Tag Archives: vaccination

Tracey Spicer talks vaccine conscientious objection

Posted in Denialism, Health, Human Rights, Legal by

In all cases, those infected were not fully immunised

– The Cambelltown measles outbreak –

Are antivaxxers “nutters” or “freaks”?

So disastrous has the denial of vaccination for vulnerable infants and children been, that such frustrated descriptions come up time and again. Parents who seek reputable information are left in no doubt that vaccine denial is ill informed and a mistake of significantly high risk.

As the consequences of the anti-vaccine movement more and more take the form of outbreaks of entirely preventable disease, a greater percentage of Aussies looks upon vaccine denialists with disgust. Regrettably the fierce combative stance of vaccine denialists is probably feeding the rising disdain across the community.

The measles outbreak which began in Cambelltown NSW in May led to this article in the Herald Sun on August 15th. Sydney Schools on Disease Alert:

The health scare involving 40 cases concentrated in the Campbelltown area comes as new medical research shows a record number of parents are refusing to immunise their children.

Ten of the reported cases in the South West Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD) have put sufferers in hospital in the past two months.

The majority of those affected have been school-aged children and babies under 12 months old. The Department of Education confirmed four high schools and a number of primary schools had circulated letters of warning to parents.

In all cases, those infected were not fully immunised.

According to Australian Doctor 30,882 parents have objected to the immunisation of their children. 6,000 of the 2 million children on the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register have no vaccine history at all.

As I’ve noted before, enjoying a standard of health that allows the luxury to worry about improbable, irrelevant or indeed, imagined responses to vaccination is truly a marker of their success. In addition the drive and confience for individuals to take control and make decisions about their health is also a positive trend.

The problem, indeed the absolute sabotage of both these trends, are the wild conspiracies aimed at vaccination and the outrageous scams on offer for those who do explore management of health. Regrettably, hand in hand, these two factors have cultivated an anti-science mentality that carries the power of indoctrination.

Today, towering ignorance reigns for many when it comes to “health choices”. Thanks to an industry of stupidity, we are left with parents screeching and snarling for the right to harm their children and to treat them with snake oil. The results can be seen above.

On the same day the above piece was published Tracey Spicer filled in for one of the Murrays on 2UE’s The Two Murrays.

“That terrific group Stop The AVN…”. (Tracey Spicer)

Tracey and Murray spoke to Dr. Jason Cooke on the vexed issue of vaccine denial. Tracey mentions, “that terrific group Stop The AVN”. Here here!

Listen below or visit chirbit here.

Access the MP3 directly here.

Meryl Dorey fights to keep misleading title

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Legal by

I have seen evidence that there was even an attempt to have me deported from Australia via complaints to the Dept of Immigration…

– Meryl Dorey adds another angle to her profile as a Freedom Fighter –

Not for the first time, a salient point was serendipitously driven home on the Facebook page Stop The Australian Vaccination Network.

Last Friday night a young lady unleashed some criticism that highlights the cunning purpose of the Australian (anti) Vaccination Network’s name.

Apologies for the overt racism in there. This is far from the neatest example but it does show how persuasive first impressions can be. No doubt this has been Meryl Dorey’s intent all along. To divert attention away from her role as an antivaccine lobbyist.

Simply claiming to not be antivaccine is rather pointless however. Years ago (circa 2005) the proud antivaccine conspiracy group Vaccine Truth made a mockery of the USA NIIC phrase. Meryl took the opportunity to lift the same phrase straight from them.

Before becomming the Australian Vaccination Network in 1996, her group of antivaccine lobbyists was the Vaccine Awareness Network. Thus I was slightly amused to see an AVN contributor suggest to Meryl they switch to “Australian Vaccine Awareness Network”. More amusingly this was supported by Meryl’s most vocal Pit Poodle.

The misleading name has secured media attention and a cornucopia of false balance. Genuinely concerned and in-need parents have been fooled. People have donated money believing advanced safety testing of vaccines was an AVN priority. They scored a Charitable Fundraising Authority. Life was quite comfortable until Stop The AVN formed and exposed schemes, scams, fraud and theft.

This led in part to an investigation by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission. It found that the AVN website:

  • 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

Under the Health Care Complaints Act 1993, the HCCC had recommended the AVN put an unambiguous disclaimer on its website to convey:

  • The AVN’s purpose is to provide information against vaccination, in order to balance what it believes is the substantial amount of pro-vaccination information available elsewhere.
  • The information provided by the AVN should not be read as medical advice.
  • The decision about whether or not to vaccinate should be made in consultation with a health care provider.

Whilst the AVN insist that the HCCC findings were “overturned” on appeal, this is not the case. A Supreme Court ruling found the HCCC had acted outside it’s jurisdiction in posting a public warning. Ms. Dorey’s aim to have the findings abolished was firmly rejected. The HCCC public warning was removed.

The AVN disclaimer is available here, which essentially covers the points sought by the HCCC. There is thus no doubt. The AVN is an antivaccination lobby group. They are antivaccine, against vaccination, purport to offer alternatives to vaccination and falsely claim to posses a “data base” of vaccine injuries.

Recently as Dorey promoted her latest conspiracy-themed seminar series there was renewed focus on the salient point in question. What Jane McCredie has referred to as:

This country’s most prominent anti-vaccination group, the confusingly named Australian Vaccination Network…

Medical Observer recently reported under Anti-vax lobby rejects AMA call for a name change:

Australian College of Midwives executive officer Ann Kinnear told MO her organisation forwarded an email invitation to an AVN event to about 1400 NSW members before angry midwives told her the Health Care Complaints Commission had in 2009 declared AVN an anti-immunisation lobby.

“Subsequent information that’s come to hand has made me realise it’s a mistake,” Ms Kinnear said. […]

“If a major health organisation understandably is taken in, members of the public would have little hope of realising that they were not accessing independent, credible advice,” AMA (NSW) CEO Fiona Davies said.

Dr Brian Morton, chair of the AMA’s council for general practice, said AVN’s name was “duplicitous, it confuses the public, they are anti-vaccination and they certainly don’t report the evidence”.

Last weekend a suitably tabloid themed heading from the Sunday Telegraph carried some further developments. Doctors unite to smash the anti-vaccine group:

NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner and Fair Trading Minister Anthony Roberts have been urged to force the change on the NSW-registered group in a letter signed by Associate Professor of La Trobe University Dr Ken Harvey.

His call is backed by experts from the Australian Medical Association and the University of Sydney.

As the AVN is registered with the Office of Fair Trading the government can in fact order a name change.

Dorey of course continues with the line the AVN is not antivaccination but “pro-choice”.

Predictably Ms. Dorey has afforded her critics ownership of the term “smash”, despite it appearing only in the headline of the story.

She must have been delighted. In a rambling, stumbling diatribe Dorey included:

They would have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to date trying to “Smash” our small, volunteer-run organisation… We are David to their Goliath and because we stand for truth, freedom and democracy… […]

The idea that a group of doctors can unite to SMASH an organisation that questions a medical procedure sounds more like economic protectionism than true concern to me.

Wait. Economic protectionism? As in restriction of international trade? Subsidising locally produced goods or produce? Taxing imports via the application of tariffs? I think, comrade, that Meryl has been hanging out with her fellow freedom fighters at Conspiracy Central a bit too much.

Which gets to the reasons a name change has become more and more an issue of public safety. The AVN has become less and less about opposing vaccines and merely spreading fear and confusion on the topic. This is the result of a hard working group of volunteers, concerned GPs, medical organisations, certain journalists, reputable parenting forums and the self sabotage of the AVN by Meryl Dorey herself.

Today Meryl Dorey can be found on conspiracy podcasts playing laser tag warriors with some of the more unhinged members of society. If not skepgoating individual skeptics as part of an organised hate group, it’s absurdities such as the above claim that, “hundreds of thousands of dollars” has been spent targetting her alone.

The constant criticism of conventional medicine is commonplace, as is quite evident in this “media release” . Setting out to send a message of defiance on name change, it again squeezes in the notion of being “under attack”.

Let me choose one example to drive home how antivaccine Ms. Dorey really is. Here’s an ABC article warning on the dangers of co-sleeping, including Baby Talk audio. On July 6th, the ABC also reported criticism from the Victorian coroner regarding inconsistent warnings. Almost half of all sudden infant deaths involve co-sleeping. The coroners criticism was welcomed by experts in the field.

