Tag Archives: Meryl Dorey

Alternatives to medicine continue to sail a wave of misinformation

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, Big Placebo, Health, Legal, Meryl Dorey by

Every week up to a thousand Australians are dying in the public hospital system alone from adverse reactions to properly prescribed medication and hospital borne infections and medical error. This is the elephant in the room. If the government and medical community are really concerned about the health of Australians, why aren’t they doing something about this obvious, um, huge cause of death in Australia instead of worrying about measles?

Meryl Dorey, anti-medical science lobbyist – October 19th, 2013

The arguably spectacular misinformation Meryl Dorey pushes as an antivaccinationist, comes often as what can most kindly be called an utterly ridiculous mantra designed to promote fear of scientific based medicine.

double standards

This was in response to eight infant fatalities associated temporally with Hepatitis B vaccination in China. Regrettably China’s growing success with mass hepatitis B vaccination has now met a challenge. Fortunately in China the medical community is working effectively with the evidence and training they have. Despite the unambiguous harm HBV has caused China and the success of HBV vaccine programmes worldwide, Dorey commented on Facebook as seen above.

I won’t overly review Dorey’s claims on medical error and hospital borne infection. Although (updated in December 2011) a 2009 report from the Australian Group on Antimicrobial Resistance cited Commun Dis Intell 2011;35(3):237–243, and notes in the Abstract (bold mine):

Given hospital outbreaks of CA-MRSA are thought to be extremely rare it is most likely that patients colonised at admission with CA-MRSA have become infected with the colonising strain during their hospital stay.

We can place the general figure on medication in context by looking at adverse reactions. The TGA reporting system kicked off in the late 1960’s becomming computerised in 1972. As 2011 came to a close there were 247,000 suspected adverse events in the TGA database. It’s also worth adding that a primary aspect of “medical error” is indeed that of Adverse Drug Reaction, making Dorey’s claim somewhat meaningless.

Adverse reactions_TGA_drop shadow

Origin of Adverse Events 2006 – 2011 (TGA)

In 2011 the TGA received approximately 14,400 reports with 52% from pharmaceutical companies, 12% from hospitals, 7% from General Practitioners (GPs), 18% from State and Territory Health Departments and 3% from consumers. The sources for other reports (8%) include community pharmacists and specialists.

Placing the scale of insult inherent in Ms. Dorey’s deceit even more in context we should note that the TGA received an average of 1,200 reports each month. This includes all events – not just those involving mortality. More so the TGA receive data from six sources with the category of “hospital” enveloping public and private. The Department of Health and Ageing regards hospital outbreaks of community-associated MRSA as “extremely rare”.

Thus, Meryl Dorey’s 1,000 fatalities per week in Australian public hospitals appears to be beyond tenuous.

However there are a number of problems facing those taken in by the growing trend of “natural” or “alternative” choices to medicine. Not only is there growing evidence of harm, the absence of any efficacy at all is frequently documented.

Seventeen year old Christopher Herrera is one of a growing number who face organ damage, organ failure or death thanks to herbal supplements each year. In his case a “fat burning” dietary supplement resulted in liver damage. Initially placed on a transplant list, Chris was able to keep his liver but his lifestyle is now markedly compromised.

The New York Times report that such supplements account for 20% of drug related liver damage. This is a three-fold increase from a decade ago and comes from a review of the most severe cases in the USA. Evaluators believe the actual figure is higher. As is the case in Australia a lack of strict regulation standards for these products result in over-inflated claims, not backed by evidence, and the potential for adulteration of the product itself.

This December 17th, The Annals of Internal Medicine published three conclusive articles on both the harm and inefficacy linked to alternatives to medicine. An editorial Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money On Vitamin and Mineral Supplements, summarised the research.

After reviewing 3 trials of multivitamin supplements and 24 trials of single or paired vitamins that randomly assigned more than 400 000 participants, the authors concluded that there was no clear evidence of a beneficial effect of supplements on all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, or cancer.

