Category Archives: Skepticism

Homeopathy in the firing line, again.

People who sell bogus Homeopathic “Medicine” in Australia are coming under fire from health authorities once again.

Homeopaths are facing a fight to defend their practice in Australia after the National Health and Medical Research Council flagged it might declare their work baseless and unethical.

A draft public statement seen by The Age concluded it was ”unethical for health practitioners to treat patients using homeopathy, for the reason that homeopathy (as a medicine or procedure) has been shown not to be efficacious” –The Age

I have written about Homeopathy on numerous occasions. Most notably the incident in which it lead to the death of local Perth woman Penelope Dingle at the hands of her homeopath Francine Scrayen who was treating her ineffective treatment. Like all homeopathic practitioners Francine Scrayen wasn’t a medical professional but rather a fraud looking to cash in on the vulnerable.

The draft statement by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council said that although homeopathy was not harmful in its own right, it might pose a risk to patients if safe and efficacious conventional treatments were delayed in favour of homeopathic treatments. –The Age

Unfortunately it is not uncommon for people to skip legitimate medicine in favor of a treatment that has never been proven to work, despite being more than 200 years old. The late Steve Jobs was also a victim of Homeopathy.

So its about time that Homeopathy became recognised as the unethical sham that it is.

Presenting Anti-abortion fruitcake, Kristin Terheqes

Ok, I’m used to encountering insane propaganda but sometimes I encounter something so absurd that it needs to be shared. This one comes from one Kristin Terheqes.

Also, my comment telling them they haven’t a clue about medical procedure has disappeared from the comment thread. I think it perfectly reasonable to call this ridiculous image propaganda. Judge for yourself.

Quibids.com shifty auction swindle.

Late last night I saw a television commercial for Quibids.com advertising good for ridiculously low prices. So I though I’d check it out and apply to old “If it sounds to good to be true” routine and see how the site makes its money.

Quibids is an auction site where people can place bids on items with incredibly low price tags.

To place a bid on any of these items you must first purchase credit with the site, these credits are called “Bids” and each “Bid” is worth 60cents. You can then place these Bids on items of your choice and if your Bid is the last in when the counter reaches zero then you win the right to purchase at the final auction price.

Seems legit on the surface, but here is where the scam lies. Unlike a normal online auction once the counter gets down to 20 seconds it will begin resetting back to 20 seconds each time someone places a Bid. Eventually the timer will get moved down to 10 seconds where it will constantly reset back to 10 seconds every time a bid is placed and will continue to do so until people stop bidding. So in theory an auction could go to eternity.

Here is the real key to the scam. Bids (credits) used to bid on items are non-refundable so even if you lose an auction you have still payed for the privilege of bidding, not only you but everyone who bids on these auctions is paying just to take part with no guarantee that they will be able to purchase the item. Even the winner of the auction is still out of pocket for the Bids (credits) they used to bid on the item which they can now purchase.

The constant resetting of the counter is used to drive people into a frenzy (it works) and start bidding like mad to be the last one before the counter hits zero. But 10-20 seconds is actually a long time at auction so they are easily outbid by someone else who is in turn outbidded again by another person. This can go on for hours with people spending their non-refundable Bids (credits) just to outbid each other.

Legitimate auctioneers don’t charge you to place each bid, or constantly reset the auction to keep you all bidding. However Quibids.com currently does both. The most well known online auction house is eBay, but you only pay on items that you win. The same goes for House, Car, Antiques and all legitimate auctions. I am happy to call Quibids.com a scam because the old “If it looks too good to be true” is certainly correct here. I am also convinced that naming their credit “Bids” is a deliberate attempt to trip users up with cleaver wording.

AVN wants to get personal.

Oh Dear, it looks like the Australian Vaccination Network is is upset by Stop the Australian Vaccination Network a group of skeptics intent on holding the AVN to account for the dangerous and misleading information that it spreads.

Apparently the anti-vaxxers are so upset about the disruption to their disease advocacy that they want to make things personal.

Neither Stop the AVN nor it’s members dispense medical advice. Neither do the Australian Skeptics so I’m not sure what ‘Medical Advise’ those two groups are supposed to have made; other than recommending people speak to their doctors.

Anti-vaxxers want to target the individual.

This should be good. I’m sure the health authorities will really appreciate a known public health menace wasting their time with childish vendettas. However it’s not the first time the Australian Vaccination Network has hit out at people who criticise them.

These are just my favorites I could go on as there are countless examples but I’m not sure I would finish the list before the heat death of the universe.

Justice for Wakefield

The modern anti-vaccination movement began when a paper written by Dr Andrew Wakefield was published in the Lancet medical journal in 1998. The now infamous paper suggested a link between the Measles Mumps and Rubella vaccine and the development of Autism in children.

