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But this morning I had reason to leap out of bed at the ungodly hour of 05:30 to hit the computer and report on some very good news.

Our government has gone done something good and given that this doesn’t happen very often, I reckon it’s worthy of a pre-dawn blog post.

The news, which was brought to my attention by Fuzztwin on Twitter, reports on changes to the current childhood immunisation schedule to include three new vaccines and increase the incentives for parents who complete the schedule, effective 2013.

From http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/inject-children-or-lose-money/story-fn7x8me2-1226205382138

Chickenpox or varicella which as not previously been covered by the schedule (and hence was an out-of-pocket expense for parents wanting to vaccinate against chickenpox) will now be included.

Also new is vaccinations for meningococcal C and pneumococcal.

The new schedule brings the number of infectious diseases covered by the schedule to twelve.

Importantly, reports indicate that the number of shots kids will be required to get will actually be reduced however, since there will be new combination vaccines used.

According to a report in The Herald Sun a new combination vaccine will cover measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox in one shot and will be administered at 18 months replacing the previous MMR given at 4 years. The number of visits will increase however, owing to the new scheduled shot at 18 months.

There are also changes to the incentive scheme for parents and this is where it gets interesting (well, for nerds of legislation like me).

Under the current maternity immunisation allowance scheme introduced in 1997, parents receive two one-off payments totalling $258 if they complete the vaccination schedule. This will be scrapped under the new system and replaced with three payments of $726 each, paid at one, three and five years. If kids are not fully vaccinated, then the $2100 will be withheld. (This is part of the current family tax benefit part A end-of-year supplement so it’s not an entirely new benefit).

From http://www.smh.com.au/national/tax-threat-to-parents-who-dont-have-their-children-immunised-20111124-1nwwx.html

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said: “We know that immunisation is fundamental to a child’s lifelong health and that’s why we want to make sure that children are immunised at the right time.

“We want all Australian kids to grow up healthy, and immunisation is essential to that.”

What is not mentioned in any of the news stories is whether this effects the current options for conscientious objectors. Under the current system, you can still get the maternity immunisation allowance even if you don’t vaccinate, if you identify as a conscientious objector (CO). Excerpt from the Centrelink website which administers the payment:

a recognised immunisation provider (e.g. your doctor) signs a letter or form saying that:

• they have told you about the benefits and risks of immunising your child and you have a conscientious objection to immunising your child (your provider should complete a Health Insurance Commission Immu-12 form),

• immunising your child with a particular vaccine is medically contraindicated (your provider should use the Health Insurance Commission Immu-11 form),

• the child has a natural immunity to the disease, or

• the vaccine is not available,

• you or your partner are a member of the Church of Christ, Scientist and you have a letter from an official of the Church advising that you are a practising member of the Church.

This is certainly going to be the bit the anti-vaxers are interested in. The news stories appeared overnight (at least one was published at 12:00) so we have yet to see a reaction from Meryl and her buddies. But you can expect some major *head asplosions* on this one, guaranteed. Particularly since Meryl had previously claimed she has some sort of influence when it comes to vaccination policy. It seems she might have missed this one.

This is not the only piece of good news in this story either. Reports also detail a new pertussis awareness campaign in the form of mail-outs to warn parents about the dangers of the current epidemic and advise on ways to protect their kids.

This is a direct response to campaigning by the McCaffery family who lost their baby Dana in 2009 at 4 weeks of age in the grips of a pertussis epidemic. The family was never warned about the risks of pertussis or that they needed, as parents and carers, to get boosters, since the effectiveness of the vaccines wanes over time.

From the Age:

Ms Roxon said the aim of the whooping cough campaign was to raise awareness, particularly among parents planning pregnancies and others to be aware of the dangers to infants and the need to have vaccinations at two months, four months and six months after birth.
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But the vaccinations do not provide lifelong protection from whooping cough and children should have booster shots at age four and then during teenage years, Ms Roxon said.

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”Whooping cough is not just a childhood disease, as adolescents and adults can account for half the cases in the community.”

Overall, this is a step in the right direction by the Australian Government and I applaud Nicola Roxon for (finally) taking action. The introduction of the chickenpox vaccine is also a welcome addition to the schedule, since it costs as much to get as the current maternity immunisation allowance (~$200) making the incentive seem moot.

