Comment and Opinion

Australian Vaccination Network Arrogance Indicator The AVN is now days overdue with the web site changes requested by the HCCC and days overdue with the response to the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing

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.

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

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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.

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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

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

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Speaking of Haiti ... (16/1/2010)
It's good to see that some people have their priorities right. While people all over the world were reaching for wallets, cheque books and credit cards to find money for the victims of the earthquake, Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network was looking at the ways that the money might be spent:

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? I want to provide food, ...clean water, education, housing - but not drugs (and I'm sure there are others here who want to do the same).

No drugs! She wants doctors to perform emergency surgery without anaesthetics? No morphine for pain relief? No antibiotics for infections? No sterile drips for people suffering from crush injuries? No antiseptics? What sort of hell does she want the people of Haiti to live in? Tell me how this disgusting lack of compassion is any better than the sewage spewing out of religious loons like Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps. Perhaps I should ask her:

Dear Ms Dorey,

I have been told that you won't donate to organisations providing relief to the people of Haiti if the relief includes the supply of drugs. As many people were injured in the earthquake, does your antipathy to drugs include the anaesthetics needed for emergency surgery, painkillers such as morphine, antibiotics and antiseptics? If so, what are the natural remedies you recommend be used in their place?

Thank you.

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Ms Dorey and the folk folk (16/1/2010)
Meryl Dorey hasn't confined her recent activities to just increasing the torment of earthquake survivors. She was a speaker at the Woodford Folk Festival. Why a music festival would want to have people come along to promote opposition to medicine is a mystery, but apparently having a bunch of quacks address the crowd is an annual feature of the event. This how Ms Dorey was presented on the festival program.

"Australia's leading expert in vaccination"? "Unbiased and well researched knowledge"? Was this meant to be a joke, or had the festival organisers been smoking too much of the agricultural produce that the area around Ms Dorey's home is notorious for? It would also have been informative to try to guess how long Ms Dorey would spend speaking about the benefits of vaccination, although I think it would have needed the instrumentation of the Large Hadron Collider to measure a period of time that small.

And here is how Ms Dorey reported her appearance to her loyal followers:

It's a bit disturbing that she managed to find some real doctors who support her idiocy, but someone has to come bottom of the class in medical school. As for those emails from the "septics" (oh, how I laughed at that, it must be only the millionth time I've heard it), the email came from me. I don't know what it would take to get Ms Dorey to stop identifying me with Australian Skeptics because I have pointed out on many occasions that not only do I speak for myself, not anyone else, but she was defaming me and accusing me of criminal activity long before I ever became involved with the Skeptics. And did you see where she said that the email "ask[ed] them to not let me speak"? Here is what I wrote, and I leave it up to you to find where I suggested that she be banned.

Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination Network is proudly promoting her speaking appearances at the Woodford Folk Festival, but I wonder what relevance her anti-vaccination campaigning has to the objectives of the festival.

Surely the festival is about promoting music and a sense of community and not about encouraging people to reject medicine and common sense or to provide a platform for people whose activities place the lives of children at risk. Ms Dorey might like to say that she and her organisation are simply presenting facts about vaccination but this is not so. I can confidently predict that her talk about the swine flu vaccine will consist of almost nothing except scare-mongering and misrepresentations of the facts. It would be amusing, however, if she were to repeat the story she was recently spreading about how the swine flu vaccine is an element in a world-wide conspiracy to kill off 90% of the world's population and implant mind controlling microchips in the remaining few.

I have been a follower of folk music for half a century, but I would not like to attend a festival where even a small part of the agenda had been hijacked by someone whose full-time job is spreading fear about one of the greatest life-saving advances ever introduced into the practice of medicine.

Folk music might have its roots in tradition, but that doesn't mean that it should be used by people who want to deny progress.

Thank you.

Does she ever get anything right? Or doesn't she care?

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Not flush with cash, AVN is flushed (6/2/2010)
All the hard work might have finally paid off. You can see the wonderful news here, where Meryl Dorey announced that she was resigning as President of the Australian Vaccination Network at the end of February. If nobody can be found to take on the job the AVN will fold, die and disappear. In order to help out, I have applied for the job.

Dear Ms Dorey,

I am sorry to hear that you are resigning as President of AVN. I have enjoyed our communication over the last decade and I will miss you, as will all the other supporters and members of AVN.

I would like to formally apply for the position of President of the Australian Vaccination Network. I have extensive knowledge of the arguments used to oppose vaccinations, I am well known in the anti-vaccination movement, and I have written widely on the matter. I have had experience on the boards of several non-profit organisations and have held the position of President of Australian Skeptics Inc.

I feel that I have a lot to offer to AVN and look forward to helping the organisation to get its message to all the people who need to hear it.

As time is short and I will need to make arrangements with my current clients and adjust my TAFE teaching load in order to take on the AVN duties, an early response would be appreciated. As you are in Bangalow and I am in Wentworth Falls it would probably be more efficient if interviews were to be conducted by telephone or Skype.

Thank you.
Peter Bowditch.

For some reason, however, the story seems to change from day to day. Sometimes Ms Dorey is leaving because she wants to spend more time with her family, and sometimes the AVN is folding because it has run out of money, and sometimes it is the horrible "septics" who have been disrupting its activities and wasting its time. (The reason is never that the AVN has been getting so much bad publicity over the last year that it is time to fold the tents and run away.) There is a fire sale going on and donations are being sought, so perhaps there will still be an AVN next month, and there might even be a Meryl Dorey at the helm. This sort of "we're about to close" appeal has gone out before, so I won't be breaking out the Moët until I hear the really good news - that the death is true.

If the AVN finally goes into the cesspit where it belongs there are some people who need a special mention for their part in its decline. Daniel Raffaele set up the Facebook group "Stop the Australian Vaccination Network" which provided a meeting place and information exchange, Christine Bayne, Peter Tierney and Rachael Dunlop monitored the AVN's rantings and brought them to a wider audience so that more people could see the idiocy of their agenda. Ken McLeod took the time to file a complaint with the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission. A special thanks must go to my anonymous friend who frequents a large number of anti-vaccination liar mailing lists and forums and passes on information from places where I am not allowed to go. There were others who helped as well - you know who you are.

The highest level of thanks and respect, though, goes to Toni and David McCaffrey. The death of their daughter Dana from whooping cough and their willingness to take this tragedy to the media and demand change was the catalyst which turned the media away from being unwitting mouthpieces for Meryl Dorey and her child-endangering behaviour and caused them to start questioning what she had to say. Two years ago, any story in the media about vaccination seemed to require an unchallenged comment from Meryl Dorey. Now, if she is asked at all there is usually someone talking sense brought along as well. Even if the AVN survives they will no longer be seen as the sole authority on vaccine safety, but will be recognised for what they are. In fact Meryl Dorey even provided the description herself- "rabid idiotic fringe dwellers".

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I knew it was too good to be true! (22/2/2010)
I go to all the trouble to build the AVN Deathwatch Countdown counter, I fill the refrigerator with expensive French champagne, I invite all my friends around to celebrate, and what happens? The Australian Vaccination Network carcass gives a twitch and then someone detects a pulse. The thing is still alive! You can read the awful news here.

You might notice where Ms Dorey says:

Well, here's a fact for you, Ms Dorey. No member of Australian Skeptics contacted Mr Satham at Rosnay Wines. None, zero, zilch. The person who did contact him is not a member of AS, although he probably shares some of the ideals and principles of the organisation. Also, he did not threaten Mr Statham - he asked him politely if he was aware of the nefarious activities of the AVN. And, Ms Dorey, there was no need for him to denigrate the AVN. You do that yourself every time you spread misinformation about vaccines and medicine.

I also notice that Ms Dorey is standing down from the position of AVN President. I still haven't heard anything back about my application for the job, and I even found someone to fund the entire AVN operation if I became President. I suppose the answer and its accompanying employment-related paperwork has been caught up in the rush of activity at AVN HQ. I hope I hear about it soon because I am settling in to teaching and it becomes harder to reorganise my time as each week passes.

But is the AVN ever really going to fail? I have seen the stories before about its imminent collapse and there always seems to be a saviour who comes along at the last minute. I'll believe it's dead when I hear the clods of earth hitting the coffin.

And one final thing. Ms Dorey said:

I  foresee some wonderful additions to the AVN's already impressive range of vaccination information as well as the beginning of scientific research which we have been planning for years.

Elsewhere in the release she mentions that she has tears in her eyes. That statement above brought tears to my eyes. Tears of laughter. They provide an "impressive range of vaccination information"? They are going to do scientific research? I will have to stop now before the laughter triggers an asthma attack.