In another instance the efficacy of daily multivitamin usage to prevent cognitive decline in just under 6,000 men aged 65 or older was evaluated.

After 12 years of follow-up, there were no differences between the multivitamin and placebo groups in overall cognitive performance or verbal memory. […] … compatible with a recent review of 12 fair- to good-quality trials that evaluated dietary supplements, including multivitamins, B vitamins, vitamins E and C, and omega-3 fatty acids, in persons with mild cognitive impairment or mild to moderate dementia. None of the supplements improved cognitive function.

Another study looked at supplement with high-dose, 28-component multivitamins involving 1708 males and females who had previously suffered a myocardial infarction.

After a median follow-up of 4.6 years, there was no significant difference in recurrent cardiovascular events with multivitamins compared with placebo (hazard ratio, 0.89 [95% CI, 0.75 to 1.07]). The trial was limited by high rates of nonadherence and dropouts.

The authors note that research into vitamins and minerals in the prevention of chronic disease “have consistently found null results or possible harms”. Data from tens of thousands of people in randomly assigned trials show “β-carotene, vitamin E, and possibly high doses of vitamin A supplements increase mortality”.

Yes – increase mortality.

Later they stress most supplements do nothing when it comes to preventing chronic disease or death and with no justification for use, should be avoided.

An audio summary of these editorial points can be accessed here.

An audio summary of the editorial is below, or an MP3 may be downloaded here. (Firefox Users. If you’re using the Bluhell Firewall add-on click “allow” as the file is quite safe).

Thus whilst the anti-vaccine and anti-medical science lobby continually manage to distort discussions on the value of conventional medicine, the evidence is time and again not in their favour. We are either hearing of the dangers of modern medicine itself or the wonders of natural concoctions.

Both trends are dangerous and fallacious.

Meryl Dorey chats about the AVN name change

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Legal by

On November 25th the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal upheld an order from the Office of Fair Trading that The Australian Vaccination Network Ltd. change it’s name to reflect it’s role as an antivaccination lobby.

Below are a couple of interviews with Meryl Dorey that haven’t received wide coverage. Dorey of course argues the AVN is not anti-vaccine.

Steve Price of 2GB interviews Meryl Dorey on the ADT decision.

mp3_mic

Download MP3 here.

 

 

 

 

Meryl Dorey on the ADT finding that AVN change it’s name

http://youtu.be/RTVSw_-AQoE

False Balance: Where dissidence does not belong

Posted in Denialism, Health, Science by

Due weight.

Two simple, but arguably very important words in that they can be found in the Editorial Guidelines of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Journalistic guidelines regularly refer to due impartiality, and rightly so. Consumers subject to the bias of reporters are in for something like the pure fancy that comes from End Time Radio, Natural News or (where “freedom of choice is not free”) Vaccination News.

Under Impartiality – Breadth and Diversity of Opinion, the BBC Guidelines include:

4.4.1

Across our output as a whole, we must be inclusive, reflecting a breadth and diversity of opinion.  We must be fair and open-minded when examining the evidence and weighing material facts.  We must give due weight to the many and diverse areas of an argument.

Under Impartiality – News, Current Affairs and Factual Output:

4.4.12

News in whatever form must be treated with due impartiality, giving due weight to events, opinion and main strands of argument.  The approach and tone of news stories must always reflect our editorial values, including our commitment to impartiality.

The reason I’m focusing on the BBC is because of a direct link to false balance. Australia’s ABC have no parallel and our Australian Broadcasting Standards don’t contain specific attenuation of minority views getting a free ride on the coat tails of the prevailing or scientific consensus. That’s not to say either set of standards is not a useful device in underscoring or complaining about the mess of false balance. It’s just that the BBC have shall we say… history.

Presenting Wonders of the Solar System in 2010, Professor Brian Cox was explaining the impact Jupiter’s gravity has on Earth. He delightfully included in his narration, “Despite the fact astrology is a load of rubbish…”. Dedicated followers of woo complained. One stressed Cox didn’t allow the “alternative opinion”. And before you smirk dear reader, it is that astrologers use “observation and knowledge built over thousands of years”. Oooh yeah. They haz Appeal to Antiquity.

