Meryl Dorey, ex president of the AVN has come out in response to the news stories demonstrating her long history of vilifying and harassing grieving parents of VPD victims.

You can read her response here.

Her response is an exercise in cherry picking and misconstruing the truth. She also has a horribly distorted timeline.

Timeline of events

9/3/2009: Dana Elizabeth McCaffery passes away after a battle with whooping cough.

12/3/2009: First news report surfaces of Dana’s death. It is the first mention of Dana by name. Dana’s parents speak out about the silent epidemic that robbed them of their daughter, and implore people to get vaccinated. Dismal vaccination rate of the Northern Rivers discussed. Meryl Dorey and the AVN are not mentioned. Meryl asserts that the AVN were blamed, and that unvaccinated children in particular were blamed.

“The only way to stop babies getting infected with whooping cough is by vaccination, there is no other way,” he said.

“The vaccination rates on the North Coast are the worst in Australia. This is why we have so many incidences in this area compared with other parts of Australia.

“Parents should be alarmed, whooping cough kills little babies. We must get our vaccination rates up so adults don’t pass the disease on to babies.”

Unvaccinated children were not implicated at all. The AVN were not implicated. Blame was pointed squarely at the health department’s failure to act on a sweeping epidemic.

At this time, Meryl also attempts to access Dana’s medical records and Ken Dorey (her husband) visited Dana’s grandparents.

May 2009: Meryl and the McCaffery’s appear on Sunday Night.

In her latest response Meryl says:

Meryl contends that it is only harassment or vilification if she personally contacts the family. Apparently writing horrendous things on the internet and implying that Dana’s death is shrouded in conspiracy is not harassment. Meryl has done nothing wrong.

Yet below are a number of screen shots of comments Meryl and other AVN members made about Dana, even before the Sunday Night program aired.

Meryl Dorey is not a doctor. She is not a nurse. She is not a scientist. She has no medical qualifications, and has no basis for which to speculate as to what Dana died from, or to even think she has the right to view her medical records.

Meryl’s response was to this particularly callous comment:

She also thought it was appropriate to post this letter from one of her acolytes.

Continue reading →

Bronwyn Hancock has been puking all over The Project page like a dog that just ate an onion.

Not this old chest nut! “Diseases were in rapid decline, puke, vaccines didn’t save us, puke”. Bronwyn plz. Polio was hardly in decline, the disease was following its natural cyclic pattern which diseases tend to do. Why do diseases follow cyclic patterns? Well what happens is they infect a bunch of people, have nobody else to infect, disappear for a while and come back a few years later to pillage the rest of the population.

The vaccine was introduced in 1955. We went from consistently high rates to… 100. And from 100 to 1 by 1970.

Read the progression of polio elimination here, here, here, here and here.

Where are the cases of tetanus, diphtheria and polio amongst the large numbers of unvaccinated children? NON-EXISTENT.

This gives me a headache. All cases of polio and diphtheria are non existent. Except for this case of diphtheria. Tetanus is not a communicable disease like diphtheria and polio, but in the off chance you do contract it, this is what happens. What will happen with diphtheria and polio if we go back to the glorious golden days that Bronwyn desires? I shudder to think.

Aw snap, Bronny just quoted the Precautionary Principle in relation to vaccine administration. Most references I can find in Australia relate to environmental issues, though Wikipedia gives a succinct summary:

The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.

This would make sense if vaccines were toxic, or that if the components in vaccines were considered toxic at the dosages given. Let’s take formaldehyde for example. The LD50 of formaldehyde in mice is 800mg per kg of body weight. That is in a mouse. Paul Offit writes about it here:

The quantity of formaldehyde contained in individual vaccines does not exceed 0.1 mg (Table 5). This quantity of formaldehyde is considered to be safe for 2 reasons. First, formaldehyde is an essential intermediate in human metabolism and is required for the synthesis of thymidine, purines, and amino acids.⁷⁶ Therefore, all humans have detectable quantities of formaldehyde in their circulation (approximately 2.5 μg of formaldehyde/mL of blood).⁷⁷Assuming an average weight of a 2-month-old of 5 kg and an average blood volume of 85 mL/kg, the total quantity of formaldehyde found naturally in an infant’s circulation would be approximately 1.1 mg—a value at least 10-fold greater than that contained in any individual vaccine. Second, quantities of formaldehyde at least 600-fold greater than that contained in vaccines have been given safely to animals