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Hypocrisy corner (6/3/2010)
It looks like nothing has changed at the resuscitated Australian Vaccination Network. One of the first announcements to come out of the outfit following its almost miraculous reprieve from collapse was this reiteration of their commitment to free speech and open comment.

This is the discussion list that has banned me from participation since 2001, although there is no ban on discussing me. That discussion of me can apparently go too far, it seems, because someone was banned from the list recently despite calling me an arsehole. His problem was that he then provided a link to what I had said that annoyed him. The inference is that talking about me and what I say and do is acceptable provided that nothing is done which might allow denizens of the AVN mailing list to actually see what it is that I say and do.

A cynic might also comment that if all messages which "make broad statements about vaccination or disease without backing it (sic) up with references" were to be eliminated then the list would be very bare indeed. As for not welcoming "those who behave in an abusive or dismissive manner towards those whose views do not match their own" and "The list is about intelligent and referenced discussions on vaccination issues",  all I can say is that I am glad that my irony meter is still away being repaired after the last whopping lie from the AVN otherwise it would have exploded and I would have had to pay to get it fixed again.

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Speaking of Schadenfreude ... (13/3/2010)
Look what I found on the web.

My first assumption was that the Australian Vaccination Network office had simply forgotten to pay their web hosting bill in all the excitement that has been going on there lately. I made the same mistake myself once and, of course, the suspension of my sites happened on Friday and could not be rectified until the ISP's accounts staff came to work on Monday. It's a great law, that Murphy's Law.

You might find this hard to believe, but I was wrong. The site has been closed by the hosting organisation because of some unspecified "legal complaint". This has caused an outbreak of paranoia and conspiracy theory at the AVN the like of which hasn't been seen since Meryl Dorey published a blog post suggesting that the swine flu vaccine contained microchips and was a tactic in a plan to kill more than 90% of the world's population and control the minds of the rest. Here is a sample of the hysteria.

Hey, Meryl - there was no attempt to link you with pornography. You did that yourself when you chose the same abbreviation for your organisation (and a very similar domain name) to that of the Adult Video Network.

Here's the joke though. On the tenth anniversary of starting The Millenium Project I wrote:

So the link to pornography has been there, in my mind at least, for over a decade. And I haven't changed my mind a single bit. The Australian Vaccination Network is still more offensive than any legal pornography site that I can imagine. The worst that most porn sites can do is cause a feeling of inadequacy and raise some false expectations. They don't suggest that you should endanger the lives of children, or lie about collecting money for charity, or offer dangerous medical advice that can cause people to avoid real medical care.

You can read Meryl Dorey's snivelling nonsense about the web site problems here. Note the list of defamatory accusations she makes when listing the AVN's problems. Maybe one day she will be asked by a court to justify her paranoid claims.

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Australian Vaccination Network and the HCCC (13/3/2010)
As part of the ongoing investigation by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission into the activities of the Australian Vaccination Network, submissions have been solicited from anyone with an interest. My friend Tom Sidwell went that extra step and not only submitted a complaint but included three excellent analyses of the nature and quality of the AVN's medical advice. These need a wider distribution than just some bureaucrat's in-tray, so with Tom's permission you can read them here.

• ASD-vaccine hypothesis
• Critical analysis of immune-suppression articles
• Source of AVN references

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How many times do I have to say it? (27/3/2010)
Remember how your mother used to say that when you committed a sin of omission or commission? The difference between then and now is that you were a child then and you are not now. Now when you are told something you usually remember it, and when you are corrected about some fact that you have got wrong you absorb the truth and don't repeat the error. Unless you are a pathological liar, of course, or you think that by repeating an untruth you can make it true.

Here is a message posted to the Australian Vaccination Network's Facebook page last week. (I can read the page because Facebook don't allow selective banning from pages, but I can't post there even if I join as a fan and in any case my fandom is always cancelled within minutes of my clicking on the "Become a Fan" button.) One of the vagaries of Facebook is that all administrators of a page are anonymised by the software, so the convention is to put an identifying signature on posts. "B52" is Meryl Dorey, who used to be the President of AVN and might still even be, although they have gone very quiet about the reconstruction that was supposed to be imminent.