It’s still early in Australia, and since this story only broke overnight, I wait with interest for the response of the anti-vaxers. I’ve also searched, but to no avail, for a government media release, as I’m keen to find out if any changes have been made to the CO conditions.

One suspects they will remain in place, at least in some form, since they are necessary for kids with genuine medical reasons for not vaccinating, but given that the maternity immunisation allowance scheme is to be scrapped, it appears they will at least need to be migrated, if not re-drafted.

I await with interest.

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Update: the government statement about changes can be found here

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It all came to a head last week when his anti-vaccine “rants” were covered by our national media when The Australian newspaper and Radio National both took him to task over his public anti-vaccine lectures. The stories came after Australian Doctor published the audio of his talk online, against his wishes but in what they say was in the public interest.

Why is it in the public interest? Because Weiner gives talks to parents, pregnant mothers and young mums and effectively scares them into not vaccinating. Also, he’s the Vice President of the Chiropractors Association of Australia (CAA) NSW branch of whom Australian Doctor have previously accused of “fundamentalist ideologies” and “pseudoscientific dogma”. He’s also on the board of the Australian Spinal Research Foundation where he contributes content for the newsletter. So effectively, he’s a high profile chiropractor.

But leading up to the bad news week for Weiner was a heck of a lot of work behind the scenes. I thought it might be interesting to track the chronology of events which resulted in him getting pwned all over the media. Hopefully, it will give readers an understanding of the value of grass roots scepticism and how a little bit of investigation, like asking questions at the Mind Body Wallet Festival or spending two hours in a chiropractors clinic can result in exposing dangerous quackery. And anti-vaccine quackery is particularly dangerous.

Let’s begin.

November 14th, 2010. My mate Richard Saunders came across this flyer at the Newtown Festival last year where Newtown Community Chiropractic had a stall. He twitpicked it and we decided to go along (Richard didn’t end up going – we can’t remember why).

November 25th, 2010. Meryl Dorey sends out warning to chiropractors as part of her newsletter

December 4th, 2010. I attended the 2 hr free seminar with a friend and blogged it here the same day. Or watch it on the YouTube (thanks to the kind soul who made it).

March 8th 2011. A journalist from Australian Doctor contacted me as part of researching a feature on CAM published as Exploring the Alternatives (I eventually wrote a guest editorial). He was curious about chiropractors and their views on vaccination and knew I had been to listen to Weiner. He booked to go along to the seminar in March. He recorded the seminar, identified himself as from Australian Doctor and asked Weiner if he could post it on-line. Weiner declined.

(Note: according to the Australian Doctor article – which is paywalled – Weiner claims he’s done five years of a medical degree. I was unable to confirm this).

Literature handed out at Nimrod Weiner's December 2010 seminar

To provide you with some context for what happened next, chiropractors were copping it around this time for treating babies.

March 18th 2011. The first stories about a chiropractic clinic at a Victorian University treating babies and kids appears in national newspaper The Australian. Spearheaded by Loretta Marron, academics and health professionals including Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst petition the government to close the clinic down.

March 28th 2011. The British medical journal covers the story

April 27th 2011. Australian Doctor are the first to link chiropractors with the anti-vaccine group the AVN revealing that 130 of professional members of the AVN are chiropractors. This includes clinics run by the CAA president Simon Floreani, the association’s treasurer Taylor Vagg and board member Anthony Croke.

“Mr Floreani….insisted AVN was a valuable resource for patients: “For me it’s about critical thinking. You are only going to get one biased side of the debate from the medical profession. Can you trust the claims that the vaccines are safe when one-fifth of all deaths are related to medical error?

“The AVN has links and resources to an enormous amount of information that you don’t find elsewhere. As a registered health professional, your role is to help patients. I don’t think [of the AVN] as anti-vaccination. It is more pro-choice.”

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May 28th 2011. More bad publicity for baby-cracking chiros, where Marron says, “I would not have written a submission if the chiropractors were treating adults for lower back pain,” she says. “Pediatric chiropractic is a form of faith healing and it should be in theology, not health science.”

