a childcare benefit, rebate and a tax benefit supplement will be withheld from parents of children under 20 years of age who are not fully immunised. This legislative amendment followed community concern in response to “conscientious objection” to immunisation.
Submissions to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs arguing against the Bill focussed often on the argument that informed consent would be denied. There are a number of examples and the following are indicative. Submission 511 offers further insight into the first point of the Nuremberg Code. Namely that consent should be:
…without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion.
And:
By refusing welfare payments to family’s (sic), this is a clear form of financial duress and coercion (and also over-reaching by Government). Some families rely on welfare payments to enable or assist them to provide for their family. To deny access to welfare payments is coercion of parents to subject their children to a medical procedure.
Submission 508 also refers to the first point of the Nuremberg Code and suggests that the Australian Immunisation Handbook, in its section on consent, reflects a hitherto unknown aspect of the Code. The author notes:
The Australian Immunisation Handbook reflects the Nuremberg Code is requiring valid consent as a pre-cursor to vaccination.
Another submission combined the My Will command with reference to the Nuremberg Code, the Australian constitution, the Immunisation Handbook and the 2005 Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights, Article 6, Section 1. Despite the use of so many references to rights and ethics (Submission 511 also cited the AMA code of ethics and the Victorian Charter of Human Rights) the submissions highlight a common flaw. No Jab No Pay is an incentive. Indeed to see it as active coercion and ignore the harm caused by vaccine preventable diseases is uniquely selfish.
As a testament to how the anti-vaccine lobby manage to keep alive the notion that vaccines constitute grave abuses of human rights we can see that Article 6 of the UDBHR has also been trotted out today for COVID-19 vaccines. A striking LTE in the Elko Daily alluded to the Pfizer clinicaltrials.gov information, the Nuremberg Code and the UDBHR. Article 6, section 1 states:
Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be expressed and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.
Despite the vocal insistence of an experiment being run without consent the main antagonists of the anti-vaccination lobby are aware this is a false claim. Enter the inane insistence that the COVID-19 vaccine is set to be mandatory in developed nations. The AVN still push the tired line that Scott Morrison aims to make it “as mandatory as possible”, despite his very clear walk back of that unfortunate statement. The next “march against mandatory vaccination” is set for 29 May 2021.
Nuremberg Code Today
As for the Nuremberg Code itself an adequate critique is beyond the scope of this post. Nonetheless, whilst it does reflect important ethical standards it is likely not legally enforceable. It has not been adopted by any government and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is more readily recognised. Of major importance in this regard is the CIA post 9/11 experimental torture programme that utilised unwilling human subjects. Critiques of the Code raise justifiable concerns from its acceptance of animal experimentation to the arguably ridiculous item five which states:
No experiment should be conducted, where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
Today the recognised standard for medical ethics is the World Medical Association’s Helsinki Declaration. It may be considered superior to the Nuremberg Code for one simple reason. That of regular revision. It has been amended seven times since June 1964. The most recent occasion was in October 2013.
Conclusion
The claim that COVID-19 vaccination is in breach of the Nuremberg Code is the most recent manifestation of an anti-vaccine deception that is probably over 25 years old. It is a falsehood that relies on calculated disinformation. Namely that vaccine recipients are denied informed consent and that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is an experiment. Social media has aided the dissemination of this claim and a genuine COVID-19 vaccine Phase III trial document is being misrepresented as confirmation of a global trial.
The Nuremberg Code was written at the time of the Nuremberg War Crime trials. As such, baseless threats that medical practitioners will be tried as war criminals are being circulated. The Nuremberg Code clearly refers to experimentation on human subjects and says nothing about vaccination. Submissions to state and federal parliament in Australia opposing the No Jab No Pay/Play Bill 2015 unsuccessfully tested the veracity of the Nuremberg Code in this respect.
As an ethical statement and historical document the Nuremberg Code is sullied by anti-vaccine disinformation. The claims are absurd, serving no purpose other than disruption of sound public health policy. The most recent incarnation targetting COVID-19 vaccines is rightly viewed as a conspiracy theory.
The COVID-19 vaccine is in fact an experimental medical procedure and because of this insurance companies have made void any claims relating to this “vaccine”.
The experimental trial in Australia runs until 2023 and thus it is only available due to an emergency use clause. Insurance companies are linking adverse reactions and deaths to this trial. As companies won’t pay out for injury and death due to experimental treatment it follows that such events following COVID-19 vaccination are not covered by hospital or life insurance.