Cox provided a statement to the BBC, which they decided not to publish.

I apologise to the astrology community for not making myself clear. I should have said that this new age drivel is undermining the very fabric of our civilisation.

This example of how complete nonsense is put forward as equal, or even superior, to schools of thought and theories that are in fact completely settled opens the December 2011 BMJ Editorial by Trevor Jackson, When balance is bias. [Dropbox] [BMJ 2011;343:d8006 doi:10.1136/bmj.d800].

The BBC asked Prof. Steve Jones, emeritus professor of human genetics at University College London, to review the BBC’s impartiality and accuracy of their coverage of science. As one might guess from scanning Australian and British journalistic codes with their liberal peppering of “impartiality”, it was the impact of “due impartiality” that worried Jones. He found the guidelines:

… had a distorting effect, creating a sense of equivalence where there was none, and privileging maverick and dissident views so that they appeared as valid as established scientific fact.

Jones found in areas of science that journalists risked giving the impression there were two equal sides to a story when there were certainly not. By insisting to bring “dissident voices” into settled debates within science, the BBC was guilty of giving an unbalanced view to these same areas.

Jackson’s editorial notes the disastrous effect Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent paper had on the uptake of MMR is in part due to media impartiality. The BMJ reported in 2003 on a study that indicated the media effectively misled the public.

The BBC reported in part:

Most people wrongly believed that doctors and scientists are equally divided over the safety of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, according to new research carried out during the high profile public debate over the vaccine last year.

At the height of the media coverage the impression was created that medical scientists were split down the middle over the vaccine’s safety, including reports of links with autism, say the study’s authors, from Cardiff University.

The report found that 53% of those surveyed at the height of the media coverage assumed that because both sides of the debate received equal coverage, there must be equal evidence for each.

It said only 23% were aware that the bulk of evidence favoured supporters of the vaccine. The authors said their survey would revive the debate about media coverage of MMR and how journalists deal with “minority voices” within science.

The belief that scientists were divided over the safety of MMR was a direct result of journalists seeking balance and led to what we now know as false balance. Face palmingly, head deskingly, infuriatingly, unacceptably in the case of vaccines, it is still underway today. Even worse journalists are dusting off long settled topics and where they should be stressing deception, suggest “debate”. In the video below an individual who is effectively a public health menace was appallingly labelled as an “expert”.

Even if these terms are not utilised in the straight out fashion Channel 7’s Weekend Sunrise recently did, everything is in place for the public to be misled into thinking actual scientific dissent exists over the safety and benefit of vaccination. Indeed today, the moral bankruptcy that accompanies antivaccinationists exceeds those who were taken in by Wakefield. The science is clear. There is no debate to be had. This places the antivaccinationist in a very unique position. A position of denial and deception buttressed by repeated claims of corporate conspiracies and so-called natural alternatives.

This latter rubbish is fed to the public because the natural enemy of the anti-vaccine commentator is scientific consensus. Given an opportunity to deceive the public the antivaccinationist can now introduce a host of irrelevant and false claims which in the context of an interview will create doubt in the minds of the public. In the video below Weekend Sunrise have an unqualified, science illiterate, conspiracy theorist effectively presenting nonsense in response to advice from the Director of Australia’s National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance.

Thanks to Channel 7 and @sunriseon7 members of the public may well have been misled. Farmer’s wife Meryl Dorey wants to “extend the hand of friendship” to the NCIRS and conduct a study into vaccinated vs unvaccinated. Yes that meaningless, shrivelled old cherry again. Quite simply it leaves a scam artist looking as though they have skill when they don’t and offering one side of a balanced debate, when in fact that debate simply doesn’t exist. There is certainly no need for an impossible study, but the public cannot know this.

The previous point is one scientists need to keep in mind when asked to appear alongside unqualified saboteurs of public health. There’s nothing that can be said in a few minutes that can assuage the damage done by elevating a skilled prevaricator to your own level in the eyes of the public.

