Comment and Opinion

Australian Vaccination Network

The Australian Vaccination Network was the big winner in the 2001 Millenium Awards, taking out the prestigious Anus Maximus Award. The award was announced in the following words:

Several years ago I wrote book about the Internet and I had to research pornography and other "offensive" things because it was obvious that I would be asked about this in most, if not all, promotional interviews. Nothing I found then offended, saddened, upset or angered me as much as a web site belonging to an organisation called the Vaccination Awareness Network, where, in perfectly rational and calm language, parents were advised to kill their children with measles and cripple them with polio. It was the closest I have ever come to being converted to the cause of censorship.

In 1999 I discovered that the organisation had changed its name to the Australian Vaccination Network and had a new web site. I can only assume that this change to a more neutral name was made to deceive people into thinking that the organisation was about vaccination, not about preventing children from getting it. That name change and web site were the inspiration for The Millenium Project.

The AVN again has a new web site, with a new domain name this time. I don't know why they have the new domain name unless they are planning to move the organisation into the more lucrative US market. I expect that the organisation name will also change to something a bit more international. It will probably be something a bit more innocuous as well so that more parents can be deceived into thinking that this organisation is interested in the welfare of children.

The AVN backed up to win an Encouragement Award in the 2009 Millenium Awards. The award citation read:

The AVN has a mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AVN/, but they are so ashamed of their activities that they won't let me join the list. In fact, I have been banned. You can see the full story of the banning by clicking here.

Here is a rather unambiguous statement about vaccines. It was made on December 17, 2008, by Meryl Dorey, AVN president, on the AVN's mailing list. Remember that these people claim to only want vaccines to be safe and for parents to make informed choices.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AVN/message/36449

• Articles about this disgusting organisation up to December 21, 2008
• The Australian Vaccination Network in 2009
• The Australian Vaccination Network in 2010
• The Australian Vaccination Network January to June, 2011
• The Australian Vaccination Network, July to December, 2011
• From January 1, 2012

Vaccination saves lives (7/1/2012)

It really does, and that's what the sign said that appeared in the sky as Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination Network took the stage at Woodford Folk Festival. It was on a banner towed behind a small plane, and its appearance at exactly that time wasn't a coincidence - it had been carefully planned that way. The sign was paid for by a small group of people, a subset of the Stop The AVN Facebook group, and had been kept a well-guarded secret in order to maximise the look of surprise and horror on Ms Dorey's face. To her credit she immediately recovered enough to blame Australian Skeptics Inc for the banner (ASI had nothing to do with it) and then said that it was advertising for her position, although how she equates "Vaccination saves lives" with "Vaccination kills" (her true position) is a mystery to the rest of us.

Ms Dorey had originally been scheduled to give a talk about the link between vaccination and autism. To most thinking people in possession of the facts this would be a very short talk: "There isn't any", but nobody expected this from Ms Dorey. Following much media attention focussed on the Festival and its organisers a compromise was reached and the talk was replaced with a forum, where Ms Dorey would have to share the stage with someone who actually knows something about vaccinations, in this case Professor Andreas Suhrbier from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research.

OPPOSING VIEWS: Meryl Dorey (left) from the Australian Vaccination Network, an anti-vaccination group, and Prof Andreas Suhrbier from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. Pic: Glenn Barnes Source: The Courier-Mail

I like the fact that in its report, The Courier-Mail described the AVN as an "anti-vaccination group" in its caption to the photo above. At last the media are realising what the AVN stands for - not freedom of speech, not informed choice, but absolute and total opposition to all vaccines.

Professor Suhrbier spoke first and gave the capacity crowd some real facts about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines. Then Ms Dorey got up and gave then what everyone expected - the anti-vaccination party line. I have given her PowerPoint slideshow the yellow highlighter treatment (to mark "inaccuracies"), and you can see it by clicking on the picture below. My comments on each slide are included.

Thanks to radio station 4ZZZ in Brisbane, here is a recording of Ms Dorey's talk. I have given the player a yellow background for reasons that should be obvious.

As an aside, I decided that if I am going to continue marking up Ms Dorey's work with my yellow marker I need to speed things up, so I have written to Logitech and asked them to make me a special keyboard with a yellow key just for that task. This could save hours each week.

A bit more about Woodford (7/1/2012)
Episode 4 of the Radio Ratbags podcast has interviews with Chrys Stevenson, who did the lion's share of the PR for the Stop the AVN's Woodford campaign, and Dan Raffaele, founder of Stop the AVN. You can listen to the episode here.

Child abuse (7/1/2012)
How would you feel if you heard someone laughing about how they had physically abused a child? How would you feel if you heard someone laughing about how they had sexually abused a child? Once you have considered those, how would you feel if you heard someone laughing about how they had exposed their child to a disease that still kills children around the world and sentences others to lives of pain and disability?

That was a message posted to the Australian Vaccination Network's Facebook page on November 30, 2011. It was not challenged or criticised by any of the members of the group. You will notice that Ms Elphinstone expresses amusement at the thought of her son getting chicken pox, caught because she "did deliberaltey (sic) expose him". See the "lol"? That means "laughing out loud".

My friend Ken McLeod was so offended by this admission of child abuse that he did what any responsible citizen would do - he contacted the authorities in Western Australia, where Ms Elphinstone runs an online business selling magic potions and nostrums. His first point of contact was the Minister for Child Protection. This would seem to be the logical place. I spoke to a friend of mine who used to do crisis intervention for the NSW Department of Community Services, and she said she would have no hesitation in taking action if someone was deliberately exposing a child to a dangerous disease. It would be treated in exactly the same way as a child in danger of physical or sexual abuse. Apparently things are different in Western Australia, and Ken received a letter saying that this particular form of protection for endangered children was not a concern of the Child Protection Department and the complaint would be flicked to the Health Minister. (You can see the Minister's reply here.)

It seems that deliberately endangering the health of children is no more important to the health authorities in WA than it is to the child protectors. You can see the Health Minister's reply here, but this paragraph bears repeating:

I have been advised by the Western Australian Department of Child Protection that this is not a child protection issue. The WA Department of Health believes that the existing approach of providing the public with accurate information on vaccine preventable diseases is the preferred strategy. Fortunately, people with extreme views on immunisation, such as those attributed to Ms Elphinstone, are in a small minority.

So there you have it. parents can freely abuse their children in Western Australia by putting them at risk of death or permanent injury provided they do the endangering by following an idiotic, anti-vaccination agenda. I assume the authorities aren't so cavalier with parents who refuse to put their children in approved car seats or who give them alcohol or other drugs. I hope that they take things more seriously if Ms Elphinstone decides to treat any serious illness her child acquires by using the useless products she sells off her web site.

How many children have to be put at risk, or be damaged or killed by preventable diseases before the health authorities recognise anti-vaccination campaigners for the dangerous, deluded fools they are and treat them like any other group that defies the rules and conventions of civilised society? I'm not laughing out loud, and neither should anyone else.

I'm being talked about (14/1/2012)
I'm not allowed to respond to anything posted on the Australian Vaccination Network's Facebook page. This does not stop the denizens of this cesspit from discussing me. This was posted by an anonymous page administrator recently.

The article she (there are hints to the identity of "B52") is referring to is by none other than our old friend Tim Bolen, spokespustule to the quacks. Here is what he had to say about me, with my comments in italics.

(5)  Peter Bowditch (Ratbags) - isn't really important in and of himself.  On a personal level he isn't much.  His activities are those of a minor kiss-up.  Professionally, like most pseudo-skeptic leadership, Bowditch is a loser, and doesn't seem to have an income outside of "skepticism."   I have the distinct impression that Bowditch is in love with, and will do anything to impress the character who calls himself James Randi (Zwinge).

Tim's incredible research ability (the same one which has apparently found that almost all of the people who contribute to the Usenet newsgroup misc.health.alternative are me, addressed by Tim as "poor peter") doesn't seem to have turned up my business web site, although a Google search for my name brings up my personal web site and my LinkedIn entry on the first page of results. My business also has an address which is not a PO box, unlike Tim's. Tim also seems to have difficulty grasping the concept that if someone legally changes their name then the new name is their legal name.

I have met James Randi on three occasions - in Sydney in 2000 and 2010 and Las Vegas in 2004. I am so ashamed of Tim's outing of me that I will not let anyone see the photograph below, taken in Sydney at TamOZ 2010. Please don't look at it.

Bowditch recently shut down an organization he created years ago called "The Australian Council Against Health Fraud," an affiliation with Stephen Barrett and bobbie baratz,

ACAHF had absolutely nothing to do with either Dr Barrett or Dr Baratz. Tim has this unfortunate habit of making things up to fit with his fantasy view of the universe.

to spend his time working directly with Zwinge, managing the "The Australian Skeptics."

I assume by "Zwinge" Tim means the person with the legal name of James Randi. (It is ironic that Tim likes to be called Tim even though his first name is Patrick and the use of Tim upsets members of his family. Also it is beyond ironic that someone who hides his address behind a PO box should have anything to say about who calls themselves what.)

James Randi has nothing whatever to do with running Australian Skeptics Inc. I'm surprised that someone with Tim's super investigative powers couldn't find the names of the current committee members. (I am one, James Randi is not.)

Bowditch, himself, is not important.  He is just one of the, what I call, the Offshore Defamation Locations (ODL).  What Bowditch is typical of is the pseudo-skeptic's use of offshore websites to defame individuals in the US, knowing it is almost impossible to sue someone that far away, and in an entirely different court system. The pseudo-skeptics in the US then quote someone like Bowditch, or link to his site, hiding behind (they think) the shield of internet protections against Defamation (Barrett v Rosenthal).

Oh yes, Barrett v Rosenthal, where a court ruled that it is not defamatory to repeat defamation that you read on the Internet even if you know for certain that it is not true. I read on the Internet that Ilena Rosenthal could not make a living as a prostitute in San Diego despite it being a huge naval base even when she offered free samples. Ilena was not happy when I first said this so I referred her to Barrett v Rosenthal. The defamation that she republished was written by none other than Tim Bolen. I read on the Internet that Bolen is in default of state taxes, has several liens out against him for non-payment of debts, has had his business registration cancelled and is a general all-round douchebag. I can say this with impunity because of a court case - Barrett v Rosenthal.

In more irony, Tim apparently thinks that he is immune from defamation action by me because he lives in the US (although he keeps his address a secret) and I am in Australia. The man could not be more pathetic if he tried.

There are quite a few of these Offshore Defamation Locations (ODL).  However, it is easy to tie them into the pseudo-skeptic conspiracy, centering them in a US Court jurisdiction.

So sue me, Tim

Ms Dorey on the radio (20/1/2012)
Meryl Dorey, President of the Australian Vaccination Network, was interviewed on radio station 4BC in Brisbane during the week. The station actually had a real doctor on as well to provide balance, although why any discussion about vaccination needs to have to pretend to balance is a mystery. There is no "other side", and giving an anti-vaccination campaigner air time is like having a Holocaust denier on to provide balance to a story about the history of the Second World War or having a moon hoax believer on to balance a story about planetary exploration.

Here is a transcript of Ms Dorey's interview. It has been given the yellow marker treatment to show "inaccuracies". I hope I got all of them, but I can never be sure.

• Articles about this disgusting organisation up to December 21, 2008
• The Australian Vaccination Network in 2009
• The Australian Vaccination Network in 2010
• The Australian Vaccination Network January to June, 2011
• The Australian Vaccination Network, July to December, 2011
• From January 1, 2012