Tag Archives: Meryl Dorey

Vaccination conspiracies in blind hyper-drive

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

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
John F Kennedy Meryl W Dorey

Well, New Yorker Meryl W. Dorey has seized it recently and displayed it on her antivaccination Facebook page out of context. So she may have this brief credit. It’s a standard of conspiracy theorists as a visit to Google will confirm. It has of course nothing to do with government secrecy over the public as Dorey seems to have assumed. As with a huge number of Kennedy’s speeches he is alluding to his full term foe – communism – as the reference to free examination of “an open market” suggests.

Kennedy has easily become the US President to be most quoted out of context. Speeches sliced up and overlaid to conspiracy clips, heading up cooky websites or as here, just thrown out amongst fetid posts and paranoid misinformation without another word. No explanation is needed for the (as we’re so often told) “more highly educated” vaccine deniers. Vaccines to them are proof of government cover ups and the malignancy of faceless agents across the world. They squeeze it into the Orwellian nightmare of fluoride drugging, chemtrail poisoning and hidden cancer cures. If Roxon’s incentive to immunise has shown us one thing, it’s that their grab bag of conspiracies was at the ready.

One speech conspiracy quacks love to shred is one of my favourite Kennedy deliveries. Address 153 The President and the press [Audio here]. It’s brilliant stuff, and rightly so. Kennedy’s task that night was to celebrate freedom of the press in a democracy to an audience not short on critical representatives of the press. To respect their role in holding government to account. To place their independence above the duration and mechanics of government. To support and accept media scrutiny. To speak of shared responsibilities. Yet most importantly to impart the knowledge of the huge responsibility this freedom brought to the press during the Cold War.

He pointed out enemy agents had boasted of accessing information usually obtained through bribes or espionage (such as satellite technology) and, “that details of this nation’s covert preparations to counter the enemy’s covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike”.

He needed a change in publisher outlook. He points to newspaper patriotism and loyalty. Their understanding of sacrifices that civilians are willing to bear. But he would be failing his duty to not bring to attention the inherent quandary of a free press watched by an enemy and the need of patriotic, self sacrificing newspaper publishers to weigh present dangers.

Kennedy notes Francis Bacon spoke of three inventions that changed the world. The compass, gunpowder and the printing press. His final paragraph is:

And so it is to the printing press–to the recorder of man’s deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news–that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

Now let’s visit the mind of the Meryl Doreys of this world. Who claim as she did once that we’re controlled by “a sinister cabal of interbreeding criminal families”. The Illuminati pop up when it suits her also. These secret societies are so powerful it is beyond comprehension. Human beings are controlled like cattle – sheeple. These faceless people control governments, information and wealth keeping us sickly, poor, ignorant, in need. They run the media. Decide what we watch on TV. They seek to cull the human population. Vaccines are a means to do everything from forcing us to comply to being sheeple to injecting microchips at birth that will scan and monitor humans. We are in effect Guinea Pigs.

Imagine you’ve been fed this and more. Shown so-called proof. Imagine you almost believe it. You watch a “documentary”. Scenes of wars and human misery slowly numb your critical faculties. A sprinkling of facts. Yes, BMW did profit from war. Dick Cheney did privately profit from supplying troops in Iraq. Newspaper identities have run campaigns to shape the outcome of elections. A mushroom cloud appears for no apparent reason. But you get the meaning. Evil. The world is evil.

Images of corporations, drug companies and the seats of government. Then the words below begin to play as a background soundtrack. Half way through an new scene appears. An open topped car we know well. A smiling man in his prime. A boulevard in Dallas. An exploding head. An assassination. The words are Kennedys from his address to the press and refer to communism. But you aren’t told this.

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings.

And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning…  Our way of life is under attack. The survival of our friends is in danger.

For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice… its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.