Trevor Jackson concludes in his BMJ editorial:

Meanwhile, some science journalism will continue to be weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Until the notion of due weight becomes just as, if not more, important than impartiality in journalism and science reporting, we need to ask ourselves if those without any weight or those advancing scam debates deserve to be heard at all. Clearly, and helped along by the precedents outlined here by reasonablehank, the answer is no.

Channel 7 have previously presented a scientist “debating” a proven anti-vaccine zealot. True, these enemies of reason are challenged by journalists as to the flaws in their beliefs. Yet that is not the issue. The more often members of the anti-science lobby are given a pedestal from which to preach, the larger will be the percentage of the community that believes a genuine topic of scientific dissent exists. As with climate science, fluoride in drinking water, evolution, conventional medicine and more. In the case of vaccination there simply is no debate.

Vaccination saves lives.

Peter McIntyre and Meryl Dorey on Weekend Sunrise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-E4OChkXw4

Measles Goddess’ Wrath Hits Victoria

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Scam by

Victorian Chief Health Minister, Rosemary Lester offers 30 seconds of wisdom concerning the present measles outbreak in Victoria:

Or download MP3 here

As an outbreak of measles reaches 10 cases in Victoria we can be certain of one thing.

The misinformation peddled by antivaccinationists over the years will be underscored as just that. Misinformation. From ridiculous to dangerous these snippets of so-called wisdom have included claiming “measles” means “a gift from a goddess” in ancient Sanskrit, to measles being the cause of the growth spurt that happens to correlate with the most common age for childhood infection.

In the first instance a check of the link to Sitala Mataji – originally the smallpox goddess worshipped in Pakistan, Northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh – shows the divine influence to be malignant. Just as Sitala was burned by a carelessly forgotten stove, she randomly picks children in anger and burns them from within to punish the mortal.

Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network argues that as just one of the diseases that have “beneficial aspects… prevention may not necessarily be in the best interests of the child”.

Dorey would tell her audience using large slides:

Called “gift from a goddess” in Sanskrit measles can help to mature the immune system, may help to prevent auto-immune illnesses such as cancer, asthma and allergies later in life

In reality the Sanskrit word, “masuurikaa” translates variously as smallpox, measles, eruption of lentil shaped pustules, lentil, and procuress (female procurer). There is absolutely no evidence that infection with wild measles primes the immune system against cancers or allergies. Such claims belong firmly alongside the lie that certain potentially fatal and disabling diseases are “rights of passage”. Regarding pertussis and measles Dorey famously informed a national T.V. audience:

My mother used to put me with all the neighbourhood kids when they got these diseases so we would get them and get them over with and be immune. And there was no fear, there was no worry about it. We just got them, and we were supposed to get them and we did, and we were healthier for them. Now we have a medical community that’s saying if you get measles, if you get whooping cough you’re going to die from it. Well, where is the information from that? You didn’t die from it thirty years ago and you’re not going to die from it today.

In fact with measles the risk of encephalitis is at least 1,000 times greater from measles infection than from vaccination. Prior to the success of mass vaccination:

Measles was once a common childhood disease in Australia, and medical practitioners were well acquainted with the “fever, generalised maculopapular rash, cough and conjunctivitis” syndrome that equated to a measles diagnosis. Measles complications, particularly bronchopneumonia and otitis media in children, were commonplace. With so many cases in the community, relatively uncommon severe complications, including acute encephalitis (1 in 2000 cases), subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (1 in 25 000 cases), and death, were also encountered.

There is nothing “marvellous” about measles as suggested by a despicably misleading book. Aside from the sliding scale of disability cruelly dealt by encephalitis one or two fatalities per thousand infections is normal.

The overwhelmingly positive impact of mass vaccination can be seen in the catch up programme documented here as The Australian Measles Control Campaign, 1998. There are no conflicts of interest declared by the 12 authors.