July 2nd 2011. A feature story on chiros treating kids appears in The Australian with another “pro-choice” chiropractor, Warren Sipser. (note: this the same one who commented in an article which Meryl Dorey went onto refer to as “vaccination is akin to rape with full penetration.”

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The decision sparked a reaction from the anti-immunisation movement in Australia, with one sceptic, paediatric chiropractor Dr Warren Sipser, saying the judgment was “dangerous” and some children could have severe reactions.

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18 reasons to not vaccinate. Literature from December 2010 seminar

July 11th 2011. The CAA sent a media alert out to their members about damage control, directing their members to send all media enquiries to a PR firm.

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“We wish to alert you to an article that may be appearing in this weekend’s edition of The Weekend Australian…..As always, we continue to make every effort to mitigate negative press that at times is being played out in the media, as well as our attempts to generate positive media..”

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July 23rd, 2011. A bunch of concerned citizens and some members of SAVN attended Weiner’s talk. They were “…criticised by the audience for doing such dreadful things as pointing out errors made by the speaker.”

July 24th 2011. I received a call from a journo who was investigating how widespread anti-vaccine beliefs were amongst chiropractors. The story was published a few days later.

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“Of the (AVN) network’s 198 professional members, 128 are registered chiropractors. Many are members of the professional body the Chiropractor’s Association of Australia, or CAA.”

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August 8th 2011. After obtaining legal advice, Australian Doctor posts the audio of Weiner’s talk online with commentary, even though Weiner did not agree to it. They state; “… we believe it is in the public interest, particularly given Mr Weiner’s profile within the chiropractic profession.”

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We…reported on accusations against the Chiropractors Association of Australia – the profession’s peak body – that it has turned its back on science to peddle “fundamentalist ideologies” and “pseudoscientific dogma”. The CAA has strenuously denied the claims.

On the issue of vaccination, it says the profession’s role is to educate the public on health issues – the risks and benefits of vaccinations is just one of those issues. So here we offer a talk on vaccinations given to members of the public by Nimrod Weiner…..vice-president of the NSW Chiropractors Association of Australia and ..on the board of the Australia Spinal Research Foundation, a self-styled scientific research body.

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August 15th 2011. Another journo, again from The Australian newspaper emailed to ask me about the Australian Doctor audio, since he knew I had blogged about the talk. A story entitled “Call to probe anti-vax rant” was published on August 17th (seen by approximately 128,985 people) where Weiner’s comments were described as “outrageous” by the Australian Medical Association who called on the CAA to intervene.

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Mr Weiner declined to comment, referring questions from The Australian to a PR company, which said the Chiropractors Association of Australia (NSW) had no position on vaccination and “any comments that Nimrod Weiner may have made would be his private opinions, not those of the association”.

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August 18th 2011. The following day, the story appeared on Radio National on the back of Australian Doctor audio and The Australian newspaper article.

August 19th 2011. Another critical article appeared in the press

Interestingly, shortly after these national stories broke, a link on Weiner’s website to his vaccine talks was showing a 404 but it could be found in Google cache. Today, as I was researching to write this article I again found the page, but it appears an attempt to hide it has been made, as indicated by the “_offline” text at the end of the url. You can still get the page though if you do some digging, but it has been moved thus breaking all previous links.

I guess the question now is will Weiner continue to give these seminars. According to this screenshot he has previously charged for the seminars.

UPDATE: Another critical article appeared in Australian Doctor today, where the Chiropractic Board of Australia is calling on people to complain about Weiner;

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The chair of the chiropractic board is urging people to make a formal complaint about high-profile chiropractor Nimrod Weiner over his public seminar on the alleged dangers of vaccines.

Phillip Donato stressed that chiropractors had a duty under the profession’s code of conduct to provide up-to-date, evidence-based information. He said: “It appeared at the very least he is misinformed and may be providing misleading information to the public. We would encourage notifications so that we can have a look at the case properly.” Australian Doctor understands that notifications have already been made.

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Indeed a complaint made to AHPRA then passed onto the Chiropractic Council of NSW was dismissed in June this year. The complainant flagged anti-vaccination material on Weiner’s website as being in breach of section 10.2 of the Code of Conduct for Chiropractors, which states; “good practice involves: c) understanding the principles of immunisation against communicable diseases.”