Here is Meryl Dorey advising a member of her group in November last year:

Yesterday Meryl sought to encourage another member to contact the families of SIDS cases to “find out if the children were vaccinated before their death”.

Dr. Ken Harvey would appear to be completely correct in his observation that, “The deceptive name of the organisation has potentially deadly consequences”.

Quite so, and this is simply one example that carries a single insight into how far out of step Dorey is with safe advice. More so, the AVN is less and less representative of adherents to alternatives to medicine and even genuine vaccine opponents. As polarising as certain choices clearly are, few Aussies accept there is a war to be fought or that General Dorey is their leader. Added to this is the reality that many new parents are now well aware of the AVN’s lethal, conspiratorial approach.

I’m not sure what the AVN should be called. Something in ancient Sanskrit maybe? Just don’t dare suggest they’re antivaccine.

What would ever give you that idea?

Kerryn Phelps’ support for vaccination is timely and welcome

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Big Placebo, General, Health, Human Rights, Scam, Science by

On January 30th this year Radio National Breakfast aired a lively discussion between Professor John Dwyer, co-founder of the newly formed Friends of Science in Medicine and Professor Kerryn Phelps, President of the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association and prior AMA head.

As it so happened the AVN were delighted with the interview, discussing it on February 3rd. They immediately set to work sculpting an armour for Dr. Phelps to wear into battle for “Health Freedom”. The AVN had no doubt. If you support alternatives you would never vaccinate, their president reasoned.

In answer to an anti-medicine anecdote, Meryl Dorey commented at the time:

It just shows you [redacted], that people will pay for health but you can’t give them sickness for free no matter how hard you try. Doctors hate the competition. They know that people like yourself have left mainstream medicine because you have found something that works better. But that can’t be allowed so the scientocracy that we live in will try to control the situation so you no longer have the choice. This is what we are fighting against and it has to be all of us – healthcare consumers and healthcare organisations. If you use a natural health practitioner, get in touch with them and ask them to find out what their national organisations (CAA, ATMS, etc) is doing about this situation. It’s not the time to sit on their hands and hope it goes away. It’s time to fight!
MD

The day Dr. Phelps and Dwyer were on air Dorey published on healthcare choice, falsely accusing FSM of seeking to shut down alternatives to medicine and drive consumers into the prison of her imagined Scientocracy. I didn’t expect to revisit this article so shortly. Nonetheless… In what may be mistaken for a description of Mordor under the whip of Sauron she began:

There is an organisation in Australia which hates every natural therapy. They hate the healthcare practitioners and they hate the healthcare consumers who ‘turn their backs’ on Western medicine in favour of a range of other modalities which put no money in their pockets and take away their prestige. Worst of all, they hate anyone who chooses not to use vaccines! That is the ultimate heresy, as far as they are concerned.

But it’s OK – because they have a plan and they have the money and media backing, they think, to bring this plan to fruition. This group, the Australian Skeptics, has been instrumental in setting up the organisation, Stop the AVN.

Now, they are working on a new initiative – and this one is more ambitious then just stopping a small, parent-run community support group. Now, their goal is to stop anyone in Australia (today Australia – tomorrow the world as far as this bunch of ratbags is concerned) from learning about or using natural therapies. Their mad campaign is getting plenty of publicity too!

They have just set up a new front group called Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM) which is behind the new effort to outlaw the teaching of any natural medicine course in University. This organisation ultimately wants to shut down homeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathy, herbalism, ayurvedic therapies and on and on. In their unspeakable arrogance, they claim that there is no evidence for therapies which have been used safely and effectively, in many cases, for thousands of years. Instead, they say, we should all be forced to exclusively rely on mainstream medicine with its dreadful record of poor safety and effectiveness!

By February 17th, Dorey was using Kerryn Phelps as a proxy figurehead for this nonsense. As someone who uses the term “alternatives to medicine” and cringes at the “integrative” semantics, I don’t agree with Dr. Phelps on many non conventional medical issues. Yet Dr. Phelps’ Uclinic is unmistakably professional. Was Dorey serious or just ripping off Dr. Phelps’ image? Was a prior head of the AMA honestly backing Dorey’s new attack on FSM? On conventional medicine? On vaccination?