I actually honestly have no idea what she is saying here. I think she is attempting to imply that if you don’t research vaccines and conclude that they are a toxic soup, that you’re actually legally responsible under the Precautionary Principle for injecting your kids with poison. I think she is saying that we should ignore product inserts because drug companies have worded them in a way that makes it seem legally justifiable to have your kids vaccinated, but she knows the truth? This really has me confused.

Well… yes dummy, I think that is how it works. If you’ve been informed of the risks associated with vaccinating, and you accept those risks but your child is one of the extremely rare number of people that have an AR, then you have no legal recourse. Yes, I think that is what you call informed consent.

I wonder if Bronwyn applies this logic to deliberately infecting your kids with a disease. What?

It took me a good half an hour to work out what she was saying here, but I figured it out. I can find no information as to where she gets the 1:1000 risk of an unvaccinated child contracting measles. The link she provided actually says nothing about the risk of an unvaccinated child contracting measles. It was notification data. I think she was trying to use Meryl maths to show that if 4% of measles cases result in pneumonia, and measles occurs in 1/1000 people (the rate listed was actually 0.33 per 100,000 population), then 0.04 x 0.001 = 1:25,000. Okay…

She then uses the Priorix Product Insert to prove that the rate of pneumonia post vaccination is much higher, except that’s not what the product insert says at all:

Other events:
Other unsolicited events reported in clinical trials for PRIORIX are listed below for children
vaccinated according to protocol. Causality has not been established. The incidence of adverse reactions described below were similar to the comparator MMR vaccine.
The events are listed within body systems and categorised by frequency according to the following definitions: common events reported at a frequency of less than 1/10 but greater or equal to 1/100 patients; uncommon events reported at a frequency of less than 1/100 but greater or equal to 1/1,000 patients.

Respiratory: Common: pharyngitis, bronchitis, coughing, respiratory disorder, other upper respiratory tract infection, rhinitis; Uncommon: pneumonia, laryngitis, stridor

Bronwyn plz.

… with no pre-occurring infection to which it could be related. Hold on, what? Is she honestly suggesting that pneumonia with no underlying cause must exist in 10% of the unvaccinated population, in order to prove a causal link does not exist? She has research into the number of unvaccinated children with pneumonia? But does not link to or suggest where that information came from?

Just in: Dr Dan Chubb has just given a thorough smack down of the pneumonia link.

From the source you quoted (emphasis mine): “Other unsolicited events reported in clinical trials for PRIORIX are listed below for children vaccinated according to protocol. CAUSALITY HAS NOT BEEN ESTABLISHED.”

So what they are saying is that the reported adverse event may or may not be related to the immunisation given. They are being honest in reporting everything bad that happened. However, there was no control group in the study mentioned – so we don’t really know if the rate of pneumonia was higher than baseline or not.

Given the baseline incidence of pneumonia in children of this age is up to 4/100/year, the incidence of pneumonia in the month or two after vaccination being 1/100 – 1/1000 sounds about right. (Denny FW, Clyde WA Jr. Acute lower respiratory tract infections in nonhospitalized children. J Pediatr. May 1986;108(5 Pt 1):635-46.)

Thank you people much smarter than me, you make life easier.

Drowning.

Yes this is another post about Melanie’s Marvelous Measles. This time it’s courtesy of Judy Wilyman and Bronwyn Hancock.

Background?

Judy Wilyman is a PhD student at the University of Wollongong, under the tutelage of Professor Brian “Dissent the dissenters” Martin. She was a former science teacher, has a Masters degree in something and is doing a PhD in public vaccination policy… maybe, although her time tends to be focused on writing incoherent ramblings on her website, where she mainly discusses the semantics of calling Gardasil a cervical cancer vaccine versus an HPV vaccine. She’s clueless.

Bronwyn Hancock was once a member of the AVN before Meryl Dorey unsuccessfully tried to sue her, in a case that the magistrate referred to as

a most unfortunate case. It should never have been brought. There has been no loss established.

Zing. You may also remember Bronwyn from that ill fated 60 Minutes segment, where her idol the batcrap crazy Viera Scheibner turned on her during the segment on vaccines and said

 Don’t answer things that you don’t know enough about, OK – don’t answer them. You were drowning. So let’s call a spade a spade.

To start with Judy…

I can only assume that Judy has not read the book, because that’s not what it is about at all. See my previous review – but the book is about Tina’s stupid mother deciding to take Tina to a play date at Melanie’s so she can contract measles, and details Tina’s mother indoctrinating her with a whole bunch of crap regarding the severity of measles.

There was a time in Australia’s history when parents did try and deliberately infect their children with diseases – it was a time before vaccination. That much is correct, as it *was* often considered better to get certain diseases like measles and chickenpox as children, as opposed to adolescents and adults. Vaccines removed the need for people to deliberately infect their children.

Interestingly, the history of pox parties is a bit more gross…

I’ll answer these questions for you, Judy. Given you are a PhD level student I would have thought you could find this information yourself, rather than being spoon fed.

1. Measles was controlled by widespread vaccination. 

I’m not sure what government documents Judy has, but the evidence here is pretty clear. After the introduction of a single measles vaccine in 1968, death rates dropped by half. Hospitalisation from measles dropped significantly. A severe outbreak in 1993 saw 9000 notifications, but after the introduction of a second measles vaccine to the schedule, rates plummeted to only 10 cases by 2005. The fact is, we had almost completely eradicated measles.

Data from here, here and here.

2. Complications don’t even happen that much! Well they do. And they happen at a rate far higher than from any side effect from the vaccine. The public needs to know! Well the public can, from here. It’s quite comprehensive, I learned that:

Measles is often a severe disease, frequently complicated by otitis media (in ~9%), pneumonia (in ~6%) and diarrhoea (in ~8%).^1,2 Acute encephalitis occurs in 1 per 1000 cases, and has a mortality rate of 10 to 15%, with 15 to 40% of survivors suffering permanent brain damage.3 Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a late complication of measles, occurring on average 7 years after infection in approximately 0.5 to 1 per 100 000 measles cases.²SSPE causes progressive brain damage and is always fatal. Complications from measles are more common and more severe in the chronically ill, in children <5 years of age, and in adults.¹ Approximately 60% of deaths from measles are attributed to pneumonia, especially in the young, while complications from encephalitis are more frequently seen in adults.1,2 Measles infection during pregnancy can result in miscarriage and premature delivery but has not been associated with congenital malformation.¹

SO! 9% get otitis media, 6% will get pneumonia, diarrhoea in 8%. Encephalitis occurs in 1:1000 cases, SSPE occurs at 0.5 – 1:100,000 cases. Of those that get encephalitis, up to 15% will die, and up to 40% will suffer irreversible brain damage. 60% of all deaths are due to those 6% of pneumonia cases. There is your information, Judy. Compared with the rates of vaccine side effects which stand at:

• Fever in 5 – 15% 
• Febrile seizures is approximately 1 case per 3000
• Anaphylaxis (less than 1 in 1 million doses distributed)
• It is uncertain whether encephalopathy occurs following vaccination, if it does it occurs 1000 times less frequent than from measles itself
• Thrombocytopenia (usually self-limiting) has been very rarely associated with the rubella or measles component of MMR occurring in 3 to 5 per 100 000 doses of MMR vaccine administered. This is considerably less than the diseases themselves
• Autism is not a side effect of vaccination.

3) Steven Hambleton has not provided any evidence that “it is far more dangerous to actually experience the disease (measles)” than it is to be vaccinated.

Well, I just did that.

Yes, put Melanie’s Marvelous Measles in schools. Put it right next to “I can jump puddles”.

I’ve just spent my Saturday night reading every Year Book since 1945. Guess what, measles was not removed as a “notifiable” disease. It was removed from the Year Books on the recommendation of the National Health and Medical Research Council and it states

the table does not include all diseases which are notifiable in each State and Territory

The fact that we can still find data from 1950 onward regarding measles data confirms that the disease was never removed as a notifiable disease. It was just not listed in the Australian Year Book. Measles was still a concern. If it were not a concern, they would not list in the Year Books the number of people entering Australia with confirmed cases of measles.