The Abstract reads:

The 1998 Australian Measles Campaign had as it’s aim improved immunization coverage among children aged 1-12 years and, in the longer term, prevention of measles epidemics. The campaign included mass school based measles-mumps-rubella vaccination of children aged 5-12 years and a catchup program for preschool children. More than 1.33 million children aged 5-12 years were vaccinated at school: serological monitoring showed that 94% of such children were protected after the campaign, whereas only 84% had been protected previously.

Among preschool children aged 1-3.5 years the corresponding levels of protection were 89% and 82%. During the six months following the campaign there was a marked reduction in the number of measles cases in children in targetted age groups.

Six pages in on page 887 of the Bulletin of The World Health Organisation 2001, 79 (9), we find this table:

Notifications_preandpostOzControlCampaignThe authors note that whilst there was no immediate reduction in the number of cases in the six months following the campaign, there was a notable reduction in the age groups targetted by the campaign. Following 1.7 million MMR doses during the campaign, there were 89 Adverse Events Following Immunisation. 80 children followed up recovered without sequelae. Nine could not be followed up due to confidentiality restraints associated with ADRAC. The benefits were not seen in “untargetted” 12-18 year olds.

As one of the largest initiatives in Australia’s immunisation history, the MCC was deemed demonstrably effective. The authors wrote:

Each of the studies in this evaluation confirmed that the campaign was highly successful, particularly among preschool and primary-school children.

Graphed data including the impact of the MCC can also be seen here (Victoria 1962 – 2004) and here (Australia 1991 – 2011). The profound impact of the introduction of a second dose in 1994 is also clear in the second graph.

The two clusters in Victoria currently reflect one distinct arrival from overseas and a source traced to a domestic flight. A disturbing case in S.A. in August 2011 resulted in two distinct warnings stemming from just one overseas arrival. The only reliable defence against jet-setting viruses and wide scale outbreaks is herd immunity.

The need for ensuring oneself is vaccinated against measles goes without saying. Particularly as exposure to someone emigrating or returning from a part of the world where measles is poorly controlled is quite simply a matter of chance. In Measles Immunity in Young Australian Adults, Gidding and Gilbert write in Conclusion:

Based on the most recent national serosurvey data available, there are 2 cohorts with levels of immunity below 90 per cent — those aged under 6 years in 1999 (born in 1994-1999) and those aged 18-22 years in 1996-98 (born in 1974-1980). Only persons aged 30 years and over in 1996-98 (ie born before measles vaccine was available) had immunity levels above 95 per cent.
These results indicate the ongoing need to improve vaccine uptake in infants and suggest that a vaccination campaign targeting young adults would be beneficial.

If we wish to attenuate measles outbreaks to state level – indeed Victoria itself – we can examine a 2005 review by Becker et al. Monitoring measles elimination in Victoria, brings into sharp focus how damaging a drop in herd immunity can be, given that outbreaks – including this one – begin with importation of the virus.

The University of QLD authors sought to use “evidence from outbreak data that Victoria has achieved, and is maintaining, elimination of measles”. They wrote:

Conclusions: The data provide strong evidence that Victoria has maintained elimination of measles over the period 1998 to mid-2003. There is scope to improve the immunisation coverage. It is not clear how much outbreak intervention is contributing to the success in achieving apparent elimination.

Implications: To prevent importations from causing a major epidemic of measles, Victoria must maintain its immunisation coverage and outbreak control at current levels, or better. It is important to monitor the control of measles even when elimination is achieved.

Time and again we see the need to maintain herd immunity via mass vaccination. Lyn Gilbert wrote in June 2011 that researchers have presented evidence that measles has been “effectively eliminated” from Australia, “as well as from Finland, the United States, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Canada and Cuba”.

Elimination of measles is a viable goal for a number of developed nations. The stability of elimination has slipped further from our grasp for reasons including increased importation, socioeconomic realities and the feverish efforts of antivaccinationists. Measles is a potentially fatal and entirely preventable disease that also leaves many sufferers with lifelong disability.

It’s a public health disgrace that the measles virus can arrive in Australia to meet willing hosts who have been misled into risking their own or their children’s quality of life. That this is compounded by a demographic that experiences poverty and social trauma is a negative dynamic that health authorities should strive to rectify.

It is important that a calm measured approach is taken in educating the community about the dangers of measles and effectiveness of MMR immunisation. Also, strict and lasting penalties need to be dealt to homeopaths and chiropractors (to name just a few peddlers of alternatives to medicine) who profit from risking the lives of innocent Aussies.

The wrath of the goddess Sitala Mataji is something Aussies can do without.

The antivaccinationist need for an enemy

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

At various times I’ve touched on the anti-vaccine lobby manifesting a type of pseudo-neoconservative approach in sustaining an urgency of fear.

Scientific skepticism has proven a ready Enemy Of The People. Rolled out by antivaccinationists as existing to suppress our rights, free choice, free speech and even democracy itself. The rather vacuous notion that the scientific method is a flawed ideology appears a necessary sale. It is an essential component of the uncritical thinking peddled by Meryl Dorey and Co. that ultimately makes up evidence denial.

A certain PhD candidate reaching new heights in vaccine denial at the University of Wollongong is supervised by a professor who is not merely a member of the Australian (anti) Vaccination Network. His depreciation of the scientific method to just another “paradigm”, is embellished by a deft understanding of the devaluation of “targets” and the provocation of outrage and distrust in the eyes of onlookers. This last aspect lends itself splendidly to accusations of oppression, abuse, bullying, threats, censorship and corruption along the lines of Big Pharma and the Pharma Shill.

Apparently once having devalued critics and targets enough you can take risks with simple decency. Take this observation (August 24th) from Meryl Dorey, founder of the AVN Inc. Meryl has this year sought Apprehended Violence Orders from authors who wrote on the Internet what she deemed unacceptable. Hmmm. More on that later.

Love in a brothel

With mass vaccination, evidence supporting not only its efficacy but a thunderous victory in the risk-benefit equation is abundantly clear. To contend that there is a “vaccination debate” surrounding scientific evidence or the relevant disciplines is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty. Worse still, to continue to massage the staple arguments against vaccination is to risk the health of others across the entire community. Faced with the present evidence vacuum and obvious perpetration of such towering immorality, the antivaccinationist would be wise to apply pseudo-neoconservative philosophy.

In March 2004 the Central European University hosted a lecture on terrorism entitled, There shall be no Security without an Enemy: Terrorism, Neo-Conservatism and Modern Governance. Whilst clearly focusing on the danger of terrorism, it is this piece of the synopsis that relates to the ever-present conspiracy theory driving fear and distrust of vaccines:

Against a faceless and stateless enemy, modern powers could find themselves caught up in an uncontrollable spiraling that threatens their founding premises.

In Taking The Fight To The Enemy: Neoconservatism and the age of ideology (Lexington Books, 2012), Adam Fuller underscores the fear of the “Technocracy”. Those familiar with AVN supporter, conspiracy theorist Leon Pittard of Fair Dinkum Radio, will perhaps recognise his use of that term and also of “Scientocracy”.

mp3_mic

You can catch Meryl and Leon chatting here.

Or download MP3 here.

Whilst antivaccinationists may not seek to convince us our way of life is under dire threat from a destructive enemy, the faceless enemy eroding the essence of our freedom, rights and way of life makes up much of their narrative. It is the cultural aspect of neoconservatism that manifests most notably in their conspiracy theories. You may be familiar with Health Fascism. Or Dorey and radio host Tiga Bayles likening Australia to a communist nation, claims of death threats to suppress vaccine truth, vaccines do not work, vaccines kill and injure and so on.

G.M. foods, fluoride in water, other “toxic” processed foods and medicines, hospital births, evidence based medicine and more are all open to a similar cultural slur. These areas are presented as a loss of our right to choose. “Health Choices” are under threat. As I noted above there is no sustainable argument that vaccines are unnecessary or possibly responsible for any of the chronic diseases antivaccinationists attribute to them.