As I am banned from correcting the falsehoods in this message in the place where they were published I will have to do it here. So that Ms Dorey can never again claim that she doesn't know that what she said is not true, I have informed her by email:

Dear Ms Dorey,

In a message posted to the AVN's Facebook page on Saturday, March 20, 2010, you made certain statements which do not accord with the known state of the world.

1. You say that "there is room for both sides of this debate as long as there is respect". I have always shown you respect, as evidenced by the fact that I address you as "Ms Dorey" and not as something like "total slime", words you once used to refer to me. If you really believe what you say and are not just mouthing empty rhetoric you should immediately allow me to follow you on Twitter, comment on your blog, become (and remain) a fan of the AVN's Facebook page (with commenting rights) and, of course, join the AVN's mailing list at Yahoo!.
2. You say of the discredited Dr Wakefield: "Nor have any of his published articles been shown to be anything less than perfect in their science". I know that you know this not to be true, because I know that you are very well aware of the retraction of his 1998 article by The Lancet, the findings by the GMC of his unethical conduct in the collection of samples for research, and also of the evidence produced during the Autism Omnibus action showing how the data he used for his research was manipulated to suit his intended outcome. You might say that all of these are just attacks by Big Pharma on an honest man, but you would be wrong. The expression "less than perfect in their science" does not even approach a description of Dr Wakefield's fraudulent publications.
3. You say "Autism has been shown in the American vaccine courts to be linked with vaccination". As you could not possibly be unaware of the resolution of the Autism Omnibus case I am amazed that you can make this statement. No court has ever found any connection between autism and vaccination. Some courts might have awarded compensation, but that is not evidence of a link, only evidence that some judges can be influenced by emotion rather than science. Given almost five thousand autistic children to choose from and asked to find the three strongest cases demonstrating a link, proponents of the link could not find even one which passed scientific scrutiny.
4. Finally, you tell Janelle "My choice does not affect you or your children". The choices you make and the choices made by people who follow your advice certainly do affect the children of others. You might remember David and Toni McCaffrey, whose daughter Dana died from whooping cough as a result of coming into contact with the pox-ridden, unvaccinated children of parents who chose to do what you say everybody should choose to do. They were affected by someone else's choice. The children who died of measles in the UK in the last few years were certainly affected (as were their parents) by the choice that Andrew Wakefield made to put his own financial interests (fees from lawyers and potential royalties from a vaccine) ahead of science and truth. I know it's easy to say "But THOSE aren't MY children", but as the Vatican said in the ruling about vaccination that you occasionally misrepresent, vaccination is "morally justified as an extrema ratio due to the necessity to provide for the good of one's children and of the people who come in contact with the children".

Respectfully yours,
Peter Bowditch

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But wait, there's more ... (27/3/2010)

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And it doesn't end there ... (27/3/2010)
I apologise for so much AVN stuff this week, but this was too good to pass up. It seems that Meryl Dorey of the AVN is getting ready for a new career once she finds someone to take her place as the President of the Australian Vaccination Network. (I have applied for the position of AVN President and have even found a sponsor prepared to completely fund the organisation if I get the job, but I haven't heard back from the selection committee yet).

It could be that Ms Dorey is planning to cross over from the Forces of Darkness to the side occupied by sensible people. On October 30, 2009, when AVN was going broke and she was too busy for words, she managed to find the time and budget to register the following domain names:

australiansceptics.com
australiansceptics.org
australiansceptics.net
australiansceptics.info

As she always uses the spelling "septics" when disagreeing with people she assumes have something to do with Australian Skeptics Inc (and how I love that joke, which retains its humorous quality even unto the millionth repetition) and as Australian Skeptics always use the spelling "skeptics" (to retain a connection with the original Greek root of the word), the only inference that can be drawn is that she is planning to start a competing (or perhaps complementary) organisation to promote skepticism and critical thinking in Australia. After all, as she said to Mike Munro on television when asked for her scientific qualifications "I have a brain" and perhaps she has decided to put that brain to good use.

This situation demands a Kind and Gentle email to Ms Dorey.

Dear Ms Dorey,

You have no idea how pleased I was to find that you had registered various Internet domain names which include the word "australiansceptics". I knew that you were looking for something to do after you stepped down as President of AVN, but I never suspected that you would be planning to join me and my friends over here in skeptic land. As you usually use the spelling "septics" (a joke which is still funny after a million repetitions) and Australian Skeptics Inc use "skeptics", it seems obvious that you are planning your own skeptical organisation.