However over the following years researchers were unable to reproduce Wakefield’s results to confirm this hypothesis. However despite this Wakefield paper caused panic amongst parents leading many of them to abandon vaccination all together, and so the modern Anti-vaccination movement was born.

Wakefield’s paper was later retracted from the journal after extensive research by the scientific community concluded that it was ‘bogus‘; for lack of a better word.

A prominent British medical journal on Tuesday retracted a 1998 research paper that set off a sharp decline in vaccinations in Britainafter the paper’s lead author suggested that vaccines could causeautism.
The retraction by The Lancet is part of a reassessment that has lasted for years of the scientific methods and financial conflicts of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who contended that his research showed that the combinedmeasles, mumps and rubella vaccine may be unsafe.
–The New York Times
Unfortunately by this time allot of the damage has already been done and we now have Die Hard Anti-vaccine fanatics the Australian Vaccination Network who continue to cite Wakefield’s discredited paper to scare parents into not vaccinating their children. 
Dr Wakefield was struck of the UK medical register for his misconduct.
A U.K. medical regulator revoked the license of the doctor who first suggested a link between vaccines and autism and spurred a long-running, heated debate over the safety of vaccines.
Ending a nearly three-year hearing, Britain’s General Medical Council found Andrew Wakefield guilty of “serious professional misconduct” in the way he carried out his research in the late 1990s. The council struck his name from the U.K.’s medical register.
…..
A 2004 statistical review of existing epidemiological studies by the Institute of Medicine, a respected nonprofit organization in the U.S., concluded that there was no causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Some autism activist groups, however, continue to advocate against vaccinations for children, despite the lack of scientific evidence for such a link. –The Wall Street Journal
and the trouble for No-longer-a-doctor Andrew Wakefield continues thanks to journalist Brian Deer who has further exposed Wakefield as a fraud.
THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.
Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.
…..
However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal. –Brian Deer
However the Die Hard Anti-vaccine fanatics are still backing Wakefield even after his research has been shown to be a fraud. Meryl Dorey certainly still supports him and she’s as fanatical anti-vaccine as you can get.
So I support calls for justice when Wakefield is concerned. That of course means a long prison sentence for this fraud who gave birth to the modern anti-vaccination movement.

The Australian Vaccination Network is being brought to it's knees.

There was a time when Mery Dorey of the deceptively named “Australian Vaccination Network” would be called upon as a medical expert on vaccination. When the media used to treat her as a credible source for information on vaccines. Before the Health Care Complaints Commission issued it’s public warning against her.

Since then things have been going downhill rapidly for Dorey and her organisation, very rapidly. Only a few months later the Australian Vaccination Network had it’s charitable status revoked preventing Dorey from engaging in fundraising activities.

The loss of charity status appears to be taking its toll. ‘Reasonable Hank’ from Stop the AVN has pointed out the difficulty Dorey is having delivering her magazine; to the point where she is attempting to redefine the meaning of the word subscription in a desperate attempt to justify failure to fill her orders. Of course this doesn’t stop Dorey from selling the subscriptions even if there is no magazine to ship.

Meryl Dorey sent out a newsletter on Monday confirming what many of us have already suspected and hoped for; the Australian Vaccination Network is indeed being brought to it’s knees by the skeptical community, health authorities, media and medical professionals.

It is necessary, once again, to ask you to read about another ignorant and vicious allegation by Stop the AVN (SAVN) and the Australian Skeptics. Without any cause whatsoever, both myself and the AVN National Committee are being accused of fraud because our magazine, Living Wisdom, is late.

You would know – and I have been quite open about this – that Living Wisdom magazine is very delayed in its publication. And there is good reason for this. Here are just some of the jobs that are necessary, day-to-day for the AVN to continue operating:

  • answering all phone calls;
  • entering all orders;
  • keeping the accounting programme up to date and reconciling all accounts;
  • sending out all orders;
  • writing the blog;
  • maintaining the Facebook and Twitter sites;
  • producing this e-newsletter;
  • moderating and contributing to the email discussion group;
  • organising regular seminars (arranging venues, accommodation, transport, slides, advertising, etc.);
  • preparing webinars; and
  • assisting an ever-increasing number of people who are in legal strife because of their vaccination decisions (more about this a bit later on)

Previously, we had 5 people in our office to perform these jobs – a graphic designer, a bookkeeper/office manager, her assistant, an advertising salesperson plus me. Now, there is just one person to keep it all under control – me. When it comes to the day-to-day work of the AVN, there is nobody else besides me to do the job (though our committee does an incredible amount to support me and other AVN members, the tranny of distance means they cannot be working here on the spot). -Meryl Dorey

So while Meryl Dorey insists that SAVN are not scoring any victories the truth is that the Australian Vaccination Network is battered and broken. Dorey has lost her hold on the media, lost all her staff and is struggling to keep the organisation together. All thanks to a dedicated group of individuals called Stop the AVN who are dedicated to holding Meryl Dorey and the Australian Vaccination Network accountable for the dangerous misinformation that they spread. As for the slow but certain demise of the Australian Vaccination Network, I’ll drink this scotch to celebrate.