Not a word of the above is true. Yet this notion is circulating on social media in the usual and predictable places. Despite it being demonstrably false and something one can refute for themselves in a few minutes, it is a notion with active supporters. Many others go further and contend that consent has not been given to be part of this experiment. Thus a breach of the Nuremberg Code is happening right before us.
Ethically relevant but not legally enforceable the Nuremberg Code remains semantically powerful. As such it is regrettably abused by anti-vaccine activists who have for years peddled the false claim that vaccines are not tested for safety and efficacy. It just so happens that global scrutiny of the development of COVID-19 vaccines also provided firm evidence of Phase III trials. This again refutes the anti-vaccine position and I touched on this last September. Yet as antivaccinationists are apt to do the facts have been twisted into falsehoods to support ongoing attacks on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and to boost claims of further breaches of the Nuremberg Code.
Now, whilst this post isn’t focusing on Meryl Dorey and the Australian Vaccination-risks Network, it just so happens that she can assist us. On March 13th during an error-packed Under The Wire, Dorey presented a detailed performance outlining the absurdities that constitute the Nuremberg Code fallacy specific to COVID-19 immunisation. You may download the MP3 here, or listen below.
All of the points above popped up today in a thread on a COVID freedom fighter’s Facebook page. Elle Salzone is a feverishly active defender of anti-science beliefs. Elle moves from business to business, scheme to scheme and presently pushes ClearPHONE. Salzone and buddies sell the phone, claiming it provides the privacy necessary for today’s freedom fighters. How reliable a service it provides is uncertain. Elle fights with and also films police over her refusal to wear masks or remain in quarantine when necessary. But that’s okay if you decide to be a Sovereign Citizen. Elle is anti-COVID related responsibility. You can peruse her page for details on these pursuits.
Today one of her posts [Update: quietly deleted on 8 April] was screenshot by a tireless defender of reason, and thus came to my attention. It turned out to be an obvious forgery from this Allianz Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and could be promptly demonstrated as such. The slideshow below is of the Allianz forgery and the two original parts of the document that were used in making it.
Salzone posts the forgery and states;
THIS IS EXTREMELY CONCERNING!!!!
Imagine getting the experimental shot thinking you’re protecting your health, then getting seriously injured and having no private health cover to help you and not being to sue because all vaccine manufacturers have been indemnified…
All to maybe protect you for a virus with a 99% Survival rate..
You literally can’t make this shit up..
“You literally can’t make this shit up”. In fact you can and in this case someone literally did. A quick search yielded the document in question. Even before presenting the original, un-cropped and pre-defaced, pages the text itself was screaming forgery. Insurance companies do not tend to torment font in that fashion. Apart from the caps lock, no policy section is referenced. Then there is the sneer at “vaccine” and the impossible consent self-infliction. Ouch! Finally at risk of boring you there’s that nagging bit about posting this most important development in the glossary.
Suffice it to say the above points were mentioned and a discussion took place.
Verified by multiple sources eh? The original source was “easily found” (comment now deleted) but Elle couldn’t find it. So screenshots of the original source were provided along with a link.
This resulted in an admission that it was posted in the knowledge it was a fake. Apparently however the information it conveyed is not only true but would be confirmed by Allianz if I checked;
For the record this forgery consists of four different screenshots from the original document pasted in a sequence that creates a misleading ‘preamble’ aiming to justify the bogus claims made beneath in added red font. The added text further presents existing terms from the Allianz PDS to construct a fraudulent disclosure statement. A significant amount of time and forethought has gone into this. It is a calculated work of disinformation that has succeeded in misleading vulnerable recipients of its message. The preparation date of the current Allianz Life Plan PDS is 5 march 2021. The date in the forgery is 31 July 2020, suggesting it could have been in circulation for some time.
Perhaps the most important aspect to look at is the claim that COVID-19 vaccines are part of an experimental “medical procedure”. This is frequently peddled by anti-vaccine activists and was also pushed by Meryl Dorey in the audio above. It is linked to other claims that the vaccine is not actually a vaccine. One contention is that mRNA vaccines are DNA modifying agents. Another is that viral vector vaccines [CDC] are completely experimental and also alter DNA. Despite available data on the molecular action, development, safety and efficacy of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines, antivaccinationists ignore this in favour of a conspiracy theory.
Viral vector vaccines are well understood due to decades of research and do not alter DNA. mRNA vaccines are also well understood and are incapable of altering DNA. The claim that COVID-19 vaccination is an experiment is often presented with the contention that the experiment will go on until 2023. Like all persistent falsehoods this has an element of fact to it. The reality is that in Australia both Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines have provisional approval from the TGA. The approval is valid for two years and the AstraZeneca vaccine will require review in February 2023. On 16 February 2021 the TGA stated;
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has granted provisional approval to AstraZeneca Pty Ltd for its COVID-19 vaccine, making it the second COVID-19 vaccine to receive regulatory approval in Australia.
COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca is provisionally approved and included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) for the active immunisation of individuals 18 years and older for the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2. […]
Provisional approval of this vaccine is valid for two years and means it can now be legally supplied in Australia. The approval is subject to certain strict conditions, such as the requirement for AstraZeneca to continue providing information to the TGA on longer term efficacy and safety from ongoing clinical trials and post-market assessment.
Reading the final paragraph above we can see also how the claim that data is still being collected for the experimental trial is peddled around with such confidence. Yet post-market assessment is a vital part to better understand all drugs and vaccines. There’s no trial, no experiment. It’s worth noting this fallacy is at times linked to another false claim. That of emergency use provision for the vaccine. This was a contention made by one Clive Palmer, deconstructed handsomely here by ABC corona check. Palmer has not alleged the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is an experimental medical procedure. Although he has pushed fear over the absence of one, three and five year safety data.
When it comes to hospital cover, insurance companies will not cover treatments for which no Medicare Benefits are payable. This includes cosmetic surgery, experimental treatments or experimental pharmaceuticals. Medicare will cover certain clinical research studies. For insurers if the device, trial or treatment is not recognised by Medicare or the Medical Services Advisory Committee it will be excluded from standard hospital cover. Still, there is insurance and indemnity available for clinical trials. This helps us understand why the term being used to misrepresent the COVID-19 vaccine is “experimental”.
Allianz also have a strong supportive position on the COVID-19 vaccine and like Bupa offer a comprehensive series of answers to possible questions. In a May 2020 article Allianz cover in depth the importance of research in developing a COVID-19 vaccine and the role of insurance for subjects in clinical trials. This is not what we would expect from a company that would deny insurance cover for adverse reactions post COVID-19 vaccine. Thus the claim by Salzone that refusal to cover is “verified by multiple sources”, in conjunction with the initial and consequent screenshot, appears to be disinformation. Insurance companies across Australia cover illnesses requiring hospitalisation following vaccination.
This leaves the obsession with claiming a 99% recovery rate as some type of stamp of insignificance. It is a rather tired trope having emerged about a year ago. This may also be linked to the frankly appalling claim that people die “with COVID, not of COVID”. Thus fatalities are incorrectly labelled an overestimation. Given this is pushed often by those who falsely insist vaccines kill and injure on a large scale it reflects a rather bizarre lack of compassion. As pointed out by USA Today the COVID-19 fatality rate is ten times that of influenza. More so it may be a serious diagnosis depending on age and health. To this we must add the emerging problems of ‘long haul’ symptoms perhaps in as many as 32% of those who have recovered from COVID-19.
In an interesting twist it was another wannabe COVID conspiracy-freedom-fighter who provided confirmation from Bupa that adverse reactions requiring hospitalisation are covered if their policy covers the treatment provided. It’s a bit of a story so another slide show is needed.
In the first image we see Bupa’s reply to anti-vaccine activist and COVID conspiracy theorist Matt Lawson, on social media. It outlines quite clearly that treatment covered by policy is available for adverse reactions post COVID-19 vaccination. In the next we see Lawson has engaged in a chat with ‘Cheryl’ from Bupa and presented this to Bupa on Instagram to challenge the prior response. The last screenshot was uploaded by Elle Salzone in the thread we’re discussing as another example of an insurance company denying cover to injury or reaction after COVID-19 vaccination.
Yet viewed in context we can see that during the chat Lawson supplied his policy number (image 3). So ‘Cheryl’ was answering in a specific sense, relative to his policy. This is absolutely in line with the claim made by Bupa in image 1 and also with feedback I’ve received from Bupa Australia. Still, image 2 reveals Lawson’s ill-informed, provocative reaction. The theme of acting with aggressive predetermined agendas is ingrained in the new age COVID conspiracy theorists. Matt Lawson reveals his conspiracy theory thinking when he writes;
Do you cover injuries caused by the convid19 experimental biological injection or not?
This comprehensive article reveals Bupa’s support for the COVID-19 vaccine and is in line with the position of global health authorities. There is no suggestion Bupa view the vaccine as experimental. Quite the opposite.
The letter mentioned in Lawson’s Instagram chat with Bupa Australia is circulating in social media within Australia. Within the Elle Salzone’s Facebook thread the image was uploaded twice, in support of the Allianz forgery. One commenter stated, “Another example shared of a void policy”. The second observed, “I think Bupa were one of the first…”. The image is below.