This can only be good news as the country needs as many supporters of skepticism and scientific and critical thinking as it can get to fight the forces of evil and nonsense. Sometimes it's difficult to convince sensible people that, for example, there are those who oppose vaccination, and it would be immensely useful to have someone with inside knowledge of organised insanity to help get the message of truth out.

As you are well aware, I do not speak for Australian Skeptics unless I specifically say so and in this case I am expressing my personal view. Australian Skeptics Inc might have an opinion on the matter but I will leave it up to them to comment.

I am sure that we can put aside the differences we have had in the past and I look forward to working with you to educate the population to recognise and accept medicine, science, rational thought and truth rather than quackery, magic, superstition and lies.

Your friend
Peter

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And speaking of advertising ... (10/4/2010)
The Australian Vaccination Network had planned to run advertisements in a free magazine named Sydney's Child. The obvious intent was to hide their deception in a place where parents would, should and could expect to find good information about bringing up children. Luckily, the magazine editor decided that the purpose of the paper was to provide information, not misinformation, and the advertisements were rejected. One is drawn to speculation about where the many thousands of dollars needed for a multi-city advertising campaign were coming from (the ads were proposed for Melbourne as well as Sydney), given that only a few weeks ago the AVN was about to close its doors because of a lack of funds. Could the poverty of the organisation have been an exaggeration designed to open wallets and purses? But I digress ...

Meryl Dorey from the AVN is raving about this of course. She is annoyed that the ads were rejected sight unseen, ignoring the obvious fact that the refusal was based on the principle that the paper did not want to give publicity to vaccine opponents rather than the specific content of any particular advertisement. I would assume that Sydney's Child would reject proposals for advertisements from adult sex shops on the same basis. Conspiracies involving Big Pharma™ were given the obligatory airing, but it was particularly delicious when Ms Dorey Godwinned herself by raising the spectre of a slippery slope into totalitarianism. You can read Ms Dorey's whine here.

I had to put my oar in, of course, so I sent this email to the paper's editor.

Congratulations.

I have just been informed that you will not be running advertisements for the deceptively-named Australian Vaccination Network. With the success they have already had in reducing the vaccination rates in parts of Australia they didn't need to be spreading their vile nonsense to any more parents. Children have already died as a result of their actions (and the parents of at least one of those children were subjected to attack by people closely associated with the AVN).

Vaccination is probably the most successful medical invention of all time when it comes to saving lives, particularly the lives of children, and a magazine devoted to advising parents about how to raise healthy and happy children is not the place for anti-medicine and anti-vaccination propaganda.

You may not be aware that Meryl Dorey of the AVN is claiming that you refused the AVN advertisements because of a fear of backlash from pharmaceutical companies. She has also compared your actions obliquely to the suppression of the press in pre-war Nazi Germany. As Ms Dorey is famous for her acceptance of conspiracy theories (she recently unquestioningly published a claim that the swine flu vaccine was part of a plan to reduce the world's population by 5.5 billion and microchip the rest for mind control) it is no surprise that she sees Big Pharma under every bed.

As a parent, a grandparent and as someone who cares about the welfare of children I am pleased that an outlet for spreading misinformation about vaccines has been closed. Thank you.

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Leave Meryl Alone! (10/4/2010)
Some people have been very nasty to Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination Network. Here is a video of someone asking that people leave her alone and stop bothering her.

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Irony is not getting the wrinkles out of shirts (1/5/2010)
One of the most successful ventures I have been involved in over the last few months has been a Facebook group called Stop the Australian Vaccination Network. The objective is obvious from the title, and it has attracted a certain amount of fear and paranoia from anti-vaccination liars. The policy has always been to allow anyone to join and comment unless they become too abusive to tolerate, and the number of people banned has been minimal. This hasn't stopped the anti-vaccination liars from screaming about denial of free speech, although many of their complaints seem to be that any form of criticism of their derangement is an attempt to shut them up and prevent the truth being known. In fact we wish they would shut up, but there is nothing we can do to make them do it and expressing displeasure at their antics is hardly censorship.

This concept has been lost on opponents of the group, so this week another group appeared called Stop the Australian Vaccination Network EXPOSED! which is dedicated to freedom of speech. A collection of us from SAVN immediately joined, but it didn't last for long. Soon comments were disappearing and then people as well. Right now the group is invisible to many of my friends, although some of them can still see the gutted content. I mentioned my right of free speech in everything I posted there, but it did no good. It's all gone.

The wonderful irony comes in the logo chosen for the SAVNE group. Whoever set up the site decided to be really clever and combine the crossed circle of the SAVN logo with the demand for free speech. I leave it up to you to decide if they succeeded or just reinforced the impression that they are not prepared to listen to any conflicting views and are hypocritical about their demand for freedom of speech.

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I unite with the Uniting Church (15/5/2010)
The Australian Vaccination Network was planning to hold a seminar in Perth where lies could be told to parents about the swine flu vaccine. Just as Meryl Dorey was about to board a plane for the five hour flight from Sydney to Perth she got the bad news - the owners of the venue, the Uniting Church, had revoked permission to use their facilities to spread lies. Adding icing to the cake, the AVN wasn't just banned from this one church hall, it was banned from holding liefests in all Church properties across the city. Here is how a representative of the church announced the decision to interested parties:

I, of course, immediately whipped out the quill pen and sent this message to the Uniting Church official concerned.

Congratulations. I have just heard the news that the Australian Vaccination Network has been refused permission to use Uniting Church facilities to spread their misinformation about vaccines.

On behalf of the children of Perth I thank you for taking action to minimise the opportunity for nonsense and lies to be spread to parents about possibly the greatest life-saver ever in the history of medicine.

I might not share your faith but I am aware that one of the few things which appears in almost identical terms in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke is Jesus' expression of his respect for and love of children, and when he said "suffer the children" he did not mean that they should suffer in the modern sense of experiencing pain, something that would be inevitable if organisations like the Australian Vaccination Network were to get their way.

Again, congratulations and thank you.

The reaction of the AVN was equally predictable, and you can read the first salvo here. Everyone is being blamed, from the Health Department down. In reality, the WA Health Department had nothing to do with it (although it would be nice to have them come out against the anti-vaccination liars occasionally), it was simply some concerned Christians who didn't want their church associated with ideas and actions which would have been anathema to Jesus. (I am not surprised that Meryl Dorey misrepresented or misunderstood the words "the message promoted by the Australian Vaccination Network is not in line with the ethos and values of the Uniting Church in Australia", because the words "ethos" and "values" are probably mysteries to her.) The attack has continued with a barrage of emails to the Uniting Church people in Perth whining about freedom of speech and how children need to be protected from missing out on dangerous diseases, but the best has to be this post to Facebook by Meryl Dorey (and just who is the president of the AVN these days?):

The Church is supporting a "bunch of atheists"? (SAVN is the Facebook group "Stop the Australian Vaccination Network") I don't believe that a survey has ever been done of the religious beliefs of the members of the SAVN Facebook group and I have seen no indication that members of the group find siding with the Church on this issue to be "uncomfortable" or that anyone is "not liking it one bit" that the Church has done something that we fully support. Vaccination is not a religious issue, it is a matter of public health and parental responsibility for the health of their children and the children that they come into contact with. Oh, and another thing, Ms Dorey - with Australia's defamation laws as they are it is either very courageous or very foolish to accuse someone of corruption, but as your very first public comment about me accused me of financial corruption I am not surprised that you played this particular card.

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Danger! Liefest ahead. (29/5/2010)
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the Australian Vaccination Network had been planning to hold a seminar in Perth to lie to some parents but the venue owners, the Uniting Church, decided that such an event was "not in line with the ethos and values of the Uniting Church in Australia" and told the AVN to look elsewhere. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the AVN, and the announcement was made that the seminar will now be held at the State Library of Western Australia. My fingers flew to the keyboard and I sent a message to the Librarian:

Dear Mrs Allen,

I know I'm not the only one to write to you to express my dismay at the facilities of a place of learning, the State Library of WA, being used to spread untruths and fearmongering.

Despite claims to the contrary, the Australian Vaccination Network is not interested in a fair debate about vaccination or in presenting anything that might be in the least bit favourable to vaccination. They, and their representative Meryl Dorey, are implacably opposed to the use of any vaccines at any time against any disease administered to any person of any age.

Their opposition to vaccination is supposedly based on science, but real science is totally rejected in favour of nonsense, pseudoscience and outright fabrication.