I tweeted, and seven minutes later received an honest, slightly baffled reply:

Oops. Rather tactless of me. But, as Meryl had written on February 8th:

Excellent observation. It continued to come true.

Predictably, Meryl Dorey had forged a fiction around Dr. Phelps’ role as President of the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association. It must have chafed somewhat to be reminded Dr. Phelps is a GP, supporter of vaccines, proponent of necessary vaccination rates and “diametrically opposed” to the activities of the AVN.

A close follower of the #StopAVN tag, this must have shattered Meryl’s very black and white world view of health care and practice. One is either against the evil of medicine or a skeptic and actively involved in a plot to enslave humanity to illness. At least that’s the battle cry we see in place of actual evidence to challenge evidence based medicine.

Could it possibly get any worse for Dorey? Dr. Phelps wouldn’t retweet anything from strident Dorey critic, that nasty Mia Freedman would she?

Oh.

Poor Meryl has to absorb someone with extensive experience could be a GP, proponent of non conventional medicine and conventional medicine, opposed utterly to the AVN whilst actively supporting and promoting vaccination. Still Dorey peddles homeoprophylaxis and is fanatical about the long dead association between autism and vaccination.

Last night Dr. Phelps happened to tweet in conversation:

@Havenr64 is convinced vaccines do cause autism and took umbrage to an article Dr. Phelps had written in Medical Observer ♣. Entitled It’s time we objected to conscientious objectors, it is a splendid article with excellent timing. Most importantly however is that Kerryn Phelps is a real doctor, with actual research and a life time of genuine experience backing her.

Health consumers who are cautious of conventional medicine or interested in “alternatives” would do far better to seek similarly well balanced advice. Those questioning vaccination, and not trusting their GP, would also benefit enormously from seeking advice through the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association.

The last person to trust is Meryl Dorey or her Australian Vaccination Network. Dorey profits from ensuring you will not trust vaccination. In truth your “health freedom” or choice is abused from the moment you make contact. If you believe the path to making sound choices on vaccination is to donate money to fund a “fight” between imagined forces, you have been conned handsomely.

Nicola Roxon and Jenny Macklin announced the Stronger Immunisation Incentives last November. It was a poor read of the antivaccination movement. Dorey seized immediately upon the option of conscientious objection not being promoted as the primary variable by the government. Claiming details weren’t present at all in Roxon’s announcement, they were actually prominent in the centre of the text. Still, today Dorey has exhaustively promoted how to receive the immunisation incentive without having children immunised.

Kerryn Phelps writes:

HOW far are you prepared to go to engage with so-called “conscientious objectors” to childhood immunisation?

Everyone has a line they will not cross. The line for informed consent gets very blurry when it comes to the proxy consent provided by parents on behalf of their children. […]

As GPs we are convinced of the merits of immunisation against the vaccine-preventable infectious diseases that were so feared by previous generations who did not have the benefit of effective treatments or prevention. […]

I hesitate to even mention groups such as the Australian (Anti-)Vaccination Network.., but… I feel I can mention the harm they are doing to public health with their misinformation campaign aimed at scaring parents away from immunisation.

Parents have been encouraged through various government incentives to have their children fully immunised before starting school.

However, from 1 July the system changes. The PIP incentive for doctors has been scrapped and parents will need to document that they have fully vaccinated their child in order to receive the Family Tax Benefit Part A Supplement of $726.35 per child. […]

If parents want to claim the money, they have to demonstrate that their child is fully immunised, or have their doctor complete documentation that they are a conscientious objector.

One of my colleagues told me last week that she intends to be a conscientious objector to conscientious objectors. I must say the idea appeals to me.

When parents request that she fills in the government form indicating the child is exempt on the basis of parents being conscientious objectors, she will politely indicate that is against her principles and advice, and will refuse to provide the documentation. […]

It is a convincing argument. Ethically doctors wish to support their patients’ choices. Yet with vaccination, rejection of this nature is not a choice, but a clear mistake. A cursory grasp of the manipulation at play to scare parents off vaccinating their children is alarming. An understanding of the entire abusive scam should be regarded with concern and disgust.

Presently parents are objecting because many feel there is this attack on their freedom of choice. A read of Dorey’s material finds the same theme over and again. Forces seek to control. Why is the default position vaccination? You are being told what to do. Health fascism. Loss of health choices… etc. It’s an appeal to emotion, not intellect. Vaccination is cast as a mockery of individuality, of democratic freedom.

Fortunately Dr. Phelps is a voice of reason at a time when false dichotomies are used to fool those who seek more natural choices, to also fear vaccination. A wedge has been driven into Meryl Dorey’s fictional scheme. No longer is it simply “us and them” as her members pay dearly to hear. False balance need no longer be the only choice.

This isn’t unique. Most natural therapy organisations recommend conventional vaccination. Chiropractic and homeopathy are two that mislead clients about vaccination. What we certainly lack is a public voice bridging the unnecessary gulf between vaccination and non conventional medicine. It is certainly time to detach the choice of alternative medicine from refusal to vaccinate.

I for one am very grateful to Dr. Phelps for making her views known.

– ♣ Subscription to Medical Observer is free.

Pneumococcal Pneumonia: Myths and Facts

Posted in Health, Science by

The bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae is the cause of pneumococcal pneumonia, causing 1.6 million deaths globally each year.

That’s more lives than any other single bacteria.

Pneumonia-like illness is in the top 10 causes of death in Australia. More women (1,303), die annually than males (1,019). Fatalities in the 50-80 age group are rising “exponentially” each year.

In the previous post we debunked a concerted attack on the pneumococcal vaccine by antivaccine lobbyists Meryl Dorey and Greg Beattie aka Gregyl. Serendipitously Greg Beattie’s graph strongly reinforced the importance of vaccination in preventing pneumonia, for at-risk groups.

Reluctance to vaccinate is already one cause of preventable pneumococal pneumonia and death in over 65’s and high risk demographics. I’ll leave you to judge the degree of morality involved in fallaciously inflating this problem.

Whilst that was an attempt at misinformation – or “disinformation” to quote Dr. Brian Martin – intended to undermine public confidence, there are separate myths that also apply.

This video © The Australian Lung Foundation addresses the most common.

Busting Greg Beattie or Two heads are sillier than one

Posted in Health, Scam, Science by

On July 2nd Greg Beattie and Meryl Dorey released a rambling attack on the pneumococcal vaccine.

Bizarrely it was headed “Media Release” and despite listing the contact details of both Greg and Meryl, the Aussie media know anti-health warriors when they see them. It sank without a trace almost immediately.

Still, a look at the context and contents reveal much about the tactics used by both Beattie and Dorey. It proclaimed;

A media release being issued by a self-proclaimed group of ‘experts’, including many with financial links to vaccine manufacturers, is calling for increased use of vaccines against pneumococcal bacteria as a way of preventing pneumonia.

Without letting on, it was actually in reference to this Australian Lung Foundation media release. They were falsely suggesting a campaign targetting “young Australians” for pneumococcal vaccination was under way. In fact, it is Pneumonia Awareness Week and little wonder they did not link to the many facts related to pneumococcal disease.

On July 3rd, Sky News quoted Professor Booy from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. He had elaborated on implications from a survey completed by GP patients. The survey reached a sample of 2,500 and looked closely at risk factors. Sky News reported:

A survey of 2,500 GP patients found about a quarter of those aged 15 to 64 had at least one risk factor for contracting pneumococcal diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis.

About two in three of those had not been vaccinated, according to research by the University of Sydney’s Family Medicine Research Centre. But most patients – nearly 80 per cent – aged 65 and over had a pneumococcal vaccination.

Risk factors included smoking, diabetes and chronic lung disease.

Okay. So, first off we have our most damning variable to be obfuscated by… (let’s call them Gregyl in the Hollywood fashion). What Gregyl had done was to report on these dynamics as if concerns related to low pnemococcal vaccination rates applied only to the mainstream population. In fact it was specifically related to risk factors which also include diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and impaired immunity. Infants and the elderly are also deemed at higher risk.

The populations are referred to as “at-risk”. Reflecting this, the Sky News article was headed Vaccine rates low for at-risk pneumonia. To mock this Gregyl headed theirs Australians “at risk” from vaccination campaign (inverted comma’s theirs). In classic foot bullet style this indicates they knew very well there was no campaign targetting Aussies.

Having set the scene Gregyl can control the attack on the vaccine. They ask:

Will increased use of pneumococcal vaccines lead to declines in either the notification or mortality (death rates) from pneumococcal pneumonia?

This is certainly Beattie’s work as he favours irrelevant sources. He includes a 2008 letter from the WHO Bulletin, to answer his own question in the negative. Except he fails.

The letter is not looking at infection from pneumococcal bacteria or death rates from pneumococcal pneumonia following pneumococcal vaccination. It is arguing that the incidence of “clinical pneumonia” is not reduced by this vaccine. Pneumonia can arise from at least 8 strains of bacteria, 7 viruses and various fungi.

Worse, the letter deals with dynamics in developing nations. It is utterly and irrevocably deceptive to cite the dynamics of infectious disease in low income nations and apply them to a developed nation such as Australia. 50% of all cases of bacterial pneumonia globally, test positive for Streptococcus pneumoniae. It is the leading cause of CAP – Community-acquired pneumonia – in Australia.

To answer the question above – Yes most certainly.

As shameful as that was, Gregyl continue with:

Are those aged between 15 and 64 truly at greater risk of contracting or dying from pneumonia caused by pneumococcus as these ‘experts’ have stated?

The question is misleading as the issue at hand is at-risk, chronically ill patients. Beattie supplies an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare graph of pneumonia mortality per 100,000 citing age groups 0 – 14, 14 to 64 and 65 plus.

His aim is again to answer the question in the negative.

Predictably it shows a drop in pneumonia for the lower age groups from 1907 to 2006. It also shows a rise and fall for 65 plus from 1907 to 1967. It then tapers off reflecting the increased life expectancy and better health of older Aussies.

Of course, I should dismiss this graph out of hand as it covers all pneumonia cases. Yet it’s worth noting that a common misconception about pneumonia is that it’s a “really bad” cold or flu. In truth pneumonia strikes after infection with influenza or another disease that leaves one chronically ill or at-risk.

As more and more vaccines have been introduced, particularly pertussis, influenza, pneumovax, hepatitis B and follow up with boosters became common place, the health of Aussies has increased markedly. Thus the causes of pneumonia of all types have been less likely to exploit weakened immunity or chronic disease problems.

So in effect, Beattie’s graph actually reinforces the essential need for pneumococcal vaccination because it shows the power of vaccines in protecting at-risk Aussies from pneumonia.

Thanks to Beattie’s graph we have an answer backed by The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Yes, most certainly.

Next is:

What percentage of all cases of pneumonia are caused by pneumococcal bacteria?

Now it’s time to leave Kansas entirely Dorothy. Beattie links to the American Lung Association Pneumonia Fact Sheet, claiming that 14% of all cases of pneumonia are attributed by the ALA to pneumococcal bacteria. What Beattie has done is taken the male discharges (589,000) and female (643,000) from 2006. This total = 1,232,000 pneumonia discharges for 2006.

He then gets an August 2009 annual estimation of 175,000 cases to get his 14%. It goes without saying that his claim, “according to the ALA, blah, blah…” is a lie. There’s nothing wrong with making rough conclusions from different sources but Beattie had no reason to a.) falsely attest to an annual figure and b.) falsely attribute it to the American Lung Foundation.

Let’s check that paragraph:

Streptococcus pneumoniae or pneumococcal pneumonia is the most common cause of bacterial pneumonia acquired outside of hospitals. The bacteria can multiply and cause serious damage to healthy individual lungs, bloodstream (bacteremia), brain (meningitis) and other parts of the body, especially when the body’s defenses are weakened. It is estimated that 175,000 cases of pneumococcal pneumonia occur each year, with a fatality rate of 5-7%, or even much higher among the elderly

Now it’s time to address Gregyl’s focus on pneumonia. Remember, Gregyl is attacking pneumococcal vaccination. The trick so far has been has been to focus on pneumonia and ignore meningitis and septicaemia. This enabled Beattie to invent or ask the wrong questions.

The notion of streptoccocus pneumonia cases being minor compared to other types is nonsensical. As noted way above, of all bacterial pneumonia cases, Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterium is isolated 50% of the time. It is the leading cause of pneumonia acquired in the community. So for Joe Bloggs, it may as well be 100% of cases. We can see by the graph above that the greatest variable is age – not type.

So to answer this question – It makes no difference.

Beattie is almost cornered by his lies. Next up is:

Will use of the pneumococcal vaccine reduce the incidence of illness?

Astonishingly he then blurts out, with no references:

  • Most adults and children carry the bacteria without symptoms
  • The vaccine won’t stop us coming into contact with the bacteria
  • Levels of meningitis, septacaemia and pneumonia have not gone down
  • Death rates are increasing in the elderly since introduction

The disease is spread by droplets from person to person. The Department of Health and Ageing note:

Pneumococci can be isolated from the upper respiratory tract in children and, less frequently, adults, and can spread directly from the nasopharynx to the respiratory tract which may cause otitis media, sinusitis or pneumonia. Pneumococci are also able to enter the bloodstream to cause invasive disease which may manifest as meningitis, pneumonia, septicaemia…

What then about notifications and hospitalisations from pneumococcal disease? Are they rising?

Pneumococcal disease notifications and hospitalisations, Australia, 1998 to 2007

Absolutely not. No idea where these guys get data from but it certainly won’t back what they claim.

How are the most vulnerable, the young and old faring? What of Gregyl’s increased disease and death in the elderly?

Pneumococcal disease notification rates, Australia, 2002 to 2007, by age group and year of diagnosis

No. Not here. Even remembering that the elderly show reduced immune responses to vaccination.

So the answer is – Yes, it will control the illness.

Next we get:

Will vaccinating against 23 strains of pneumococcal bacteria provide true protection against pneumococcal pneumonia?

After telling us it lives in the upper respiratory tract Gregyl now admits there are 91 different strains, and the vaccine targets 23. This is a genuine query and results suggest the vaccine will protect against the strains, compared to notification.

Notification rates of IPD cases with serotypes contained in the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (7vPCV), versus notification rates for other non-7-valent serotypes, Australia, 2006–2007 compared with 2002–2004, by age group

The Immunization Action Coalition offer:

What causes pneumococcal disease?

Pneumococcal disease is caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium. There are more than 90 subtypes. Most subtypes can cause disease, but only a few produce the majority of invasive pneumococcal infections. The 10 most common subtypes cause 62% of invasive disease worldwide.

In a concerted effort to mislead, Gregyl claims that, “studies in multiple locations around the world” have shown bacterial vaccines to lead to serogroup replacement. They fail to cite one study. Then again use the WHO Bulletin letter on developing nations to argue the point. Finally they claim this has happened with pertussis leading to “potentially more dangerous strains of bacteria”.

As has been explained here countless times no “more dangerous” strain of pertussis has evolved. In fact the opposite is supported by data. Fatalities are less than 1997 and 2000, whilst hospitalisations are about the same. This is parallel to far more notifications. More so, Tom Sidwell has demolished the notion of pertussis bacteria evolving around the vaccine.

Lastly we get:

Is there any evidence at all that use of this vaccine has led to a decline in either incidence of or deaths from invasive pneumococcal disease?

It’s followed by the use of NNDSS total notification figures of invasive pneumococcal disease in Australia to argue that there has been no change. Whilst the graphs above show a definite change USA research also backs significant reduction in infant infection and a reduction in mortality for all other age groups.

Yet most offensive is that NNDSS notifications tell us nothing about vaccination status. Every notification might be unvaccinated or every one may be vaccinated. Yet you’re tricked as if 100% of Aussies actually have been vaccinated. Nothing suggests infection even originated in Australia? This is one of Dorey’s old tricks. The fact is that it is an unrelated data set dealing only with notifications.

So our final answer? Yes, there is an abundance of evidence.

All up this was an appalling and scurrilous attempt to both scare the public into believing a vaccination “campaign” was under way and use this to fallaciously attack a very successful vaccine. Along with rotavirus, pneumococccal vaccination is on rapid roll out in developing nations. A major reason for this is it’s outstanding success here.

Dorey and Beattie, or Gregyl if you prefer, have been caught out at every single turn in this so-called “media release”. Not only does other evidence refute these absurd claims, even the evidence they provided upholds the importance of this vaccine’s success.

To be fair there was another question about making an informed choice. Which is code for will parents be provided with more codswallop of this type. As it had all just vanished in a puff of smoke I could see no point in answering.

In conclusion, to Gregyl and particularly Greg Beattie I am grateful for the chance to answer Yes to all those questions.

No matter how distorted they were.