I think you will find he is Sir Gustav Nossal. The public getting their information from the media is precisely why we’re in the predicament we’re in. The public need to be getting their information from the government, which has made information on side effects and their rates readily available.

Secondly her assertion that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Scheme is proof that vaccines are dangerous is inherently flawed. Nobody has ever suggested that vaccines are 100% safe, and if a person is genuinely injured by vaccines it is only fair that they are compensated. This is because vaccination is in the best interests of the community, and is based on government policy. Thus, a no fault compensation scheme was established in America, out of concerns that if pharmaceutical companies were to be sued, they would stop manufacturing vaccines. It is not proof that vaccine damage is as widespread as Judy and the AVN would like to claim, not does it support the thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.

I’ve had some people not as interested as me ask why I am so rustled by this book. It’s because in 2005, Australia came the closest it’s ever been to eliminating this dreadful disease. We had 10 notified cases of measles in 2005. 10! In a country which at that time had a population of 20 million! That equates to 0.5 cases per 1 million people.

A fantastic result which was undone by an endemic outbreak in 2006, of which more than 50% of cases (54% to be exact) were the result of a unvaccinated person having gone overseas, bringing the disease back.

The 2002 measles serosurvey conducted by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases (NCIRS) estimated that 94% of the Australian population was immune to measles.

94% of the population! We were almost there!! Measles is theoretically one of the few viruses we can wipe out completely, why? Well because the measles vaccine is one of our most effective vaccines, protecting 98% of recipients for life. Humans are the only reservoir for the virus – it does not live in, or get carried by animals. Once you eliminate enough reservoirs, there is nowhere for it to go. Like smallpox and polio, it disappears – with the exception of a few hot spots overseas.

Why is measles not marvelous? Why would we want to eradicate this disease if we could?

Measles is often a severe disease, frequently complicated by ear infections, pneumonia and diarrhoea. More concerning is that the possibility that the measles infection may lead to acute encephalitis. This is an inflammation of the brain, which can leave permanent damage or lead to death. Acute encephalitis occurs in 1 per 1000 cases, and has a mortality (death) rate of 10 to 15%, with 15 to 40% of survivors suffering permanent brain damage.
Even if an infected person recovers, a rare, but deadly late complication of measles called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) may occur years after the infection (average 7 years). SSPE causes progressive brain damage and is always fatal. SSPE occurs in 0.5 to 1 per 100 000 measles cases.

The fact is, measles kills. We have become relatively complacent in Australia for two reasons.

1. Measles almost completely disappeared. Except for an outbreak in 1993-4 which saw 10,000 cases, by 2005 we were down to 10 cases. Nobody my age knows what measles is. Is it one of those mythical diseases like polio that only old people had?

2. Death rates from measles declined rapidly after the introduction of the vaccine, and due to advances in intensive care. Encephalitis is still exceptionally scary, and can still cause permanent brain damage, but our knowledge of intensive care processes has increased dramatically, and medicine is now able to treat victims more effectively.

 In 2010, there were 139 300 measles deaths globally

I certainly don’t sniff at 139, 300 deaths and neither should you. Measles kills. And if it doesn’t kill you straight away, there is a chance that you can develop SSPE. An untreatable, horrendous complication that is 100% fatal.

If you want to know more about how we came *this close* to eradicating measles, and what the disease actually is, I’ve got a few links at the bottom.

Why we are failing to eliminate measles.

A little thing about measles in Australia.

How we came *this close* to eradicating measles.

I award myself 3 rustled jimmies, due to the release of this dumb as hell book and because the ACA Facebook page has made me realise that Australia is full of idiots.

Save yourself some money and read my comprehensive review of Melanie’s Marvelous Measles. Also, don’t give your money to Stephanie Messenger because she is clearly nuts, and will probably just spend it on trying to infect her kids with some character building smallpox.

Firstly, the font. I give the font 0 stars out of 10 for being too close to Comic Sans for my liking.