An example of the honesty shown by these people can be found in Ms Dorey's promotional material for the seminar, in which she says "This talk examines the risk of flu to children, the effectiveness of the vaccine and the additional risks to children's health of adding another vaccine to the childhood schedule. A schedule which now includes 12 vaccines before 12 months of age". Not only can I confidently guarantee that the risks of influenza will be trivialised (it only causes 1.2% of deaths in Australia) but the dangers of the vaccine will be exaggerated, lies will be told about how the vaccine is not tested, and further lies will be told about the ingredients in the vaccine.

If you think I might be prejudging the AVN, consider the last sentence I quoted from their promotion of the seminar: "A schedule which now includes 12 vaccines before 12 months of age". There are six vaccines recommended in the current schedule for children under 12 months, not 12, and this fact can be easily and quickly established from publicly available government sources. If someone is prepared to tell so transparent an untruth when the facts are easily discovered, one can only guess at what will be said when the facts are harder to find.

I have tried not to let the fact that Ms Dorey is an AIDS denier colour my opposition to the AVN exploiting the Library as a means of gaining credibility, and mentioning her recent media release which put forward the argument that the swine flu vaccine was part of a world plot to microchip the population as the first stage of culling 90% of the world's population would just be gilding the lily.

I doubt that the Library would be seen as a suitable venue for holocaust deniers or AIDS deniers or 9/11 "truthers" to spread their demented ideas. I see no reason why vaccine deniers should be treated any differently. Please tell them to peddle their nonsense elsewhere.

Thank you.

I wasn't the only person to write, and we all received a form letter in reply saying that the seminar was going ahead. This is very disappointing, as I think that it is even more offensive to have a lie-telling competition in a library than it is in a church hall. Apparently the State Library of WA really does think that freedom of speech extends to shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre.

Oh, and if you think that the AVN doesn't tell lies, remember "This talk examines the risk of flu to children, the effectiveness of the vaccine and the additional risks to children's health of adding another vaccine to the childhood schedule. A schedule which now includes 12 vaccines before 12 months of age", words from one of the speakers (who is undertaking a PhD researching vaccine dangers, although contrary to normal procedure, in this case the thesis writing is being done before the research). Here is the list of vaccines given to Australian children before the age of 12 months (from the National Immunisation Program Schedule):

1. Hepatitis B (hepB)
2. Diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (acellular pertussis) (DTPa)
3. Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib)
4. Polio (inactivated poliomyelitis IPV)
5. Pneumococcal conjugate (7vPCV)
6. Rotavirus

12 vaccines? Is this PhD student so stupid that they can't tell the difference between a vaccine and an injection of a vaccine? Or is any lie good enough if they think that nobody will check?

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Advertising, let's lie about it (5/6/2010)
The following pearl of wisdom was published this week on the Australia Vaccination Network's Twitter account (which I am banned from following):

Did you know: That pharmaceutical & chemical companies are the largest buyers of advertising? Think about that next time you read a mag.

As I have found it good practice to take anything said by this organisation with not just a grain but a bulk ore carrier full of salt, I thought I would check with an authority, in this case the US publication Advertising Age. Here are the most recent statistics on world-wide expenditure on company advertising.

Procter & Gamble Co.	1	$9.73 billion
Unilever	2	$5.72 billion
L'Oreal	3	$4.04 billion
General Motors Co.	4	$3.67 billion
Toyota Motor Corp.	5	$3.20 billion
Coca-Cola Co.	6	$2.67 billion
Johnson & Johnson	7	$2.60 billion
Ford Motor Co.	8	$2.45 billion
Reckitt Benckiser	9	$2.37 billion
Nestlé	10	$2.31 billion
Volkswagen	11	$2.31 billion
Honda Motor Co.	12	$2.22 billion
Mars Inc.	13	$2.00 billion
McDonald's Corp.	14	$1.97 billion
Sony Corp.	15	$1.85 billion
GlaxoSmithKline	16	$1.83 billion
Deutsche Telekom	17	$1.81 billion
Kraft Foods	18	$1.79 billion
Nissan Motor Co.	19	$1.72 billion
Walt Disney Co.	20	$1.59 billion
Danone Groupe	21	$1.58 billion
General Electric Co.	22	$1.55 billion
Time Warner	23	$1.53 billion
PSA Peugeot Citroen	24	$1.51 billion
Pfizer	25	$1.51 billion

You will notice that the first company in the list which has any real pharmaceutical business is Johnson & Johnson, but their major business is in health care products. I drive a Toyota (5th place) and while their cars can be boring enough to act as a soporific when you are driving, I don't think this counts as pharmaceutical manufacture. The first real Big Pharma comes in at number 16 and spends less than 20% of the top spender. The most evil of all Big Pharma companies, Pfizer, only makes it into 25th place. Yes, I know the original lie said "pharmaceutical & chemical companies", but there can be no doubt that the writer didn't mean people who sold soap, food, soft drink and perfume. It is interesting to note that none of the top twenty-five can be considered to be a chemical manufacturer unless you accept the reality of everything being made of chemicals.

