Tag Archives: vaccines

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.

A Mother’s Choice, Fear and Confusion

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Human Rights, Science by

In April and May 2009 channel Seven’s Sunday Night programme looked at the activities of The Australian Vaccination Network.

Following the first programme – A Mother’s Choice – the producers held a live audience forum entitled Fear and Confusion.

Both episodes are below, with a final credit scroll examining the activity of anti-vaccine GP, Giselle Cooke, which led to a NSW Medical Tribunal hearing.

Hepatitis B Vaccination: A Chinese Success Story

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Human Rights, Science by

The vaccination effort against Hepatitis B, especially to protect newborns, will not stop

– Dr Yang Wei Zhong, Deputy Director General of the China CDC –

Australians are unfamiliar with the impact of large scale infection from Hepatitis B virus [HBV].

Ways of controlling the spread of infection include vaccination of health care workers against HBV, that infection with HBV is a notifiable disease, the quarantine of patients suspected of having HBV, ongoing quarantine procedures for patients diagnosed with HBV, extensive education and follow up of patients upon discharge and Harm Reduction initiatives.

So successful have these measures been that many Aussies erroneously believe HBV is exclusively a problem for high risk demographics such as IV drug users or sex workers. This misconception itself is as dangerous as high risk behaviour because it leads to the belief that protection from infection is linked to how one identifies oneself.

Indeed, IV drug users and sex workers are often highly educated about the risk of HBV infection and implement safe injecting and safe sex practices. Many seek out or are offered the HBV vaccine by their own or any GP. The fact is everyone is susceptible to infection with HBV or any blood borne virus.

Tragically the antivaccination lobby has done much to mislead some Aussies into what could almost be termed lethal complacency. By both dehumanising high risk demographics and falsely linking the HBV vaccine to injury and death, they have propagated ignorance and fear, condemning many to premature death from liver failure. In some cases the virus will be cleared over time, but there is no way to manufacture this outcome.

HBV positive individuals who would not exist but for antivaccination propaganda, can transmit the virus for many years post infection, completely free of symptoms.

The WHO observe:

HBV may be the cause of up to 80% of all cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) worldwide, second only to tobacco among known human carcinogens. […]

One should not judge by appearance: most infected people look perfectly healthy and have no symptoms of disease, yet may be highly infectious.

As Australia’s population changes rapidly through immigration and we travel more readily our risk of HBV infection steadily increases. At no time in our history has vaccination against HBV been more important. This will be true tomorrow, next week, next year and next decade. For this reason HBV vaccination is available to newborns.

It’s safe to say that everyday in Australia new lives not only begin, but are in many cases saved and protected from infection through this initiative. In the USA at least eight people per day die from HBV related complications. 25% of carriers world wide – over one million people – die each year from chronic hepatic insufficiency, cirrhosis and liver cancer brought on by HBV infection.

The protective effect of vaccination rolls on for newborns, toddlers and children. Children not born to a HBV positive mother are still protected from the many modes of infection as they grow and go about their lives. There are more concerns than sexual behaviour or the sterility of drug administration. Blood borne is invisible. Only a tiny scratch or cut to the skin or oral mucosa is enough to allow the HBV virus to infect.

It can remain viable for up to a week in blood stains on razor blades, nail clippers, nail files, table tops and can be transferred to a tiny wound by moistening dried, viable blood stains on bedding. We can extrapolate from that to see potential risk comes from any sharp surface or object or textile that children play with and chew on.

It would appear that if complacency was to be justified it is in the parents whose children are vaccinated at birth.

Fortunately antivaccination lobbying and planned fear mongering is not the global norm. At the same time we can celebrate the truly life changing roll out of Hepatitis B vaccination in China.

In 2004 The Association for Asia Research reported 690 million people in China were infected with HBV:

According to the Xinhua News Agency, April 25 is Children’s Immunization Day in China. China’s health department has named this day with the theme of “vaccination prevents hepatitis B” this year. They want to draw the public’s attention to the importance of vaccinating children for hepatitis B vaccination to stop further spread of the disease in China.

A recent study showed that about 2 billion people in the world are infected with hepatitis B; 690 million of them live in China. The chronic hepatitis B carriers in China number about 20 million. An average of 280,000 deaths annually are caused by hepatitis B and related liver diseases.

Still today in China HBV infection carries stigma much like HIV which, in what should be a wake up to Australian and USA antivaccination mobs, prevents middle and upper class individuals from seeking blood tests. Despite HIV awareness being much greater, as recently as 2007 the HIV to HBV infection ratio in China was 1 to 200.

In 2005 the GAVI Alliance began to work with Chinese officials in combating HBV through the vaccination of newborns. GAVI had already made significant inroads in developing nations. In 2004, 22 years after HBV vaccination was introduced to Italy, 50% of low income nations had included the vaccine in immunisation schedules.

What’s truly impressive about GAVI’s impact, is that this was only six years after the 50% mark was reached for high income countries. Over 75% of that catch up followed the launch of GAVI.

In 2001 10% of China’s population were chronic carriers of HBV, which was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths from cirrhosis and liver cancer annually. In 2004 this was estimated to be 280,000 deaths. Less than 40% of children in poor areas were being immunised.

In 2002 the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, the Chinese Government and GAVI formed a partnership to co-fund HBV vaccines. This lasted until the end of 2010 and produced a concerted effort to fight infection. Over 25 million newborns in remote and poor regions of western and central China were given free HBV vaccines.

As many women traditionally gave birth at home, raising awareness as to the value of immunisation and encouraging mothers to give birth in hospital became a crucial part of the programme.

In 2005 the Chinese government added HBV vaccines to the national immunisation schedule. At the beginning of the project 64% of children were immunised with the first dose at birth. Now this level is over 90% in the majority of these remote regions. Today, less than 1% of children aged under 5 are carriers of HBV.

Dr Mark Kane, a GAVI Alliance founding Board member states:

The success of the introduction of hepatitis B vaccine is a model, showing us what we need to do and what can happen as we embark on efforts to introduce important new vaccines against pneumonia, diarrhoea and cervical cancer.

China remains a country where vaccines are not a victim of their success. 25 million newborns have been given a start in life that many of their parents could only dream of. Australia’s most vocal antivaccination identity claims Chinese herbal medicine has been shown “to clear Hep B from the system… there are peer reviewed studies on this”.

It appears the Chinese themselves would, and can, disagree without saying a word. There is no cure. The virus can and does clear of it’s own accord in some cases, which might easily be the subject of poorly controlled studies.

However the ravages of Hepatitis B infection in China is a matter of recorded history. I wish them all the best for the future.

Because after all as we can see yet again, vaccination saves lives.