Stephanie Messenger makes me sick.

One of the downsides of following issues of science denialism is that you often have to encounter the very worst of our society. There are allot of unpleasant characters out there who take advantage of people either for some quick cash or to back an ideology.

Stephanie Messenger is one such individual. She has written a book titled Melanie’s Marvellous Measles where she glorifies childhood disease. To make matters worse the book is intended for children, to tell them that disease is a good thing.

This book takes children aged 4 – 10 years on a journey of discovering about the ineffectiveness of vaccinations, while teaching them to embrace childhood disease, heal if they get a disease, and build their immune systems naturally. –Book Description

Meanwhile the World Health Organisation has this to say about Measles:

Measles is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus. In 1980, before widespread vaccination, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.

It remains one of the leading causes of death among young children globally, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine. An estimated 164 000 people died from measles in 2008 – mostly children under the age of five. –World Health Organisation

Yet, people like Stephanie Messenger openly advocate Measles for children. Messenger is not a doctor, knows nothing of medicine and yet she tells children that disease is good for them. Contrary to the overwhelming consensus of the medical community.

Stephanie Messenger is an inhumane child disease advocate. It is sickening that people like her exist, but unfortunately they do and those of us who see these people with their true colours have a moral obligation to shine the spotlight on them.

Meryl Dorey and the AVN are anti-vaccination.

Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network has hit back at her critics by claiming not to be anti-vaccination. However we (her critics) have allot of evidence to support the position that she and her appalling organisation are indeed “anti-“vaccination.

Anti

a person who is opposed to a particular practice, party, policy, action.

Mery Dorey and the AVN are absolutely opposed to vaccination and it doesn’t take allot of effort to expose her for this. In fact not only is Dorey a liar but she is also an incompetent liar and so her lies are easily exposed for what they are. This is her latest claim about not being ‘anti-vaccine’.

I understand why it is so important for a certain segment of the community to use that term. To call someone ‘anti’ anything automatically paints a picture in people’s minds of something negative. ‘Anti’ is a prefix with bad connotations and labelling the AVN as anti-vaccine will mean that some people will form an opinion of this group based solely on that incorrect moniker. It’s a calculated tactic by those who oppose our rights to choose – but it is not accurate and using that term is immoral if it doesn’t accurately describe us – especially after we have said so many times that we are not anti-vaccine. –Mery Dorey

However on the 4th of February 2010 Dorey clearly stated on Facebook that she was Anti-Vaccination. We even have a screenshot for this:

So Dorey claims not to be ‘anti-vaccine’ but asserts that she would never take another vaccine ever. Just to help clarify Meryl’s position a little further the AVN currently sell t-shirts with the statement “Love them protect them never inject them.” and yes there is a screenshot:

However Meryl is silly enough to still have this item on sale in the AVNs online shop. Seriously if you’re going to make a bullshit claim at least remove contradictory evidence from your own website.

Mery Dorey has also likened vaccination to “Child Rape“.

In Meryl’s fantasy world Vaccination = Rape therefore if you support vaccination, you also support child rape. This is a disgusting assertion to make, and exposes the vileness to Meryl Doreys anti-vaccination ideology. Of course most people are overwhelmingly opposed to child rape, but that has no relation to vaccination; unless you’re Meryl Dorey.

The New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission had a few words to say about Meryl and her organisation:

by the Health Care Complaints Commission under section 94A of the Health Care Complaints Act 1993

The Health Care Complaints Commission has investigated two complaints about the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), a non-profit organisation registered in New South Wales that provides information about vaccination. The complaints alleged that the AVN provides incorrect and misleading information about vaccination. 

The Commission’s investigation of the complaints focussed on the material presented by the AVN on its website www.avn.org.au.

The Commission’s investigation established 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.

On this basis, the Commission recommended to the AVN that it should include a statement in a prominent position on its website to the following effect:

 

  • 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.

The Commission recognises that it is important for there to be debate on the issue of vaccination. However, the AVN provides information that is inaccurate and misleading.

The AVN’s failure to include a notice on its website of the nature recommended by the Commission may result in members of the public making improperly informed decisions about whether or not to vaccinate, and therefore poses a risk to public health and safety.

–Health Care Complains Commission; NSW

So did the Office of Liqueur, Gaming and Racing. Who later revoked the AVN’s charitable status.