The complaint was dismissed on the grounds that “The Council considered that Dr Weiner was entitled to put his opinion forward and that this did was not in breach of the Code.”

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this saga. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

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Hello friends! long time no bloggy-blog etc. Apologies, but there was this small thing called #TAMOz. Dunno if you’ve heard of it, but it completely took up my life for the last six months so everything else had to take a back seat. I apologise, I hope you’ll forgive me, etc etc.

Let’s move on.

So now I’m back in investigative sceptic mode, I will tell you what I did on this fine Saturday afternoon. I attended a seminar from Pediatric Chiropractor, Nimrod Weiner, at Newtown Community Chiropractic entitled Vaccinations: Make an Informed Decision. Sounds like a loaded title doesn’t it? And it was, as you’re about to find out.

To set the scene, the audience consisted of about 20 people, mostly women (several pregnant) and assorted couples with very young babies (< 2 years old) gurgling in the background. Then there was me and my mate Frode (I don’t think he is pregnant).

Nimrod started by saying he was going to provide us with both sides of the story to vaccination. He acknowledged that vaccination is an emotive issue, but he asked that we do not let our emotions get in the way. He was happy for dissenting views to be aired and he would respect people for their views.

He also said (and I think I recall this correctly) that he had been called anti-vaccination after giving some of his lectures, but that he was no such thing. I settled a little lower in my seat when I heard this.

After detailing his qualifications (which include a masters in Chiro with units of peadiatric chiropractic) Nimrod emphasised he would stick to the science about vaccinations in an effort to arm parents with the ability to ask the right questions and weigh up the evidence from both sides. He said he approached the research from a logical and rational point of view and his aim was to “empower parents to make a good decision” (does this sound like someone else we know?).

He was also going to explain to us “how safe the diseases (we vaccinate against) are” and thereby allow us to make “an informed decision based on science”. So far this is sounding pretty anti-vaccine to me. I had so many flags up already it felt like a flag festival (or something) and we were only 5 minutes in.

After a brief explanation of what chiropractic is – chiros keep the nervous system healthy – stressors can “imprint on the nervous system” and cause decay, a healthy body heals itself – Nimrod attempted to explain the immune system to a room full of lay people. He used the rather unusual analogy of “Avatar” (the movie) and the reactions of the female versus male population of the fictional planet to invaders, to describe that Th1 cells are the warriors (they go in fighting without much thought, like the males in “Avatar”) and the Th2 cells maintain a memory and “learn” from the invaders (there were the female characters in “Avatar”).

I guess if you’ve seen Avatar this might work ( I haven’t) , but for me, it was a long-winded and not very effective approach. Further, I don’t think a lay audience needs to know the ins-and-outs of the immune system, especially since he hardly referred to Th1/Th2 later.

Finally we got on to vaccines, however the talk was still peppered with phrases such as “leave out emotions and propaganda”, “respect critical thinking and analysis” but immediately followed with “information about vaccines is laden with propaganda”. Nimrod continued to emphasise that his information is based on current research and science and further, he has spent more than 100 hours on “this topic alone”.

I reckon if you can count the number of hours you have spent on a topic, then you haven’t spent nearly enough. Also, it doesn’t matter if you’ve spent more than 100 hours, if you’ve read the wrong information from the likes of Mercola*, Mike Adams or the AVN, then you’re not going to glean anything based on research and science by the time you finish.

Nimrod then proposed, “no criticisms are allowed (from the audience) without an accompanying suggestion for improvement”. We’ll get to that later.

It was here that I began to tally the number of times he said, or referred to vaccines as “injected into the blood”. Granted, the first time he mentioned it, he did say “straight into the blood or a muscle….”.

But, I ticked off at least 6 mentions of INJECTED INTO THE BLOOD. Anti-vaxers love to do this – it sounds so SCARY and EBIL. He did follow this up with by saying that some vaccines can be inhaled but they are not as effective.

Which is interesting, because his whole explanation about the immune system being like “Avatar” was designed to illustrate that vaccines by-pass the “first line of defence” (being the skin and mucous membranes) therefore can never be as effective as natural infections. Yet vaccines that are inhaled are not very effective? Does not compute.

He also said that injecting a vaccine DIRECTLY INTO THE BLOOD means the immune system can’t respond as effectively. Which made me wonder, what happens when I cut myself and germs get in? Isn’t my immune system able to cope just as well in this instance, compared to when I breathe in a virus or bacteria?

So then we got the old antivax canards:
1) Non-one knows how long vaccines last
2) No guarantee of their effectiveness
3) Antibodies have no role in immunity
4) These diseases are designed to come into our bodies when we are kids
6) Vaccines have never been tested

Nimrod then went onto to talk about lots of pseudoscience, lack of ethics and negligence associated with vaccine manufacturers and government health bodies. Some of his points were quite valid, such as Big Pharma test the vaccines they make hence there is propensity to bias, some government advisors have links to Big Pharma suggesting a conflict of interest, and the TGA doesn’t independently test drugs.

But then he went and undid all his good work by saying something like:

No lot of vaccines have ever been recalled for increased adverse reactions, lots that may have caused harm in children, they have never been taken off the shelf. In the “whole history of the world” this has never happened.

Oh, except in WA with the recent fluvax reactions scare.

So he scares parents into thinking that vaccines batches that may be faulty and cause increased adverse reactions are ever recalled EXCEPT that time when they were.

He also claimed that parents are not told what to expect after a vaccination. I’m pretty sure everyone is told what to expect and even made to wait for at least 15 minutes in case of an immediate adverse event.

He then cited deaths from vaccine preventable diseases in the last decade (cited as sourced from Immunise Australia) and proposed reasons for the cause of death, since vaccine preventable illnesses are not so bad. Really.

He suggested that since vaccination status was unknown, these people may have had other illnesses, they may have been Aboriginal (a population which suffers a greater incidence of disease that the rest of the country), they may have lived in unsanitary conditions and perhaps they were in refugee camps. So in other words, any number of explanations – including they were somehow in squalid refugee camps – could explain their death from vaccine preventable disease. Cause it sure as hell wasn’t the disease.

As we moved onto vaccine ingredients, I felt as if I was reading the AVN’s page or something from Joseph Mercola as he listed all the SCARY CHEMICALS in vaccines.

There was no acknowledgment of the “poison is in the dose”, or that there are 2 types of mercury, the one in some vaccines being much less SCARY. All the usual suspects got a mention including ABORTED HUMAN FOETUS, thimerosal, aluminium, bacteria, formaldehyde, and anti-freeze.

We were also reminded that scientists say that vaccines are safe but what about ASBESTOS AND CIGARETTES AND THALIDIMIDE!!!!1!!eleventy11 – they said they were safe too.

As expected, the old “vaccines cause autism” show boat was rolled out several times. When myself and Frode politely pointed out that Nimrod should probably not be using Wakefield’s Lancet (since retracted) paper as evidence for such – if, as he claims he was basing his research on good science – he insisted that the science was still valid. According to him, Wakefield was only in trouble for 2 things in regards to that paper – he didn’t have ethics for the birthday party blood taking and he paid the parents – otherwise it was solid science. When Frode gently pointed out that you generally have to do more than that to get struck off the medical register, Nimrod said it was political.

During this discussion Nimrod also stated he had read The Lancet paper. I propose he didn’t read it properly, because in his summary he wrote it showed a link between MMR and autism. But The Lancet paper doesn’t address a connection between MMR and autism, this was suggested at a press conference after the paper was published.

When both Frode and I informed him that Wakefield was paid by lawyers to show a link between MMR and autism and had a patent pending on a single measles vaccine, he again claimed to not know anything about this. So he was quite happy to throw mud at Big Pharma for bias, pseudoscience and vested interests, but these same rules do not apply to Wakefield.

In fact, the Wakefield-in-the-room was addressed several times, once by a lady inquiring about the Swedish study (actual it’s Danish) of all children born in Denmark from January 1991 through December 1998 which provided strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism. Nimrod said he had not heard of that study either but he would like to see a copy.

There was more vaccines cause autism to come, with evidence in the form of a American Dental Association video showing a neurone dying in culture when incubated with mercury. The dose of mercury was not specified, how a cell in a dish is relevant to a child’s brain was not discussed, and fortunately for us the video stopped working half way through.

We were then told that vaccines are associated with shaken baby syndrome, SIDS, ADD, asthma, MS, suppress the immune system and “shift the balance for life”. We were told that polio has not been eradicated in many countries, but has simply been renamed (in an attempt to hide the ineffectiveness of the vaccine I presume) by Big Pharma, as flaccid aseptic meningitis or aseptic meningitis. We were also told that one in two people now have a chronic disease, herd immunity doesn’t work, and most childhood illnesses are self limiting, rarely dangerous and have few serious consequences (except the ones that kill you).

Nimrod ended by saying he treats babies as young as one day old and if your baby is sick get it to a pediatric chiropractor for treatment as soon as you can. Thanks, but I’ll go to a real doctor.

So after listening to this propaganda for two hrs and asking a few polite questions here and there, I decided to offer “criticism….with an accompanying suggestion for improvement”.

I asked Nimrod why he didn’t tell us from the very beginning that he was against vaccination. Recall that he told us at the beginning of the lecture that some people come away from his seminars thinking he is anti-vaccine, (he didn’t like me reminding him of this btw, and mumbled something about “not my words”). I suggested that he had not shown anything about the risk/benefit ratio of vaccination – that is, the risk of getting an adverse reaction to a vaccine is tiny compared to the risks associated with the disease. He said he was not anti-vax, but admitted that he would not choose to vaccinate, but it is the choice of the parents. My suggestion for improvement was therefore that he inform people from the very beginning that he is against vaccination.

I’m not anti-vaccination, I just don’t recommend it. Although we were told this was not an anti-vax seminar, this was the literature handed out at the end.

My second criticism was that nowhere in his seminar had he addressed the issue of the seriousness of childhood diseases and that as a pediatric chiropractor, it was irresponsible not to inform a room full of mums holding babies and pregnant women that there is currently an epidemic of pertussis and pertussis kills babies. I suggested to him that he had glossed over the seriousness of this disease (and others) and that whilst he spent a lot of time talking about vaccine reactions, he didn’t even mention that in babies under the age of two years, pertussis can be fatal at the worst, and at the best have complications such as broken ribs, hernias, vomiting after coughing episodes, pneumonia etc. My suggestion for improvement was that when there is an epidemic of a vaccine preventable disease in our community, he might remind parents that they should vaccinate their kids and get their own booster shot to protect theirs and other babies.

My final criticism was he said that vaccines don’t work because I can still get the disease even if I am vaccinated. My suggestion for improvement was that although a vaccine is not a force field, it can significantly reduce the severity of the disease. So kids who have had two or three shots for pertussis can still get the disease, but they have a reduced risk of getting complications and suffering long term effects.

It was at this point that a discussion ensued around the room in which one pregnant lady asked Nimrod if there was a cure for whooping cough. She looked over to me and I shook my head and Nimrod confirmed this. She then asked Nimrod which vaccines were important and which you could skip. As she listed them off, she said one thing that made me pause. She said something like, “Obviously I can’t skip the pertussis vaccine, that disease sounds really bad”.

So maybe we achieved something today.

Yet, sadly, she included chicken pox in her list of “not so bad childhood diseases”. It was on my tongue to remind her of the death of a seven year old from chicken pox recently, but by this stage I was tired and also losing my temper.

For a pediatric chiropractor I couldn’t be more disappointed in Nimrod Weiner. He’s a smart man who has studied extensively, but he sat in a room filled almost exclusively with pregnant women and parents with babies and scared them into not vaccinating. He told them never to get vaccinated if they are pregnant “no matter what they tell you”. He cited studies that have been struck from the literature because they were found to be fraudulent and he defended them when questioned. In the middle of a pertussis epidemic in which at least three babies have died, he told parents that childhood diseases are self limiting and not very harmful.

But worst of all, as we were gathering our stuff and about to leave, someone asked him a question about homeopathic vaccination. He said although he wasn’t a homeopath, he understood it worked like vaccines, in that it had contained small amount of the infectious material, but was safer because it didn’t have the toxic chemicals that vaccines have.

Ironic really, when he had just stood in front of us for two hours, spouting misinformation about vaccines and never once did he say he was not an immunologist or a medical doctor. He gave medical advice to pregnant women and parents for two hours and much of it was wrong.

I guess all we can hope is that Frode and I planted a seed in some people’s minds today. Also thanks to the lady who cited the Danish study (woo hoo!). As for us, We didnt give up on the Wakefield stuff. We didn’t let it go when Nimrod kept saying it was “good science”. He told us he updates his slides every time he gives a talk, to which I suggested next time you do that, remove the Wakefield one.

Who knows if he will. At least he was willing to listen to our criticisms. Unlike some, he didn’t have us ejected from the room as soon as we started to ask questions. But when someone who calls themselves a pediatric chiropractor and says homeopathic vaccination works and “That Lancet Paper” is valid, well it’s time to notify the relevant authorities.

Especially when kids’ lives are at risk.

* To his credit, Nimrod did end by saying he reads Mercola “with a grain of salt” and that his website does have some strange ideas about medicine, but if this is the case why mention him at all?

Initially I was somewhat disappointed to learn the ruling from the HCCC was no more than a requirement to post a disclaimer on the AVN website, but as the news has spread, I am somewhat buoyed by what has been happening.

The HCCC ruling states that the AVN has 14 days to post a disclaimer clearly stating their website is anti-vaccine and that any information on the website should not be construed as medical advice.

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For more detailed information go here and here.

The McCafferys have posted a media release here where you can also find a statement from Ken McLeod who submitted the original complaint.
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Seems like a slap on the wrist right? At first yes, but since the story has spread across the webosphere, an unexpected result has emerged and one that makes me very pleased indeed. (I even happy-danced with @skepticzone in Las Vegas airport yesterday, apologies if you had to witness it).

Everywhere across the media, the AVN are now being referred to as anti-vaccine. Australia’s anti-vaccine organisation, the anti-vaccination network, and asked repeatedly why they are anti-vaccine. Regular readers of this blog will shrug and say, yeah we already knew they were anti-vaccine Maggie, so what? But what you may not know is that many people, especially vulnerable non-science educated parents and the media did not.

Like the majority of anti-vaccine groups, the AVN have gone to great lengths to conceal their true beliefs from the public and especially the media – and the reasons why are obvious. Their rhetoric generally consists of “we are pro-choice”, “we want to empower parents to make a decision by providing both sides of the story”, “we provide a balance”, “we are pro-information, blah blah informed choice” etc. You know the drill.

And although it has been blindingly obvious to anyone who knows how to use teh internets, for many busy producers, journalists and the like, the AVN has been their first port of call for “balance” (or rather false balance) simply because they didn’t know any better. Well, never fear dear readers, things they are a-changing.

Even before the HCCC fallout, Meryl appeared to be concerned about the public perception of the AVN. In July 2009 (Yahoo! Group message # 44295) she wrote;

“….While we are already seen as rabid, idiotic fringe-dwellers by so many in the mainstream, it does our argument no good at all to bring in conspiracy theories which, though we may subscribe to them, are unprovable…”

But as they say, the truth eventually comes out and it seems the game is up for Meryl “I’m pro-choice” Dorey. Even the normally sympathetic morning television host Kerry Anne Kennelly, whose show consists largely of light entertainment and info–mercials, apparently asked Meryl twice why she was anti-vaccine.

In an email sent to her Yahoo Group, Meryl described how she had initially refused to appear on the show, eventually relenting under the condition that she was given 6 minutes to discuss the HCCC findings and that she was to have the questions ahead of time.

(Coincidentally the website 6minutes were the first to break the news of the HCCC report and wrote a less than flattering piece about the AVN).

But according to her email the questions were changed;

“Turns out not one of the questions they read to me last night was actually asked and kerri anne asked me twice why we were anti-vaccine!”

Why the exclamation mark Meryl? I’ve mentioned this before, but remember when you appeared on radio to defend your Australian Skeptics Bent Spoon Award?

Interviewer: “Which vaccines do you think are good then in Aust..?
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Meryl: “I think that all vaccines are up to the parents and…”
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Interviewer: “That wasn’t what I asked though was it. Which vaccines are good? This was the point I think the Skeptics were making is that you’ve never actually said, which vaccine is worthwhile, which scientific designed vaccine is good, worthwhile.
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Meryl: “It is not, it is not my role, nor is it the role of the Australian Vaccination Network to tell anyone what to they should or should not do when it comes to vaccination…”

Blah blah blah, rhetoric, rhetoric, deflecting the question. (You can hear the full audio here).

But c’mon, I’m just being a big meany. And afterall this is only one example. And as a scientist I require repeatable results. Oh wait a sec..

In an email sent to the AVN Yahoo! Group on Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:08 pm Message #36449 Meryl wrote:

“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”.

Does that sound like a pro-choice message to you?

Or how about this one? The t-shirts they sell on their website say;

“Love them, protect them, never inject them”.

And another; Yahoo! Group message #44295 sent Thu Jan 14, 2010 9:24 pm

“This is a sort-of off-topic question. I would like to donate to the efforts to help in Haiti but I don’t want ANY of my money going towards vaccines so that red cross and Unicef are out. Does anyone know of an organisation doing work on the ground there helping without vaccines?”
(Thanks to Scott Lewis and Podblack for alerting me to this one)

From a quick perusal of the blogosphere parents and babies’ blogs are also starting to cotton on. Mia Freedman who blogs at Mamamia, writing “A website of deception” described her reaction as she watched the Lateline story;

“I watched the report with tears in my eyes and my jaw dropped somewhere near the floor. Tears for the McCaffery family whose baby Dana died of whooping cough at only 32 days, and dropped jaw for the extraordinary cruelty and misleading dogmatism of the Australian Vaccination Network.”

Since then the story has been lodged with news aggregator AAP, meaning it will soon be distributed even further. And so far, every story I have seen refers to the AVN as antivax. Here are just a few of the headlines I have collected:

Anti-vaccine group rapped for false information
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Anti-vaccine group accused of harassing parents
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Top doctor backs disclaimer for anti-vaccination site
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Warning order for anti-vaccine website

So not only are parents finding out that the AVN has not been completely truthful about their agenda, they also harassed the parents of a 4 week old baby who died from complications associated with a vaccine preventable disease.

Pro-tip: this is unlikely to endear you to parents Meryl. Just saying’.

If you haven’t seen the Lateline piece, DOET NOAW. It is a thoroughly researched and sensitively compiled piece by award winning journalist Steve Cannane (insert fan-girl squeeing here).

In addition, Meryl was totally pwned on radio 2UE where she was asked repeatedly why she was anti-vaccine and tried to avoid the question by saying the AVN does not tell parents what to do, but simply offer the “other side of the story”.

Interviewer: “Are you medically qualified Meryl?” “What on earth gives you any sort of qualification to make any informed comment on this at all..”
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Meryl Dorey: “20 years of research”
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Interviewer: “Well, 20 years of research? Well big deal, give me a break, please.”
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“You’d know a guy called Andrew Wakefield? Do you guys still support him?…..he was struck off the UK medical register…”
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“What qualifications do you have to disagree with the HCCC here in Australia and the UK medical registry? All of a sudden what you are saying is far superior that what these two credible worldwide organisations are?”

Man, it is refreshing to see the credulity gone from the media with respect to the AVN. Only a few months ago, they were unquestionably called upon to offer the “other side of the story” (in other words, false balance) to the vaccine “debate” (there is no debate – the risks from contracting a disease far outweigh the risks of having an adverse reaction to a vaccine).

But, I gotta hand it to Meryl, she is nothing if not consistent. That is, consistently wrong and consistently dogmatic. She continues to wheel out the canards like the incidence of communicable diseases fell before vaccines were introduced, whooping cough notifications are at their highest levels despite equally high levels of vaccination, Big Pharma Shill, conspiracy, vendetta, septics, etc…

*Boom*

That was the sound of Meryl’s head asploding. And the AVN’s house of cards crashing down.

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Congrats to Ken McLeod for compiling the HCCC complaint and to everyone who submitted supporting material along the way and to the HCCC for carefully considering and responsibly ruling on the complaint. To Stop the AVN for all their hard work, all the other bloggers and tweeters who have constantly kept the pressure on, and to Steve Cannane for the brilliant story on Lateline.

Lets keep slamming that oyster shut. One day it might get permanently jammed.