In a nut shell the book is about Tina, not Melanie. Tina’s mother is some kind of sociopath, and appears to have Munchausen by proxy syndrome. Tina’s mum takes her to Melanie’s house with the hope of her becoming infected with the most contagious virus on Earth right now. Measles. I can only surmise that Tina has a hefty life insurance policy, or Tina’s mum wants to run off with the mailman, because why else does Tina’s mum want her dead? 

The book begins with Tina returning to school after the holidays. Her best friend Melanie is absent, and Tina spends the morning obsessing about what happened to Melanie! It did strike me as odd that Melanie’s best friend did not know she had measles, but anyway. The teacher does roll call and notices that Melanie is absent. Oops! Now she remembers, Melanie has measles. Without any provocation from the class, Mrs. Whatsherface informs the entire class that Melanie has measles. Excellent.

Jared, the obnoxious vaccinated boy and closest thing to an antagonist proudly beams that he won’t get measles because he is vaccinated! Unfortunately this may have been true, however it appears that Jared’s class is full of unvaccinated children so any chance of herd immunity was pissed up the wall, along with Tina’s mothers’ brain cells. Travis tells Jared that he isn’t vaccinated, to which Jared replies “WELL YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!”, which is a totally natural reaction from an 8 year old. Travis has taken a leaf from the Book of Anti Vaccine Logic and says, “I’m not vaccinated and I’m not dead so that can’t be true”.

Meanwhile, Tina starts to panic. Her brother had a reaction to a vaccine so her parents got “smart” and realised that the 1:1,000,000 chance of encephalitis from the measles vaccine is much worse than the 1:1000 chance of getting encephalitis from measles, thus didn’t vaccinate Tina.

Tina skips off home and informs her mother of what had transpired. She describes how some of the children were frightened about getting measles. Tina’s sociopathic mother replies that “measles is a good thing”, “children get spots on their body and feel very warm”. “I really enjoyed having measles!!”, said no one ever.

What Tina’s mother didn’t tell her was that measles causes an ear infection (otitis media) in 1:10 children. That encephalitis occurs in 1:1000 children. That pneumonia is a complication in 1:20 cases. That measles kills a million children every year. And if you do survive, there is that little thing called SSPE.

After that half arsed answer, Tina asks why people are afraid of measles. Her mother explains that “people fear what they don’t know”. Back in Tina’s mothers day, they used to have pox parties. Tina’s mother suggests they go over to Melanie’s house, so that Tina can catch measles and live happily ever after!

They ring Melanie’s mother and for some bizarre reason she agrees to let Tina come over and catch measles. Melanie’s mother makes a remark, “so much for being vaccinated” and tells them that Melanie’s case of measles was the worst the doctor had seen in ages! Yet all Melanie had was a rash and a slight temperature… one wonders if this was in fact a result of being vaccinated! If Melanie did have the worst case of measles the doctor had seen in a while, she would not be skipping around at home, drinking carrot juice.

Tina’s mother gives Melanie some carrot juice, which Melanie drinks and says “wow that’s sweet!”. It was probably laced with arsenic. After some cheap shots about vaccines destroying Sam’s (Tina’s brother) immune system, she goes go off to play.

After a while it is time to go. A week later Melanie is back at school, and Tina is dismayed. She didn’t end up catching “the measles”, but Jared the vaccinated boy did. Tina who is definitely not brainwashed then determines that it’s because she eats raw, organic food and Jared eats chips covered in MSG! Tina then stares off into the sunset hoping that the next time somebody gets measles, she’ll get it too.

The end…

P.S. What does Travis need a “Primary Maths Dictionary” for? Is he some kind of dumb arse?

… and then proceeds to blame amazon and The Book Depository.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about a book you felt was inappropriate for sale. Please allow me to explain our position on this.

We sell a very large and wide-ranging number of books. Generally we follow a policy where we do not withdraw titles for sale if a portion of our customers find them offensive. It is not our intention to upset anybody, however we feel strongly that it is up to the individual customer to decide what content they would like to purchase rather than use our position as a bookseller to make such a decision for them.