… I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

… that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

The meaning is unmistakable. Kennedy was onto The Illuminati and the faceless ones. The repugnant secret societies. This “monolithic and ruthless conspiracy”. With Kennedy relying on honesty and our help humans would realise their destiny and become “free and independent”. So, they killed him. You’ve never heard of this because as Kennedy said, the conspiracy “relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence… its preparations are concealed, not published. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised”.

Of course it’s an oldie but a goodie. A standard for New World Order conspiracies. It surfaces in one form or another time and again. In understanding the rank falsehoods and intractable devotion of anti-vaccine conspirators we can learn a lot from the above. The power of the free press can be gleaned from the fact Kennedy had to ask for acquiescence to considering a change in tactics as a matter of national security. To think people today argue that the media are agents in a malignant scheme of vaccination doing the bidding of governments and pharmaceutical companies is patent absurdity.

Yet we’ve had plenty of it this last week or so with the AVN getting airplay for their falsehoods and fears. Dorey has cried foul that the government and media are not leading with advice to conscientious objectors. She lied on air and online so hard about pertussis vaccination it’s hard to not imagine some infants being struck down as a direct result. Government coercion and government cover ups were her messages. Conspiracy! Her flying monkeys attacked and harassed any journalist who defended vaccination.

When the Fluvax debacle hit W.A. supporters of conventional medicine were horrified at the event then outraged at the contributing factors. Conversely a satisfied glow emerged from the antivaccination lobby. Yet the most vocal critics of drug company power and TGA apathy are medical professionals. Perhaps the most successful in Australia is also a regular at skeptic gatherings.

When Natasha Bita won a Walkley for her coverage of CSL’s poor manufacturing standards and shortfalls in the TGA Dorey posted on her Facebook page:

Natasha Bita wins the Walkley Award for her coverage of the Australian flu vaccine scandal! Times are changing!

Again the message is unmistakable. Journalists don’t normally report on vaccine or regulator problems. This is an aberration or signs of turning a corner. At the same time Dorey and fellow conspiracy theorist Judy Wilyman were accusing the media of being beholden to their drug company commissions and reporting biased messages on Roxon’s Immunisation Incentive. One Facebook member wonders how much “underground” work Bita did and “perhaps risking her safety at times”. She would have worked alone, “…where one person like this can feel insane and give up the fight for truth”.

Truth? Insanity? Glad he mentioned those points. At the time Virus in the system was written Meryl Dorey published an “Action Alert!” on Facebook, Yahoo! and Twitter. It contained the bald faced lie that supporters of vaccines were “mobilising” to attack Natasha Bita for simply reporting the facts. In Dorey’s twisted conspiracy world that would be routine. When journalists report facts supporting vaccination or about the effects of not vaccinating, Dorey attacks. Anger, vicious language, persecution and vitriol to put it mildly. The “monolithic and ruthless conspiracy” she believes in is all powerful. There can be no discussion.

But vaccine supporters did nothing. Dorey, claiming to be oppressed, suppressed and maligned, had no mud to throw. Using reverse psychology she posted these false warnings, urging her fellow devotees to bombard Natasha with praise. Apparently vaccine supporters and skeptics did NOT want the media covering this from a freedom of choice point of view. Freedom of choice? I mean… I don’t even…

There are few better examples of a conspiracy theorist caught red handed exploiting their own members than this. Sure it doesn’t have sliced up Kennedy quotes as a voice-over but the concept is the same. Serve it to the paranoid mind and it will stick.

Meryl Dorey’s Fake Yahoo! Twitter and Facebook Action Alert!

Click, read, be amazed

There can be no doubt Natasha Bita produced some great journalism. She exposed inexcusable apathy on the part of the TGA which is only made worse by Dr. Rohan Hammett’s defensive position at a Senate estimates hearing. She highlighted wasted money, government obstruction and ran a front page story on a youth who developed polio-like symptoms from oral polio vaccine. CSL’s failure to supervise Good Manufacturing Practice and their thumb twiddling until FDA representatives arrived to ultimately threaten revocation or suspension of their licence was galling. TGA attempts to cast this as almost routine were laughable. Complications such as polio like symptoms from OPV are rare yet well known and rightly deserve compensation. It made for great reading because most Aussies do not follow vaccination intricacies and would find this almost incomprehensible.

