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Dear Margaret Allen, If you do read this, please follow this link to see the nature of the AVN’s material. As a librarian of experience, I expect you have researched this group prior to agreeing to host them. If not, and I understand you are very busy, then it might be of interest.
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Well done to Margaret Allen, CEO of the library, who was apparently responsible for this lapse in judgement and now has the dubious honour of putting the health of WA children at further risk. I hope she is pleased with her decision to host a “controversial” group that is the AVN.

Message to Margaret Allen: there is nothing “controversial” about vaccines, except that which exists in the minds of the anti-vaxers.

Over 200 people attended the event, including the brave sceptics @podblack, @luminousmonkey and @danbuzzard who live tweeted and blogged the event. (They must have stronger stomachs than do I). If you want to follow the course of events as they unfolded you can search twitter for the hashtag #stopAVN.

The seminar itself featured a talk from PhD candidate Judy Wilyman from Murdoch University Perth and Meryl Dorey, media spokesperson (and immediate past president) for the AVN.

There is a history to this talk – it is the second time the AVN have scheduled a public lecture in Perth in recent weeks. The first time, their booking was cancelled at the eleventh hour owing to the Uniting Church in the City (responsibly) deeming that hosting the AVN was not within their charter and ethos and “..there may be a public perception that the Church does not support childhood vaccinations“.

Unfortunately for Meryl, she was informed of the decision as she was about to board a plane to Perth from the Gold Coast, and was forced to forfeit her airfare and return home with her tail between her legs. What a shame.

This time, the library assured Meryl they would not repeat such a cancellation. And so they kept their promise with Margaret Allen responding to emails of complaint with the same form response;

“The State Library of Western Australia provides facilities and services to the community of Western Australia as a whole; inevitably from time to time this may include interest groups with views that some may find controversial.
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The State Library does not make any judgment about individuals, groups or organizations, unless there is a clear breach of law, policies or procedures, in which case we may act to exclude clients.”

I personally called the WA Dept of Health to ask them to explain themselves, but was informed that the matter had been passed to the Minister for the Arts and Culture since the majority of complaints pertaining to the event, were about the use of a state tax-payer funded facility.

So it was apparently out of their hands.

I think they should have made it their job to put a stop to this, and I informed them of such (I am not shy), but despite them agreeing with all my points about the AVN, they sat on their hands. They did however have a meeting with Meryl Dorey and Judy Wilyman the evening prior to the event, which I was told was a routine event offered to anyone requesting so. I imagine Meryl taught them much about vaccines.

I’m certain the head of the Immunisation Programme for WA Health, Dr Paul Effler can’t possibly know as much as someone touted as “Australia’s Leading Expert in Vaccination” whose qualifications are a “brain”.

Perhaps because of the current government departments sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling “TROLOLOLOLOL” the Shadow minister for Culture and the Arts, John Hyde got mad. I don’t know if he knows the AVN’s work, but he was quoted in a West Australian newspaper article entitled “Anti-vaccine forum causes row” saying the Barnett Government had opened the floodgates for any group to use the library’s facilities to push their agendas.

“Does this mean that the Liberal Party can hold a membership drive there, or for that matter the Ku Klux Klan or a bike gang?” Mr Hyde said.

“Why should a group that endangers the lives of WA children be allowed to speak and promote their cause at a taxpayer-funded venue dedicated to learning?” Mr Hyde said.

He also informed a colleague in a personal communication that he would be asking Ms Allen and the Minister to explain their policies with respect to allowing groups like the AVN free rein of State funded facilities in parliament today. I look forward to hearing their explanation.

Channel 7 news reported the story where Mr Hyde said:

“Our state library shouldn’t be subsidising or promoting propaganda that puts the lives of our children at risk.”

Professor Fiona Stanley was less polite, simply stating: “This misinformation will lead to the deaths of children.”

As for CEO Ms Allen, the resident sceptics last night reported that Channel 7 was forbidden from filming inside the venue and that this was at the request of Ms Allen, not the AVN. It seems strange to me that Ms Allen is happy to host “controversial” groups, but doesn’t want anyone to know what they say. Either way, she now has a lot of explaining to do.

Tweets such as this:
Hey @statelibrarywa good job on hosting an anti-vaxer and HIV/AIDS denier. Australia’s children thank you #stopAVN #FAIL

Very nice of AVN to talk about free choice, sorry, if your choice means a child dies, you don’t get to be free on that.

were appearing all over their twitter page last night as the seminar progressed.

Leading up to the event and because of the previous last minute cancellation,  Meryl was constantly screeching about “free speech” and democracy. Well, I want to be free to say “I HAVE A BOMB” on a plane, but for sake of public safety I wouldn’t, I can’t and I don’t. Much the same as yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded cinema when there is no fire.

Meanwhile a report which appeared in the West Australian last week claimed that more WA parents were opting out of vaccinating their children, with the number of youngsters not fully immunised in the national program doubling over the past five years.

But according to the Dept of Health this report was exaggerated. Medicare figures show WA has the lowest rate of childhood vaccinations in the country for children aged 12 to 15 months, but only by 0.2%.

The percentage of children 12-15 months of age (age calculated at 31 December 2009) assessed as fully immunised. Date of processing 31 March 2010.

ACT 92.8%, VIC 92.0, QLD 91.5%, SA 90.6%, WA 89.2%, TAS 93.0%, NT 89.4%, AUS 91.4%.

Similarly, the percentage of children 24-27 months of age (age calculated at 31 December 2009) assessed as fully immunised is lower by a difference of 2.3%.

ACT 93.9%, VIC 92.3, QLD 92.6%, SA 91.6%, WA 89.9%, TAS 93.5%, NT 92.0%, AUS 92.0%.

And according to Dr Paul Effler, the medical co-ordinator of the immunisation program in WA, the state is consistently lower than the rest of the country largely because the State had the fewest GPs, who give 63 per cent of immunisations, per capita.

I’ll bet you can’t guess where the lowest rates of immunisation nationally might fall. Go on, guess. And here’s a clue, the  AVN are based in Bangalow, an area know as the Northern Rivers.

From the most recent Medicare figures reporting the rankings for Divisions of General Practice in descending order based on immunisation coverage rates calculated from the General Practice Immunisation Incentives scheme. Rated for the May quarter 2010, from 1 (first) – (last) 113.

113. NORTHERN RIVERS GENERAL PRACTICE NETWORK 79.6%

Is it a coincidence that this is the region where the AVN are based?

Discuss.

Congratulations to Meryl Dorey and the AVN for campaigning hard and long, and succeeding in discouraging parents from vaccinating their children. First place in the lowest vax uptake in the country is nothing to be proud of.

And congratulations must also go to the WA government for allowing this dangerous group to spew their “controversial” BS all the way to Perth.

And what will be the prize? Mumps, whooping cough, pick your favourite communicable disease. They’re all in the running now.

Please see @podblack’s blog here for more information. Also a blog has been established for this event.

For the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudo-scientific piffle, the Bent Spoon went to Meryl Dorey and the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN).

I was honored to present the award, and took the opportunity to highlight some of the reasons why the AVN and Meryl were worthy winners. Apart from the obvious fail of spreading misinformation about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, there were several foot-in-mouth occasions I wanted to point out.

1) Meryl is also an HIV/AIDS denier, claiming that since (in her opinion) no two images of HIV look the same, therefore it can’t exist. Apply this theory to clouds for example, which are also vastly different shapes (and can even change shapes whilst you gaze at them), therefore clouds also do not exist.

MERYLOGIC: These 2 pictures of clouds look different, therefore clouds do not exist.

2) Meryl responded to the complaint lodged with the HCCC against her and the AVN by stating in the cover letter that she wished her response to remain confidential since the author, Ken McLeod was a threat to the safety of her and her family. Then she published her response and the aforementioned cover letter on her website the following day.

3) Meryl on the subject of conspiracy theories said the following; “We are already seen as rapid 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 prescribe to them are unprovable”. She then posted a complex and convoluted conspiracy theory on her blog “No Compulsory Vaccination” about the derivation of the swine flu epidemic and the plans of the illuminati to implant mind control chips, distributed by chem-trails from planes with the aim of committing mass genocide by vaccination.

4) Meryl appeared on national television telling a reporter that “we didn’t die from (these diseases) thirty years ago and we’re not going to die from them now”, juxtaposted alongside footage of babies gasping for breath as the journalist detailed the story of the death of Dana McCaffery from the vaccine preventable disease, whooping cough.

An dishonourable mention to Pastor Danny Nalliah for blaming the Black Saturday Bushfires on the liberal abortion laws in Victoria. And for saying he had a vision in a dream that the fires were coming but neglected to inform anyone.

Congratulations to Meryl Dorey and the AVN for joining the ranks of Dr Kerryn Phelps, The pharmacists of Australia and Dr. Viera Scheibner. For more previous winners of the Bent Spoon go here.

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I’ve lain awake all night in my bed, my mind processing all I heard or wanted to say at the debate. I was ready to speak up at anytime, but wasn’t directly asked a question. (Mind you, my wife was terrific when she spoke. She’s a wonderful, compassionate and intelligent woman.)

So here I go:

My daughter died a horrific death. Moments after she died I held her beaten little body as blood from her double transfusion ran down her arms, onto mine and then the floor. It’s a reality and I ‘know’ it happened.

She died from pertussis, contracted in a region in NSW where 66% of babies are vaccinated. When you combine that with the low adult vaccination rate of 10%(due to people not knowing their booster shots wane after 7 to 10 years), it’s the lowest vaccination rate in Australia, hence one of the most dangerous areas to have a baby.

Dana paid the highest price for our ignorance and apathy.

NSW Health should have proactively alerted the community of outbreaks and precautions to take before it became an epidemic. This requires more than just posters and media releases. We need advertising campaigns supported by vigilant screening, consistent advice from frontline health workers and free boosters for all adults.

However, the efforts of a few are futile. Everyone in our community must work together to increase vaccination rates to protect our most vulnerable.

Please learn from our past. Vaccination was introduced because there is no medicine to stop these bacteria that killed and maimed thousands of children. Now, these third-world diseases are on the rise again. In NSW it is Whooping Cough. In Queensland it is Measles.

Education is the key to saving our babies. You can’t change opinion or inform the community with silence.

Thankfully…hopefully….. that’s all about to change.

I’ll finish with a quote from Queensland Premier Anna Bligh that she made yesterday in a response to the press…..

“As a mother, I strongly believe in vaccination. I also believe that vaccination is a basic parental responsibility and that governments have an equally important role to play in boosting vaccination rates in the community. I support any national moves to improve vaccination rates and have asked my Deputy Premier and Health Minister Paul Lucas to raise this issue at the next Australian Health Ministers Conference in July.”

It wasn’t a good start for the anti-vaxers whose representative, Dr Giselle Cook, spent her introduction explaining to Mike Munro why he should refer to her as “pro-choice” not “anti-vaccine”. Her time would have been better spent establishing her point of view; instead she came across as flustered. For the pro, was Professor Peter McIntyre, who by contrast, was informed, concise and clearly stated that the small
risks associated with vaccinating far outweigh the consequences of disease.

We were told to interject anytime we liked, and of course it didn’t take long for Meryl Dorey to voice her opinion. But I’m pleased to report, she was smacked down several times by host Mike Munro and even by other mothers in the audience. But when she mispronounced Dana’s name and mumbled, “oh I’m sorry, I don’t really know how to pronounce it. I hope that’s right”, that was when I really began to question her sincerity for the parents of Dana McCaffery who sat only a few chairs away.

I will include a few tid-bits from proceedings today. There is too much to put in one post. However, much of it you will see on tomorrow night’s show and I don’t want to steal their thunder. Nevertheless, this gives you a taste.

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My opinion is the anti-vaxers did not come across very well. Particularly when Mike Munro asked the McCafferys about the hate mail they had received since appearing on the show last week.  There was a clearly audible gasp from the anti-vaxer side of the room and mumblings of that’s terrible etc, until Mike Munro looked straight at Meryl Dorey and said, “Didn’t many of those emails come from your organisation Meryl?”. Many of the anti-vaxers were heard to exclaim, we wouldn’t do that etc, but the damage was done.

Meryl was unable to contain herself from accusing Prof. Peter McIntyre of being on the take from the government. She asked him how much money he received from the government for vaccinating kids. (Of course she was referring to the Maternity Immunisation Allowance scheme introduced in 1997, which they also get access to by the way). Professor McIntyre looked at her blankly and replied – none.

Mike Munro inquired of Meryl Dorey’s medical qualifications, to which she replied; only that I have been researching this for 20 years. Munro interjected – so you don’t have any formal medical qualifications? Well then perhaps we should let the doctors answer the questions.

Toni McCaffery asked Meryl Dorey if she had ever been in a neo-natal unit with kids experiencing whooping cough or measles, or seen a child go into cardiac arrest like she had Dana. Meryl, in a defying act of insensitivity said; “of course it is awful to see a child die, any child, but Dana?, Daanna?, I’m sorry, I don’t really know how to pronounce it…”

I could hardly believe my ears when Meryl Dorey dragged out the Wakefield case as evidence that vaccines cause autism. Prof McIntyre commented that this had been repeatedly debunked to which she responded that there had since been seven publications “from reputable scientific journals” showing Wakefield’s data to be correct. Prof McIntyre looked quite bemused at this comment and calmly stated that not only had some of the data been faked but amongst other flaws, the study only involved 12 children and had since been retracted by the the Lancet.

When Munro asked her to produce said papers, Dorey claimed she had sent them to one of the researchers for the show. She claimed she had sent over 30 studies to the studio in support of her arguments including evidence of vaccine damage. Munro looked decidedly unimpressed and asked her to provide evidence instead of just making all these claims. For this, she cited a child in NSW and QLD (from memory) to which Munro responded, your evidence is one or two kids? You keep saying you have evidence for these things but you are unable to produce it in the studio today? Meryl replied, ”I gave you the details of the 2 kids I just mentioned, you didn’t contact them!!??” To which Munro replied, yes we did Ms Dorey and they did not want to talk to the programme. End of discussion.

Munro inquired of a young mother with 5 month old twins about her sons’ vaccination status. The mother stated that she didn’t really know very much, so was unable to really comment, but she had chosen not to have her kids vaccinated. Munro repeated, “So you don’t really have all the information, you haven’t done the research, but you decided to not have your kids vaccinated anyway”; to which she replied yes.

This sparked the ire of a mother with child a few seats behind, who’s child was recovering from whooping cough after contracting it before he was eligible for vaccination. This mother stated that she was not entirely happy sitting in a room with 2 babies in such close proximity to her son since he had not yet completed his full schedule of immunisations and further, her son could also infect the twins, since he was still recovering. But it also made the first mother look pretty naive and irresponsible.

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The thing about the anti-vax lobby is that they are always screeching that parents need more information, but when you offer them scientific data they always have a reason why it is wrong or not acceptable. Often it’s the Big Pharma conspiracy (pharmaceutical companies sponsored that study therefore it’s biased), or they counter offer you something written in a book that they once read. I presented the recent Nature research which links ~15% of autism cases to genes and it was dismissed it out of hand precisely because it only accounts for ~15%, therefore, what about the other ~85%? It must be the mercury and heavy metals in vaccines. It is very difficult to argue with people when their counter arguments have no basis in science and all science you do show them is wrong. Just like the creationists, they continually move the goal posts. And whilst they say they want more information, only as long as that information aligns with their beliefs.

Toni and David McCaffery were in the audience today. I sat next to David and we chatted throughout. They both thanked myself and Richard for our support. What they did today was unimaginably tough and brave. Dana only passed away 6 weeks ago. Yet the anti-vaxers bumble along seemingly oblivious. At one stage when discussion got around to Dana’s death I heard from behind me, someone say it was only one baby. David McCaffery leaned over to me and said, “It was my baby”.