The vast majority of parents can see through this. Yet there is always a case for trying to convince the public that it may be forced to do something – even if it would have chosen to do so anyway. This is ideal for devaluing “targets” and evoking outrage. Enter the ever-present lie of imminent “compulsory vaccination” which Meryl Dorey has been profiting from since February 2007.

A perfectly molded neocon’ fear that the enemy within is waiting to ensure you do what they want. That you do not say “no”. Except of course it is false. When pressed, Dorey defends by claiming it is health workers she is fighting for. But in reality Dorey has targeted the public with this irrational and unnecessary fear for years. Consider these slides from just over 5 years ago.

Inverell slide1

Whos next iverell

Inverell_YouandYourFamily

FROM MARCH 2008 – INVERELL FORUM

By Meryl Dorey

A typical example of this outright deception occurred courtesy of the AVN Inc., on the heels of Meryl Dorey losing her second vexatious AVO case this year. The first loss was on April 26th this year. On August 24th, Dan Buzzard defendant in the most recent case wrote:

The end result?

Case dismissed, costs application against Ms Dorey for just over $11,000. The system works.

Pleas for financial donations on Meryl’s behalf were predicted within social media. Yesterday this post appeared on the AVN Facebook page. See Update below:

AVN misrepresent Di NataleNow, that isn’t signed by Meryl Dorey (the AVN president is Gregg Beattie) but a reply 20 minutes later is:

DoreyReply_DiNatale postAstonishing. The claim that Dr. Di Natale had claimed the Green’s policy and that of both major parties was for compulsory vaccination. Then a call for donations and membership. Immediately after that a call to write to local members to voice your outrage at this impending policy, because “we may be a minority but we will not be silent!”.

What I’d read in late June about Dr. Di Natale’s involvement in passing a Senate motion for the AVN to disband did not suggest he was a bloke careless enough to be passing headline secrets to members of the public. I tweeted yesterday with this link and the Facebook screenshot above, to which Dr. Di Natale replied earlier today.

DiNatale_mandatoryvaxThey are shameless. Of course there’s no truth.

Indeed. Dorey is now in need of money and the above indicates the lengths she is prepared to go to. Deceiving members – check. Deceiving the public – check. Dishonest raising of donation funds – check. Lying about an Australian Senator – check. Urging readers to waste time and annoy their local members – check. Advertising subscriptions for a defunct magazine – check.

One thing seems sure. There may well be no security in the pursuit of anti-vaccine ideology without an enemy.

That doesn’t bode well for public health.

August 27 UPDATE: Yesterday Stop The Australian (anti) Vaccination Network posted this revelation:

It has been brought to our attention that the following response from Senator Richard Di Natale was sent to AVN President Gregg Beattie in regards to the latest AVN grab for cash to fight the non-existent push for compulsory vaccination:

Dear Mr Beattie,
I am writing to you regarding recent claims by the AVN about my position on compulsory vaccination.
As I have made abundantly clear with the AVN in the past, neither the Greens nor I support compulsory vaccination.
The AVN’s recent claims about my views are merely the latest in a long and shameful history of malicious falsehoods. Your attempt to raise funds off the back of these claims is another low and desperate act by an organisation rightly condemned across the political spectrum and the wider community.
Yours sincerely,
Richard

UPDATE 2: news.com.au – AVN Campaigner ordered to pay $11,000 in costs:

Greens health spokesman and doctor Senator Richard Di Natale has condemned a blog post by Dorey in which she claims he supports making vaccination compulsory and then appeals for donations.
The Senator has written to complain and told News Corporation “I take issue with the fact she has misrepresented my position and used to try and make money from the lie to fill the coffers of the AVN,” he says.
“Our policy is that vaccination is one of the most effective public health measures ever introduced, but in the end people have a choice whether to vaccinate their children but that choice should be based on accurate information,” Senator Di Natale says.
Ms Dorey declined an opportunity to comment on her loss in court yesterday.