Although she now occupies a shrine for antivaccination devotees Natasha Bita confirmed nothing of their beliefs nor conspiracies. She did not find sanitation, not vaccination, reduced disease. She did not uncover any link to hidden deaths, diseases, disabilities or the big one – autism. Her entire story grew from the widely known fact one child suffered permanent injury and a nine times higher febrile convulsion rate followed administration of Fluvax to under five year olds. Anaphylaxis? Not a single case. Pertussis vaccination doesn’t work and this has been demonstrated around the world, as Dorey told ABC? No.

Mercury – not ethyl mercury is in vaccines? No. Aluminium and formadehyde poisoning children? No. Human cells floating around? No. Aborted fetal cells? No. A trail of untested vaccines? No. Secret monolithic societies? Hidden cancer cures? Proof of immune suppression? Proof vaccines do not work? Proof they all make people sick? Proof they are the cause of all allergies and the so-called “sickest generation in history”? No. In short, you think of a vaccine conspiracy and Natasha did not find it.

There were four failures and one deficiency at CSL specific to one influenza vaccine uncovered by the arch nemesis of vaccine deniers, the FDA. Hence problems with what is broadly known as Good Manufacturing Practice. Natasha Bita actually “uncovered” nothing here – the letter is publically available on the FDA website. This was crucial to her story and her publication of it’s import was swift and to the point. I probably couldn’t agree more with the sentiments she raised on this issue. But to hear the antivaccination crowd you’d think Bita broke into CSL Mission Impossible style. That she downloaded crucial top secret files before abseiling out a window clad in black leathers to her waiting Ferrari. She just escaped the black helicopters touting blazing machine guns with her uncanny driving skill, quietly slipping into work without a hair out of place.

Even reporting on Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation members Professor Terry Nolan and Peter Richmond of the National Health and Research Council having honoraria and advisory board ties to CSL, took a phone call to the Health Department. That they were involved in drug company sponsored trials and worked as investigators on CSL’s child H1N1 trials may be because they are, to quote Bita, “eminent researchers”. All conflicts of interest are declared and taken into consideration.

Yet to the devotees this is Big Pharma proof. Who would they suggest? Viera Scheibner? Judy Wilyman? Peter Dingle? Fran Sheffield? Simon Floreani, Isaac Golden or Nimrod Weiner? Let’s face it. Like any life long discipline the top jobs attract the top people. There is going to be overlap and to suggest this always leads to malignant outcomes and the control of “sheeple” says more about the true believers than intricacies of research institutions and business boardrooms. As fate would have it, others are well aware of this. Regulation is the key. Which is why regulators, their income source and their powers are absolutely crucial in the current environment.

Which brings me to another Facebook member who links to Natasha Bita’s article AMA urges watch on vaccines, writing, “and she’s continuing to stand up to them”. Stand up to who? This is a statement from the president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr. Steve Hambleton. Isn’t he pretty much “them” in a nutshell? He’s easily one of “them” and is echoing the concerns of medical supporters in that public trust has been damaged by the Fluvax issue. He is acutely aware of the spread of misinformation into vacuums that could be better filled by facts or dynamics that are conspiracy resistant. Dorey’s paranoid member fits the quintessential conspiracy profile of spotting one or two words and reacting like a programmed machine.

The article includes what is in effect the Last Post for yet another vaccine myth. That GP’s are in on the conspiracy:

DOCTORS demanded more monitoring of vaccine side-effects yesterday after the federal government announced penalties for families who fail to immunise their children.

Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton said the government must introduce “active surveillance” to monitor side effects instead of relying on doctors and patients to report problems through “passive surveillance”.

For a vaccine, you are taking healthy people and trying to keep them healthy so surveillance of the side effects is doubly important,” Dr Hambleton said.