Book data is provided to us automatically which is why the book is listed on our site, as it also is on Book Depository and Amazon. I would suggest getting in contact with the book’s publisher and taking your complaint up with them. They will be in a better position to make editorial decisions about what should or should not be published.

I understand you feel very strongly about this and again, it is not our intention to offend any of our customers and I regret if this has occurred here. Please let me know if you have any further thoughts on this matter.

Respectfully,

Alison
Customer Services Manager
TheNile.com.au

This is the response a friend just received, regarding her complaint to thenile.com.au for stocking this horrendous piece of garbage:

The response to the response…

Thank you for your response, Alison.

I would like to make it very clear that I will never purchase anything from your business again due to this highly unethical stance of encouraging vaccine preventable disease back into the community. I would also like to point out that my friends will also do the same. 

Perhaps you haven’t read the journalist, Tory Shepherd’s story?
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/measles-can-be-fatal-so-why-would-you-tell-kids-it-will-make-them-stronger/story-fneuz9ev-1226549028390

Tory Shepherd will be notified of your response.

I’d also like to show you the link for a segment that was on The Project last night: 
http://theprojecttv.com.au/video.htm?movideo_p=39696&movideo_m=260153


Here’s a review of the book from a person in the UK:
http://www.skepticat.org/2013/01/a-review-of-melanies-marvelous-measles/



Book Depository has received a backlash for responding on Twitter with an attitude very similar to yours. Many people are now refusing to give that company custom. Amazon actually owns Book Depository so their silence has been very noticable however, I suggest you read the reviews for this vile book: 
http://www.amazon.com/Melanies-Marvelous-Measles-ebook/product-reviews/B00APUNP7U/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm/179-0619526-4714544?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

This has been covred by CBS news in Atlanta, GA USA:
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2013/01/08/author-writes-childrens-book-that-children-getting-measles-is-marvelous/


I have also had the gross misfortune of having read the book. It is pure and simple anti-vaccination propaganda and it advocates children being exposed to deadly disease. I live with a permanent visual disability due to having contracted measles when I was 3 years old; children are currently dying in Pakistan from measles due to there being very minimal vaccination programs in that country; children die, years after having contracted the disease from a condition known as SSPE
http://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/complications.html

.

Compulsory reading about the author of Melanie’s Marvellous Measles and the true story behind the author’s son.
http://www.dilutedthinking.com/hln_jason.php



Regards from a former customer,

Yes, it is a children’s book aimed at introducing the young and nubile mind to the wonders of measles, and how if their friends get measles it’s because they probably eat chips doused in MSG. Loosely, it tells the story of Tina who goes back to school and finds her best friend Melanie is missing. Pray tell, what has happened? Melanie has measles. A discussion ensues among the classmates, some cheap shots at vaccines are made and blah blah blah Tina goes to Melanie’s house for a measles party but never develops measles, the end.

The response received is not dissimilar to other responses people have received from stockists. Apparently asking them to remove a book that encourages people to spread the most contagious virus on Earth is akin to censorship. So far Booktopia has been the only stockist to confirm they’ll remove the book from their website, and for that we congratulate them.

This is not an issue of censorship, or book burning… this is about the fact that the book is aimed at children and their lunatic parents, and actively encourages the spread of measles. The book does not inform the reader that measles;

- in 2010 was responsible for 139 300 deaths globally – nearly 380 deaths every day or 15 deaths every hour.

- that measles can cause pneumonia, otitis media, encephalitis and SSPE.

Come on, thenile.com.au. Show some responsibility. Don’t give this quack an avenue for spreading false and misleading information, not only about measles but about the benefits of immunisation. If even one child dies from measles this year, as a direct result of their imbecile parents buying this book, you share the burden.

Read a review of this trash here.

P.S. SIGN THE PETITION if you believe children should have the right to grow up not believing that measles is about as dangerous as a kitten with no teeth or claws.

On Saturday morning we awoke to beautiful news. The Minister for Fair Trading Anthony Roberts has ordered the AVN to change their name on the grounds that their name is not appropriate given what it stands for. Namely anti vaccination. I’ve not much to say on this as it has been covered elsewhere:

http://evidenceplease.net/2012/12/18/the-soon-to-be-network-formerly-known-as-the-avn/

http://theconversation.edu.au/anti-vaccination-network-told-to-change-its-name-or-be-shut-down-11368

http://www.davethehappysinger.com/blog/2012/12/15/meryl-dorey-to-rename-the-australian-vaccination-network-stop-stopavn/

http://scepticsbook.com/2012/12/18/nsw-government-orders-the-avn-the-change-their-name-or-face-closure/

http://luckylosing.com/2012/12/17/avn-australian-vaccination-nut-jobs/

http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/anti-vaccine-group-must-change-misleading-name/1685224/

Meryl responded with her usual, something about a conspiracy and the government being bullies. And a really bizarre analogy about how Greenpeace should change their name because they’re neither green nor for peace, and that the Cancer Council should change their name because they’re not pro cancer.

I have but only one thing to add. I am starting up a new ranking system, the Rustled Jimmies. I am going to award Meryl Dorey 5 Rustled Jimmies on behalf of Anthony Roberts.

5 Jimmies Thoroughly Rustled.

Something magical happened today. The AVN has been a bit light on with outlandish claims of miracle cures to incurable conditions lately, and I was beginning to fear that they’d learned their lesson. Psyche!

If that was too long;didn’t read, let me summarise for you: crazy. Naturally somebody responded with a real world example of where something is actually required in order to sustain life; insulin in the case of Type I diabetes.

There is always an alternative, except for when there isn’t an alternative. Type I diabetes fits into that category. What is Type I diabetes? It is a condition that is characterised by autoimmune destruction of beta cells in the pancreas, leading to the loss of insulin synthesis which can result in ketoacidosis and eventually death. Unlike Type II diabetes, Type I diabetes cannot be prevented by lifestyle changes, or reversed.

Rightfully, some people get a bit indignant over this claim and suggest the AVN admin is confusing Type I and Type II diabetes.

Just because you heard that Type I diabetes is incurable doesn’t mean it isn’t!! (Except for the fact that it isn’t!!!). This AVN admin has just added Type I diabetes to its list of medical fallacies and conspiracies, along with HIV/AIDS and vaccines/autism. These people cured their Type I diabetes, they have no reason to lie. I put it to you that perhaps no, they had no reason to lie, but perhaps they never had Type I diabetes to begin with.

Yet it continues…

Stahp!!! Type I doesn’t just mean your pancreas isn’t working properly. It’s fucked! Your own body is attacking the beta cells. It is non functional! It is leading to a condition that can become rapidly fatal, not to mention painful and agonising. How dare you say that other peoples experiences aren’t true! (Except when it involves children dying from vaccine preventable diseases. Then we demand to know whether the disease was diagnosed in a laboratory. Was the child breast fed?)

If your child gets IDDM, I hope you come to somewhere like the AVN, read some unverified stories about complete remission and then make the fatal mistake of ceasing insulin therapy. Sage advice courageous AVN admin.

“a lifetime of injections and ill healthy.”
I just had to put that there because it’s hilarious.

This continues a bit longer, some people write some stuff and somebody asks for advice. Their nephew has a BGL of 42! They’re thirsty and sleepy. What to do? *crickets*. The post was a plant, yet it clearly demonstrated the disconnect from reality that the AVN admins appear to have. Only two people responded that this lady take her nephew to hospital; none of them AVN admins.

Finally, el Presidente and Quack Miranda badge wearer, Meryl Dorey interjects:

Yes it was a made up story. No it was not sanctioned by SAVN. Yes it was an attempt to goad you into providing medical advice. A simple “holy shit go to hospital right now” would have sufficed, but your admins were too busy trying to convince people of magic cures based on stories relating to a friend of a friend.

Completely incorrect is the assertion that SAVN and “our ilk” don’t want people to have the right to discuss anything. Quite the contrary, people can discuss what they like. NOT WHEN YOU ARE A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER. When you are a health care provider, you do not have the right to pass off anecdotes as legitimate suggestions.

“They are wrong, repressive and immoral”. Okay sure, coming from the group claiming Type I diabetes can be cured because someone says so, in spite of the overwhelming medical consensus that it can’t.