The organisation’s website is misleading in that it may lead people making donations to believe they are donating to a cause which promotes vaccination, whereas the organisation adopts an anti-vaccination position. -NSW Office of Liqueur, Gaming and Racing

We also have this truly fantastic quote from Dorey on Yahoo groups a few years ago:

There will come a time – I pray to God that it will happen in my lifetime – when those who have pushed vaccines upon innocent, helpless babies – doctors, pharmaceutical companies, government officials – will be proven to have lied and cheated these instruments of death into our children’s bloodstream. When that occurs, the outcry will be heard around the world and there will not be enough hiding places on the globe for these murderers to hide or enough money to pay for compensation. Of course, it will be too late for the babies, like this poor child, to be saved. But we will be able to take satisfaction from the fact that never again will anyone have to be pushed to poison their child because for once and for all, it will be known as poison and we will all wonder how it was we fell for the vaccine lie for as long as we did. -Meryl Dorey, AVN Yahoo! Group, Tue 16 December 2008 9:08 pm Message #36449

Meryl Dorey and the Australian Vaccination Network are strongly opposed to vaccination in any way shape or form and it seems unlikely that this ideology will ever change. Meryl continues to place half baked ideology ahead of science and reason. No matter how many times she is exposed (often due to her own stupidity) as a liar she is likely to continue repeating the same lies and her critics will continue to hold her accountable.

Meryl Dorey and Woodford Folk Festival

Ok, I’ve been slow to get around to this but Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network is set to speak at the Woodford Folk Festival. Somehow Meryl has gotten the idea that skeptics are going to write to the organisers to ask that she be removed as a speaker. So she’s asking her supporters for help to ensure that she will get the chance to spread her dangerous lies and misinformation.

Of course, Stop the AVN (SAVN) and their minions are once again trying to censor this side of the issue. Through one of their main spokespeople – a prominent character with both the Australian Skeptics and SAVN, they have started a campaign on the internet via blogs, their Facebook page and emails to the Woodford management and their sponsors.

….

We urgently need anyone who believes in freedom of speech and communication (no matter what your opinion is about the benefits and risks of vaccination) to send letters to the organisers and the sponsors to let them know that there is a real need in the community for information on the other side of the vaccination issue. -Meryl Dorey

Of course her paranoia isn’t unfounded because that’s exactly want we’re doing. Here’s the email that I sent:

Dear Woodford Folk Festival.

 

I write to you to express concern about your decision to include Meryl Dorey of The Australian Vaccination Network as a speaker at this year’s festival. While Mrs Dorey bills herself an a ‘expert’ on vaccination the reality is in fact far different. Last year the Health Care Complaints Commission conducted an investigation into the information that Ms Dorey and the Australian Vaccination Network provided to the public and concluded: http://skep.li/HCCC-Report

 

“the Australian Vaccination Network’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 should not be read as medical advice and;
the decision about whether or not to vaccinate should be made in consultation with a health care provider.”

 

The HCCC also issued a public warning about Ms Doreys organisation: http://www.hccc.nsw.gov.au/Publications/Media-Releases/PUBLIC-WARNING-/default.aspx

 

The Australian Vaccination Network was later stripped of it charity status for failing to act in good faith: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/anti-vaccination-group-stripped-of-status/story-e6frf7ko-1225938818276

 

Mrs Dorey is not an expert on vaccination or any other area of medicine and spreads discredited information in order to push a medical ideology that is not supported by science or any credible medical association. The misleading and false information provided Mrs Dorey has the potential to do serious harm to the community.

 

I implore you to reconsider Meryl Doreys inclusion on your list of speakers.

 

Kind Regards,

Dan Buzzard,

Concerned Citizen

Of course I BCC’ed the email to Meryl so she has the right of reply.

 

Homeopathy killed Steve Jobs

The late Steve Jobs was yet another victim of the great medical scam that is Homeopathy. I am left wondering how many more lives must be lost due to this scam. Steve Jobs died of Pancreatic Cancer in October this year after delaying vital surgery in favor of Homeopathy.

ALTERNATIVE medicine is unethical, criminal and likely contributed to the death of Apple boss Steve Jobs, visiting professor Edzard Ernst says.

The world’s first professor of complementary medicine was in Adelaide yesterday to speak at the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association conference at UniSA.

Famous for causing an uproar when, in July, he labelled Prince Charles a “snake oil salesman” for his dandelion and detox remedy, Professor Ernst yesterday spoke of the dangers of unproven complementary medicine.

“They mislead people to the point of being quite dangerous, all of this is idiotic rubbish,” he said, calling for more rigorous testing of claims. –Perth Now

Homeopathy is not supported by empirical evidence, yet it’s proponents continue to promote and sell it in order to turn a profit. Homeopathy is not medicine and should never be used to treat cancer or any other ailment. If you watch just one news segment this year make it this one: