Dan's Journal of Skepticism

On Tuesday the Australian Vaccination Network sent out an email full of their usual rubbish. Except there was one thing that caught my eye. About one third of the way down is the subtitle “Civil Liberties Organisation approves of Discrimination!” what I found was very amusing. It would appear that a member of the AVN has contacted Civil Liberties Australia regarding their stance on vaccination.

Thr CLA has responded:

Dear DM

We support vaccination, as it is a right of the child.

Note, the child. The child has a separate right from that of the parent.

Parents can believe anything they like, but we believe children have the right to the best chance at health.

This is a formal right under international agreement. the Convention on the Right of the Child.

You can make any choice you like…that’s your right. You can insist on your right to say ‘no’ as a new parent, but it could be your child who suffers the consequences.

Or another child: see the example in our policy document, or see the vision of the baby whooping in Sunday night’s documentary on SBS http://www.sbs.com.au  under Video Highlights, “Jabbed: Love, Fear and Vaccines” (you only need to watch a few minutes, the child comes at the start of the program). The child was whooping because an unvaccinated children had passed on the disease to the baby before the baby was old enough to be vaccinated.

If you choose to not vaccinate your children, we believe you are taking away their right to their best chance at health.

Your choice.

FROM OUR POLICY DOCUMENT:

The child has a right to health, independent of the right of a parent to adopt measures for her or his child that accord with the parent’s view

CLA believes that a child has a right to immediate vaccination in the face of an imminent and preventable illness (for example, Hep B for children born to mothers who have the disease) and has a right to a ‘best chance’ at life, which would support the well-tested schedule of childhood vaccinations.

Parents have a responsibility to act in the ‘best interests’ of the child (this is a formal responsibility on a parent under the Convention on Rights of the Child).

CLA’s position allows children (and their parents) to make their own decision on some types of vaccines, especially those that come later in life, such as the HPV[1] vaccine (which isn’t life saving in the same way Hep B, tetanus or whooping cough vaccines can be). It also allows parents a way to opt-out of ‘new’ and less-tested vaccines such as seasonal influenza.

Cheers,

Bill Rowlings

-Civil Liberties Australia

The idea that an anti-vaxxer would contact a human rights organisation is just beyond laughable. People who don’t vaccinate are contributing to a lower heard immunity and placing other members of the community at risk. Vaccination is a human rights issue and should be mandatory, with the only exception being medical reasons. Even adults should be required to be vaccinated if they wish to take part in society.

There is no “right” to lower heard immunity put others at risk of potentially fatal diseases for the same reason there is no “right” to drink and drive.

Godwins law states that:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

Clowns like Meryl Dorey who posses an over inflated persecution complex are particularly prone to mentioning Hitler and Nazis when talking about their opponents. This morning Dorey likened the activities of the NSW government to the holocaust.

On first reading of this bill, it is easy to see how little thought has gone into it. Calling it a knee-jerk reaction would be putting it mildly. This is legislation driven by a sector of the media with close ties to vaccine manufacturers and run on the back of a hate-filled vilification campaign which Australia has never seen the likes of before. This campaign has gone beyond all reasonable boundaries expected in a civilised society. Comparisons can be drawn between the current situation in Australia and historical social conflicts such as the McCarthy Era in the US and Hitler’s vilification of the Jews during the 1930s and 1940s. At least with these issues, there was plenty of public debate going on. Today, there is censorship and suppression of any discussion which is not in line with government and medical opinion on the subject. Should this blatant discrimination continue, history and the world will not judge Australia well.

–Meryl Dorey

She was quickly taken to task by a commenter on her own blog. But as usual she fails to see just how wrong she is. Much like the time she compared vaccinations to Child Rape.

The Rabbi is right! Meryl Dorey is out of touch with reality, warped and dangerous. Her own actions condemn her more than any of her critics can. No reasonable person could possibly compare health care legislation to the genocide of 6 million people.

The New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission has launched a new investigation into the Australian Vaccination Network.

The New South Wales Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, has told State Parliament the Health Care Complaints Commission is launching an investigation into the anti-immunisation group, the Australian Vaccination Network.

The announcement came after the Opposition raised concerns that the AVN was using its Facebook page to encourage parents to join up to a religion, in order to avoid new State Government vaccination laws. –ABC News

Yes the Australian Vaccination Network really is trying to promote a new religion in order to flout the law.

Anti-vaxxers are nothing if not creative when it comes to dodging the law. I’m confident that our lawmakers will soon find a remedy to patch this unscrupulous attempt to circumvent the law. This is not the first time the HCCC has investigated the AVN.

The Australian Vaccination Network is in the news again for trying to bully a family whose daughter died of whooping cough. Four years ago Dana McCaffery died from Whooping Cough, she was born into the midst of a Whooping Cough epidemic and was too young to be vaccinated.

What followed was an unrelenting campaign of abuse and harassment aimed at Dana’s family. Meryl Dorey the president of the Australian Vaccination Network at that time took it upon herself to intervene by writing on her organisations website.

When this little girl’s death was announced, the media were reporting several things that made me question that this baby had actually died of whooping cough. I contacted the head of the public health unit and asked if this case of pertussis (whooping cough) had been laboratory diagnosed. -Mery Dorey, 2009

Meryl Dorey likes to bill herself as an expert on vaccination. Though in reality she has no medical training, and no research experience. Although she may sometimes claim to have been “Researching this issue for the last 20 years” the reality is that she simply cheats and scams parents into believing her lies. Fortunately Dorey was denied the information that she had no right to ask for in the first place.

At last Dorey is finally getting the recognition she deserves with a story in the Daily Telegraph..

The McCafferys are today breaking their silence on the cyber bullying,the anonymous letters and the cruelty of some members of the anti-vaccination movement.

The couple has been accused of being on the payroll of drug companies; they have had their daughter’s death questioned and mocked; they have even been told to “harden the f . . . up” by an opponent of vaccination.

“The venom directed at us has just been torture and it’s been frightening, abhorrent and insensitive in the extreme,” says Toni, who has not had the strength to talk about this until now.

The invasion of the McCafferys’ grief started the day before they buried their baby girl. Meryl Dorey, who heads up the Bangalow-based Australian Vaccination Network, rang the head of the North Coast Area Health Service, Paul Corben, to demand Dana McCaffery’s autopsy reports. –The Daily Telegraph

Judy Wilyman, a student at the University of Wollongong has even accused the McCaffreys’ of being on the pay roll of major pharmaceutical companies. But the McCaffreys’ aren’t the only family to be targeted by Meryl Dorey and her followers.

In 2009, Terrigal father of four Chris Kokegei turned off his seven-year-old son Michael’s life support system three days after the little boy caught chicken pox. “It’s just pain, the pain, it is so awful,” he says.

Like the McCafferys, he went public to raise awareness about vaccination. In 2010 he did three television interviews and he left his phone number with each network for other parents to get in touch.

Soon after, he received a call from a woman who claimed she was from the AVN. He does not recall her name.

She accused him of doing the community a disservice, saying he should not be promoting immunisation.

“Then she went on saying my son was obviously weak and the weakest of the herd are not meant to survive, I should just get over it,” he says. –The Daily Telegraph

Cecily Johnson lost her 12 year old daughter to measles in 1995. Her daughter Laine had previously contracted measels at the age of 10 months, but survived. But a deadly side effect was lying in wait and eventually claimed her life years later.

Cecily Johnson wanted to warn others of the danger posed by measles and attended some of the AVNs “information” sessions. Meryl Dorey eventually threatened her with an Apprehended Violence Order as a means of silencing her.

When questioned by the media Ms Dorey denies having ever heard of Cecily Johnson. However Ms Johnson is mentioned several times on Ms Doreys’ blog. If you going to lie and say that you’ve never heard of someone, perhaps you should check your own website first.

I don’t expect the AVN to change it’s abusive tactics anytime soon.

Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network has posted a new blog article asking her followers to bombard New South Wales members of parliament with emails. She has even created an easy copy/paste list in a Microsoft Word document to facilitate this form of mass harassment.

In addition to making this appointment, please continue to write to NSW parliamentarians with your views on this issue. I have already posted some of your letters here and will be posting more of them today if time allows. Here is a list – email list-nsw parliament – containing the email addresses of all NSW members of parliament. Thank you to our wonderful members for putting these emails into an easy-to-use format for us. You can copy and paste these into your email program (please use the BCC field if possible) in one go and your letter will automatically be sent to all of them. Remember, tell your own story in your own words if possible but if not, feel free to copy from any of the letters which have been uploaded onto our blog. –NoCompulsoryaccination.com

As stated the emails really are in a copy/paste ready format. I won’t make the full document available here as doing so would simply be providing a tool for spammers and other douchebags, this screenshot is sufficient demonstration.

Source document available on request.

There are 109 email addresses in total.

This is not the first time the Australian Vaccination Network has gone on an email harassment campaign. This type of abuse is a large part of the organisation operational procedure.

When provoked, Australian Vaccination Network’s fellow travellers can and do behave reprehensibly. The police have been called to my office on one occasion following threatening emails after I raised concerns about the practices of the Australian Vaccination Network. –Dr Andrew McDonald, NSW Parliament Transcript, Page 58

I could just about write a book on how the Australian Vaccination Network, in particular Ms Dorey has encourage the harassment and abuse of anyone who speaks out against them. In fact I probably will at some point in the future.

The Australian Vaccination Network is copping it again. Yesterday the HEALTH LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2013 was before the New South Wales Parliament. The Australian Vaccination Network, the nations most dangerous “charity” received plenty of criticism.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I call on the Health Care Complaints Commission immediately to stop the Australian Vaccination Network spreading misleading information and I ask the media as a whole not to facilitate the dissemination of such dangerous messages to vulnerable parents who are already bombarded with confusing information and who somehow believe that the network’s role in the immunisation debate is evenly balanced. It is not.

Dr John Kaye: Hear! Hear!

The Hon. Adam Searle: Hear! Hear!

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: It has no support from the scientific and medical communities in Australia. I thank Dr John Kaye and the Hon. Adam Searle for their support. I am horrified that 30 per cent of babies and children in my region are at risk of contracting preventable diseases. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Daily Telegraph on the outstanding campaign that it is conducting to counter this sort of misinformation and to promote a positive message to parents about getting their children immunised. I have no doubt that tens of thousands of babies will be immunised and protected as a result of that campaign. I join with other members in thanking and congratulating the Daily Telegraph on conducting the campaign.

Dr JOHN KAYE: I do not wish to vilify any particular parent but I do seek to raise serious alarm, as others have, about the behaviour of the Australian Vaccination Network and those who promote the non-science and nonsense of the risks of vaccination. It is all very well to be trendy and to adopt issues that are published on the web but we are serious. This is about the lives of children. Kids die from whooping cough. I do not know if members have seen a child under the age of three years suffering from whooping cough. It is terrible and something that no child should experience. We should be eradicating whooping cough by ensuring we have a vaccination rate of about 95 per cent. I believe that people such as Meryl Dorey from Australian Vaccination Network are behaving in an entirely immoral way. I give my complete support to— 

The Hon. Trevor Khan: You will be getting emails now too, John. 

Dr JOHN KAYE: I have had plenty of emails, believe me. My Facebook site became a battleground between rationality and irrationality. 

The Hon. Trevor Khan: Good on you. 

Dr JOHN KAYE: Yes. I urge people like Meryl Dorey to stop this campaign that is leading to the death of or permanent impairment of children. Meryl Dorey’s campaign is immoral and she ought to stop that happening. She should drop this campaign and understand the damage that she is inflicting on other children. The Hon. Paul Green likened this issue to smoking in public.

–NSW Parliment Transcript (For the full debate.)

There is also a video: