Comments on: AVN slammed for misleading, false and anti-vaccine information

By: KittyB

KittyB — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:21:54 +0000

haha, just re-reading blog posts about AVN… and I think it’s funnier to keep it as ‘Todd Sidwell’, only cos it amused me

Sorry Tom- your name isn’t famous/celebrity enough, we’ve had to change it

By: AndyD

AndyD — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:18:10 +0000

My linking incompetence knows no bounds

By: AndyD

AndyD — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:17:08 +0000

The weirdness continues over at the AVN blog where Meryl wrote…
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When I got home, my mother in law was on antibiotics and within a few days, my kids started to cough. We went to the doctor for a diagnosis and received it but we refused the antibiotics because we knew that it did nothing once the symptoms had appeared – and it might have suppressed their immune systems and made the disease last longer. We used homoeopathy to treat and one remedy worked on all of us except for my youngest daughter. Those of us who it worked on were showing marked improvement within 48 hours. [a href="http://avn.org.au/nocompulsoryvaccination/?p=735&cpage=1#comment-1843">source] – my bolding.
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The strange thing is that Meryl doesn’t think a hospital can positively diagnose pertussis in less than a week and yet she apparently took the word of a “doctor” (strange that she saw one given her conspiratorial theories in that regard). I wonder what test the doctor did that was so convincing but which can’t be done by a hospital?
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Elsewhere she suggested a detractor check the NY Times story on the uselessness of the “quick test”. I checked the story and found the following…
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Before the 1940s when a pertussis vaccine for children was introduced, whooping cough was a leading cause of death in young children. The vaccine led to an 80 percent drop in the disease’s incidence,… [source]
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Strangely, she didn’t mention that part of the story.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:49:52 +0000

Eek! Sorry Tom, I thought I’d fixed that already

By: Tom Sidwell

Tom Sidwell — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 03:25:52 +0000

Todd Sidwell?

By: » Meryl gives me a shout out on Howard Sattler 6PR!

» Meryl gives me a shout out on Howard Sattler 6PR! — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:24:12 +0000

[...] at the WA State Library. I tweeted it so everyone else could experience the joy of Meryl’s inaccurate and misleading information about vaccines (share the love and all [...]

By: More Fallout from the HCCC findings against the AVN | Michigan Skeptics Association

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:17:23 +0000

[...] HCCC ruling states that the AVN has 14 days to post a disclaimer clearly stating their website is anti-vaccine [...]

By: Maggie

Maggie — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:56:42 +0000

Hi Flip,

Thanks for your comments. Even I sometimes have trouble reading the text. I am hoping to do a design overhaul of the blog as soon as I can find a WordPress savvy person to give money to! In the meantime, you can change the view in your browser by going to the “view” menu and “increase text size” or “zoom”. If you are on a Mac, you can use the keyboard short cut command (apple) and the “+/=” key.

Cheers, Maggie.

By: » The AVNs reputation is in tatters.

» The AVNs reputation is in tatters. — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:38:23 +0000

[...] HCCC ruling states that the AVN has 14 days to post a disclaimer clearly stating their website is anti-vaccine [...]

By: flip

flip — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:59:44 +0000

Random comment, not really related to anything:
I’m a lurker here, and enjoy reading your posts. But I have trouble reading the text as the font size is so small. Considering I’m wearing glasses, I can only wonder what the skeptically-minded visually-disabled people do when they visit. Can you please consider raising the font size (or having a font-size switcher), so that we all may enjoy your particularly well-written words?

Thanks!