More to come (I need my beauty sleep……….)

Behold this comment from a consumer of ***choice group the Australian Vaccination Network.

I’m not a leading vaccination expert, so I can’t just pull figures out of my head and because I like science, I generally fact check before I say something for fear it will be all sorts of 100% incorrect. Like the statement above!

Before we get too involved in this, I want to take a trip down memory lane.

In November 2011, the AVN published this on their Facebook page. The new schedule added an extra 6 “shots”, taking our grand total to 36 “shots” by age 4. Did something happen between November 2011 and October 2012 that I was not aware of? How did the government manage to sneak in an extra 14 “shots” without anybody, except the hyper vigilant Meryl Dorey, noticing?

But more importantly, where the hell do these numbers come from??

1. Is each vaccine being counted for each time it is given?

2. Is it being counted for each time it is given PLUS for each antigen it contains?

3. Is it just being counted for the number of antigens it contains?

This is important, as it can really jack the numbers up! For example, let’s look at Infanrix Hexa which is given at 2/4/6 months. It contains: Diphtheria  Tetanus, Pertussis, Hep B, Polio and Hib. This is one vaccine with multiple antigens. If you’re a normal person you count one vaccine as one vaccine, and this vaccine is given three times. If you’re not normal and have a tenuous grip on reality, you count each antigen as a separate vaccine, multiplied by the number of times it is given. So 3 becomes (6 x 3 = 18!!!!).

Infanrix Hexa, which contains ALL THE ANTIGENS, is delivered in a 0.5ml dose.

Hiberix, which is the single Hib vaccine, is delivered in a 0.5ml dose.

Varilrix, which is a single Chicken pox vaccine, is delivered in a 0.5ml dose.

All of these vaccines, regardless of whether they have 100 antigens or 1, are equal in dose. You are not getting the equivalent of 6 vaccines in one just because it contains 6 different antigens. It is not 6 times the dose. GSK even explains how it is done in their ever available product inserts:

0.5 mL of sterile water diluent to the vaccine vial containing the pellet

With this in mind, let’s address John’s question and Meryl’s lie!

This is the schedule that would have been in place in 1981.

5 vaccines, 6 separate “shots” (which is exactly half of what Meryl quoted) and one oral vaccine.

As for 2012, how many vaccines vs shots are on the schedule? 36? 50? Not even?…

So by the age of 4, a child will have had

- 13 separate “shots” from 8 vaccines, protecting against 12 different diseases, and one oral vaccine given twice (Rotarix) This is the NSW schedule.

***I’m joking!

So shortly after I wrote my last post, the AVN was tweeted a link to the blog and responded with this:

It is all very confusing. Meryl is saying because her interpretation is different from Orac’s, it doesn’t make it any less valid. Except Orac is a surgeon/scientist, and Meryl’s only stated qualification is that she “has a brain” – one of these things is not like the other one. Unfortunately this is not how science works. Of course there will always be varying interpretations of the science, this doesn’t automatically make both interpretations correct or valid. Furthermore, Meryl has never actually given her interpretation on any scientific article she has posted. She merely regurgitates the heading or abstract, and leaves it there as “evidence” – in fact, more often than not, the articles she does link to have been overwhelmingly in favour of vaccination. I guess when you only read the abstract, or have no idea what is actually being discussed, it’s easy to make that mistake.

I am not sure what she means when she states that the US government also had a different interpretation to Orac. I imagine it’s in relation to the payout Hannah Poling’s family received, yet if she had read Orac’s post she’d see why the payout was not an admission by the US government that vaccines conclusively resulted in Hannah’s autism. Paul Offit described it brilliantly in his post on the Poling case:

 The VICP ruled that if a petitioner proposed a biologically plausible mechanism by which a vaccine could cause harm, as well as a logical sequence of cause and effect, an award should be granted.

If it sounds like maybe it could be true, regardless of whether it is, money should be granted.

My challenge to the AVN is to please, for once, give us their interpretation of the science. Don’t regurgitate the abstract or heading, don’t just post it and go “HERE’S YOUR PROOF”, for once just show us how much grasp of the science you have and explain why the science is, in your view, unequivocal.