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.
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.
When we think of chiropractic and Equidae, it’s usually unicorns that come to mind.
The search for the chiropractic subluxation has been as fruitful as the search for the unicorn. In fact perhaps less fruitful, as we know with a high degree of accuracy what the unicorn looks like. Yet with the chiropractic subluxation our fairy tale is limited to conjuring mystical malaise or blaming dastardly disease as the work of this elusive evil.
Do not be alarmed. This man has not seen a unicorn.
Rather, he had just been told that chiropractic subluxations
involve some type of “static” in the spinal cord.
Doctors (real doctors) report that he made a full recovery
after his palm was removed from his face.
Interestingly enough, whilst chiropractic teaches that areas of subluxation are invisible and can be “detected” only by the presence of symptoms, Simon Floreani, erstwhile president of the Chiropractors Association of Australia, has other ideas.
Check out the Catalyst video below at 1min, 45sec. Using the apparently magical Activator – or the “stick that goes click” – on an infant, Floreani announces:
Areas of subluxation that I can feel there, that are immediately improved after you adjust it like that…
You can read more about the Sonic Screwdriver-like Activator here in The Medical Observer. Just be prepared for some tongue in cheek observations. In September 2011 it was reported in Australian Doctor that the Federal Government had been asked to investigate both the Activator and “the Nervoscope” as they had been reported as having, “no biomechanical or physiological effect and cannot diagnose or treat any health condition”.
Fortunately, whilst new-age chiropractors continue to push their ineffective devices, practices and claims onto an unsuspecting public, genuinely motivated supporters of evidence based medicine are busy exposing their scams.
Check out the videos below to see just how devoid of facts claims made by the resurgent followers of Daniel David Palmer, really are. And keep an eye out for Simon and his zebra.
Floreani’s penchant for cutting his own path may help explain why he has chosen the zebra over the unicorn.
Floreani positions a young subluxee on his treatment table cunningly disguised as a zebra
Floreani seems to be watched over by a zebra
If my family had known about vaccinations, my brother would still be here today
♦ Matthew, whose brother Michael died from Chicken Pox ♦
But not long after Michael’s death, his family got a cruel phone call from anti-vaccine campaigners telling them it was natures way of weeding out the weak in the herd
♦ Neil Doorley: Today Tonight reporter ♦
I don’t believe that any vaccination is effective
♦ Meryl Dorey (Founder of anti-vaccine lobby, the Australian Vaccination Network Inc.) ♦
The month of June 2013 continued with a high turnover of media articles and internet publications of all types examining the antics and lack of evidence presented by Australia’s anti-vaccination lobby.
The No Jab, No Play campaign was launched by The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph on May 5th, 2013. It places pressure on parents who deny their own and other children the protection of vaccine induced immunity and herd immunity, to accept the community consequences of their decision.
By May 29th it was announced that NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner had amended the Public Health Act to make the checking of vaccine records compulsory and giving day-care centres the right to refuse access to unvaccinated children. Admitting children not vaccinated, could result in a $4,000 fine.
On June 25th, Victorian Greens Senator Dr. Richard Di Natale reinforced how important it is to speak to a G.P. about vaccination.
On June 14th, Neil Doorley on Today Tonight examined the potential tragedy of the tactics of Meryl Dorey and the deceptively named Australian Vaccination Network.
Helen Kapalos opens the segment in part with, “The dirty tactics are unbelievable”.
Back in May on Monday 20th The Project ran a piece with plenty of facts. Referring to the many proclaimed links between diseases, certain disabling reactions, outcomes worse than the disease or vaccines overwhelming immune systems it was reported:
Rest assured all of those theories have been scientifically investigated and not one of them is true.
The most infamous, blatant and callous fraudulent abuse of ignorance, doubt and understandable parental fear was committed by No-Longer-A-Doctor Andrew Wakefield back in 1998. Apart from filing for patents for monovalent (single shot) Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccines he also stood to profit from two immunodiagnostic ventures. He remains an individual of iconic status for anti-vaccinationists, particularly Meryl Dorey.
This deserves notice presently because the Wakefield fraud has recently come home to roost in Wales in the UK. This was the subject of an article on ABC Lateline last April 22nd.