“We need to maintain confidence in the program. We can’t just say to people, ‘Don’t worry, it’s safe'” [….]

Dr Hambleton said doctors strongly supported immunisation to protect children against life-threatening illness.

But he called for taxpayer funding of Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which is entirely funded by user-pays charges on the pharmaceutical industry.

He said the TGA needed to work “better and quicker” to ensure prescribing advice to doctors always included the most up-to-date data on clinical trials and side effects.

“We have to make sure regulators do their job,” Dr Hambleton said. “We do rely on the TGA for good quality, independent advice.

“Everything the TGA does is in the public interest so it should be publicly funded to do the extra work and notify the public of any changes that do come up. If it can’t do what it needs to do, we need to ask why.” […]

Vaccination protects against “life-threatening illness” and we need to maintain public confidence. It’s a smart move. Roxon’s method will only do so much to arrest falling vaccination rates. It will also do plenty to give conspiracy theorists “sheeple” leverage. Giving the anti-vaccine mob less and less to seize upon and fill with conspiracy twaddle is essential.

For Dorey and her ilk there may never be any hope. People must escape these belief systems much as one escapes a cult. They can’t be forced to change and in the main need help. Consider the person who introduced the above story. “[Natasha Bita’s] continuing to stand up to them”. Yet the story is not novel journalism but a mere AMA report. It supports immunisation as effective, promotes the TGA as acting in the public interest and shows doctors wanting better and faster information so they can continue to immunise without concerns.

Yet all these idiots (and I mean that nicely) on Facebook, including Dorey do not respond or correct or even comment. It’s just a dumping ground for quackery related to Natasha Bita’s Walkley, and that means victory over vaccines. Standing up to the monolithic and ruthless conspiracy. If Dorey did her homework she’d know the piece also contains an aim of her hated foes “the skeptics”. That being independent funding of the TGA. And I’m happy to admit that will help expose the fraud and inefficacy attached to the alternatives to medicine that the antivaccination lobby so often profit from.

The quote from Kennedy used by Dorey, above, is actually prefaced by, “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values”. Strangely enough, most untruths and distorted claims used by vaccine deniers exist because they have accessed such facts, ideas, philosophies and values. The abuse of package inserts is perhaps the golden example of what conspiracy theorists do with facts about vaccines. They craft fiction and spread it far and wide.

The truth is vaccine deniers cannot be entrusted with facts. Now, in possession of Natasha Bita’s facts and information followed by Roxon’s incentive, they have hit hyper-drive. Saba Button has been exploited by those who would see a nation of sick children. They don’t see good journalism dealing with the dynamics of a public health debacle. They see “us and them”. Whatever problems ultimately lay at the feet of the Fluvax scenario, none will question the efficacy of vaccination as a public health measure.

None will challenge the horror of what vaccine preventable diseases can do. None will justify the rise of vaccine preventable disease and the deaths of babies from flu and pertussis. Nothing will ever emerge to support the claims of the antivaccination lobby and their alternatives to vaccines. Nothing they do will ever make Dorey’s lies on ABC or the misrepresentation of Natasha Bita’s work factual. Yet to win support, they don’t have to. All they need for their conspiracy to bloom is a seed of doubt.

Which reminds me again of Kennedy, speaking to the press in 1961:

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country’s peril. […]

But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Given recent advantage taken of Bita’s work and ABC air time those words resonate rather strongly here today.

Meryl Dorey’s ABC of immunisation incentive lies

Posted in Denialism, Health, Legal by

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then the distortion about pertussis again [bold mine]:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dorey also said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to Embiggen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Won’t they ever learn?

Textagate: telling lies can be profitable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meryl wrote:

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

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

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

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

She continued on with Textagate:

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

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

Is anyone keeping tally on the lies?

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

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

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

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

Thank you? Really? Thank you!? Sigh…

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don’t believe her for a second.

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

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

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

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

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

She writes in a conspiracy piece on her blog:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We read fiction:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Measles: A Gift from a Goddess?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gift from a Goddess? I call cow dung.