The text is as follows;
23 March 2021
Dear [redacted]
Thank you for speaking to me.
I confirm that side effects arising from the COVID-19 vaccine are not covered under our exclusion for: Complications from excluded or restricted conditions/treatment and experimental treatment exclusion.
If you are injured whilst doing COVID-19 swab yourself, cover would be available towards the injury.
I hope this information is helpful. If there is anything else we can help you with, please call our team on the above helpline number.
Yours sincerely
[signature]
Even if genuine, this letter has no impact on Australians. Peering at the Bupa letterhead we can confirm it is from Bupa Place in Salford Quays, Manchester U.K. Anti-vaccination activists will contend that the first paragraph confirms that side effects and complications from the COVID-19 vaccine are excluded from cover because it is an experimental treatment. The second paragraph conveys that insurance cover is available if one is injured, “whilst doing COVID-19 swab yourself”. In the U.K. home test kits are available.
Australians can also dismiss this as here it is illegal to advertise testing kits for serious infectious diseases. The TGA have a very clear warning to consumers and advertisers on their website. Thus there is no reason for Bupa to even consider such cover in Australia and Bupa members can disregard the letter and its claims.
Still, anti-vaccine claims are global in their reach, as is social media. If we take a cautious and in depth look into the origins of this letter there are different possible conclusions. It is a poorly written fake or a badly written follow up with a customer. Neither confirm the claim of an uninsurable experimental vaccine.
Bupa U.K. explain excluded and restricted cover in this Bupa Membership Guide [Archived]. This document provides a likely source for the information that the author presents with notably poor grammar. The opening paragraph is difficult to grasp. It may be that English is not the author’s first language.
With respect to the terminology used in the letter, on page 35 of the U.K. Bupa Membership Guide we find;
Exclusion 7 Complications from excluded conditions, treatment and experimental treatment
We do not pay any treatment costs, including any increased treatment costs, you incur because of complications caused by a disease, illness, injury or treatment for which cover has been excluded or restricted from your membership. […]
We do not pay any treatment costs you incur because of any complications arising or resulting from experimental treatment that you receive or for any subsequent treatment you may need as a result of you undergoing any experimental treatment.
On page 38 we find under Exclusion 16 Experimental Drugs and Treatment, this paragraph;
Please also see ‘Complications from excluded conditions/treatment and experimental treatment’ […]
There we have it. The text could have been copied and pasted in an extremely poor customer follow up, and that’s it above. Or copied and cobbled together in a dodgy forgery. The antivaccinationist lie of an uninsurable experimental vaccine is quite vocal on social media in the U.K. Yet under the glare of fact it is a demonstrably pointless effort.
In the U.K. COVID-19 vaccine side effects are covered under the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme, established in 1979. This provides no-fault compensation for Adverse Events Following Immunisation. It is possible that offering cover is not an option for insurance companies. Either way, side effects are not covered by Bupa U.K. So it may well be that treatment of complications is classified as restricted and/or excluded regarding hospital cover.
The most important point here is that the COVID-19 vaccine is not an experimental treatment. Yet this letter is being pushed in Australian anti-vaccine circles to contend insurance companies are of the view it is experimental. Whilst a bogus claim, the overall forgery scam is reinforcing that claim in COVID conspiracy circles.
Bupa Australia are aware of this letter and have taken the chance to assure those who ask (such as the argumentative Matt Lawson) that cover is certainly available. When I raised this specific issue I was informed by Bupa Australia;
Private health care in the UK and Australia can vary greatly. But rest assured that our members will be covered for any hospital admission following an adverse reaction to the COVID vaccine, as long as the service is included in their cover, and any waits have been served.
Ultimately all the anti-vaccine points put forward by Elle Salzone and others on her Facebook page are demonstrably false. A search for insurance cover and COVID-19 vaccine adverse events yields results from around the world, not just Australia. For example cover for AEFI after the COVID-19 vaccine is available in Singapore whilst there’s a WHO compensation fund for people in developing nations suffering side effects. In general, insurance companies are involved in many areas specific to the COVID-19 vaccines, including in China where they are looking to cover adverse reactions.
Sadly some Facebook visitors to Elle Salzone’s page, who take her word on trust, are absolutely convinced of the dark side as this reply to me, packed with five pieces of misinformation, confirms. [Note – this is not from Salzone but a vulnerable visitor].
Sigh. Still all hope is not lost. As the well-known phrase from the X Files reminds us:
Losing In The Lucky Country 