In response to the No Jab, No Play campaign Meryl Dorey and the AVN were urging vaccine refusers to exploit a loophole and join the Church of Conscious Living. This would permit those refusing vaccination to still receive family benefits. One month ago The Daily Telegraph reported, Anti-vaccine Zealots Form Sham Church:
The Church of Conscious Living was founded by Jane Leonforte and Adriano Regano in Queensland in 2008, with the express purpose of creating a front for vaccination exemptions. In a letter sent by the “church” to their followers, Ms Leonforte and Mr Regano admit “we have decided to create a ‘religion’, so, amongst other things, we can claim ‘religious exemption’, if the need ever arises, for ourselves and our children.”
NSW Health Minister, Jillian Skinner informed State Parliament the Health Care Complaints Commission would launch an investigation, This was after the Opposition raised concerns that the AVN was using it’s Facebook page in this regard as a recruitment vehicle.
More so according to The ABC, during Question Time on May 29th the Opposition’s Shadow Minister for Health, Dr. Andrew McDonald, asked Jillian Skinner:
Minister, what steps will you take to close this loophole?” he said.
After her initial answer, The Health Minister Jillian Skinner later returned to give this update.
“I’m advised that the Health Care Complaints Commission will be launching an investigation into the AVN,” she said.
If passed, the new vaccination laws come into effect next January.
Dorey herself has attempted to use the option of Apprehended Violence Orders to silence and potentially seriously irritate her critics.
This was covered in May in the Telegraph by Peter Bodkin. An article at Diluted Thinking goes into this and the potential consequences quite thoroughly.
The AVN continues to fight an order from the NSW Department of Fair Trading to change its name to something appropriate. That is, to one that represents it’s anti-vaccine stance.
From Anthony Roberts MP, May 9th 2013:
Also, as has been much anticipated, the AVN – involving a time of high activity attributed to Meryl Dorey – are being investigated for fraud.
On June 25th, the ABC reported that the NSW Senate has passed a motion calling for the AVN to disband and cease it’s “unscientific scare campaign against vaccines”.
Finally the month began to close with the AVN itself reinforcing the initial HCCC warning from July 2010. Proving yet again that they specialise in censoring and suppressing accurate information on both vaccines and the diseases they prevent, the so-called health group deleted material, and then blocked any further input from intensive care specialist, Dr. Rachael Heap.
The AVN presented via their Facebook page that tetanus infection could be prevented by using tea tree oil on wounds, and that active bleeding would also prevent infection at a given site.
Non-smokers, diabetics – even the non-elderly would also be afforded protection. Jane Hansen wrote today:
But when intensive care specialist Dr Rachael Heap tried to post information about tetanus to balance the misinformation, the AVN first removed her posts and then blocked her.
Tetanus is a bacterial disease that kills three out of every 100 people who catch it.
It causes muscle spasms in the face, chest and neck, eventually progressing to the abdomen and back, causing the whole body to arch. Sometimes the spasms affect muscles that help with breathing, or can cause fractures and muscle tears. It can be avoided with a simple vaccination.
“Tetanus is horrific, there is no cure if you get it, you end up in intensive care and then all you can do is support the patient and hope they heal,” Dr Heap said.
“I made three posts, trying to give some clear, scientific, medical explanations about tetanus, both the mechanism of disease, some basic wound care tips, and information on just how devastating a disease it can be. I now find myself banned from their site and all my posts deleted.”
One of the deleted posts outlined what tetanus actually does. “I have cared for a patient with tetanus in Australia. It is agonising, and relentless. It can be fatal,” she said.
Dr. Heap has made a complaint about this matter to The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission.
Fortunately the AVN is now being held to account more often, with their tactics more regularly exposed.
Hat tip to @BadScienceWatch.
From YouTube Description:
In 1998 a medical furore broke out when The Lancet published an article by Andrew Wakefield questioning the benefits of the MMR vaccination which was being given unquestioningly to children throughout the UK.
Coming 202 years after the first vaccination by Edward Jenner, which led to the eradication of smallpox throughout the world, this recent incident is only the latest in a long history of questioning the benefits of vaccination.
From early irrational fears born of outdated medical understanding through to the latest medical research and findings, Professor Gareth Williams traces the history of the anti-vaccination movement and its long tail, reviewing the social settings in which the fears were found and offering a balanced assessment of vaccination as we find it today.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the on the Gresham College website:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and…Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Losing In The Lucky Country 