This sort of absurd claims about financial numbers is a common tactic of the anti-medicine campaigners. For instance, I was told recently in a breathless tone that vaccines are immensely profitable because world-wide sales are expected to reach $16 billion by 2016. Leaving aside the facts that this is about half the current annual sales of snake oil in the US, that it is not much more than 150% of what a single company spends now to promote soap, and that the projection is for six years from now, it is projected sales, not profit. The quackery industry might be able to get away with sales being almost all profit but in the real world there are research, manufacturing, distribution and other costs which have to come out of sales.

Another example comes from 2006, when I had this to say:

In this case it was a claim by a supporter of medical quackery that the combined profits of ten pharmaceutical companies in the Fortune 500 exceeded the total profit of the other 490 companies combined. (Apparently it is somehow a problem that very large organisations make profits, and we all know that all suppliers of alternative medicine provide their services for free.) An immediate response to this claim from someone sensible was to show that the publicly available financial positions of the Fortune 500 indicated that the highest placed company with a pharmaceutical interest was Johnson & Johnson, which was in 11th place. (Remember that the Fortune 500 includes only publicly-listed companies which are required by law to publish financial reports.) An analysis of the 500 brought out the information that the combined profit of the ten pharmaceutical companies was in fact only about 120% of the profit declared by the largest corporation on the list (Exxon) and only about 25% of the combined profits of the top ten. And what was the response of the quackery supporters to this demolition of an absurd attack on medicine? It came in the form of two demands: "Define profits" and "Define Fortune 500". You get used to goalpost-moving when you try to debate these people, but usually the goalposts at least stay in the same suburb. It would be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic.

You might wonder why they tell lies which can so easily be demonstrated to be lies, and the only thing I can think of is that they don't care. Lying is what they do, and the end justifies the means.

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An oldie but a goodie (12/6/2010)
In most places of the world politicians are seen as useless and a necessary evil, but sometimes one will do something that surprises us. Here is a media release from a previous Australian Federal Minister for Health. It was a few years and ministers ago, but it is one of the finest documents I have ever seen come out of the morass of Parliament and giving it another airing won't do any harm.

Wow! The Australian vaccination Network lied about suing the Minister for Health. Who would ever have thought it?

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But some people wouldn't care (3/7/2010)
The image at right is an exchange on the Australian Vaccination Network's Facebook page. You will notice that Meryl Dorey, erstwhile President of the AVN, states yet again that she "support[s] a diverse range of views and people - even if they don't agree with us". She makes this statement on a Facebook page from which I am banned. She has blocked me from following her on Twitter. I am blocked from commenting on the AVN's blog and I have been banned from the AVN's mailing list for over a decade. She responded positively once to someone who offered to stand at the door of an AVN function and stop me from entering. She has no commitment to freedom of speech unless that freedom is abused to lie to parents about the dangers of vaccines. Her citing of Voltaire is merely reinforcement of her hypocrisy. Voltaire would not have wasted a second on her if he saw her lying in the street.

The response to Ms Dorey fully exposes the tactics and ethics of the anti-vaccination liar movement. David and Toni McCaffrey lost their infant daughter to whooping cough, and the death can be directly attributable to the activities of the anti-vaccination campaigners in their locality. Ms Dorey posted offensive comments to the memorial page set up on Facebook for Dana McCaffrey, but no attempt was made to censor her vile remarks in any way. I sat in a television studio with the McCaffreys while members of the AVN vilified them and anybody else who might suggest that vaccines save lives. The suggestion of a

Choose your rebar, Johanna

public campaign of harassment against the McCaffreys does not surprise me at all, because lies and vilification are all these disgusting creatures have as weapons to use against anybody who challenges their deranged view of the world. They reject science, they reject medicine, they live in a fantasy world where germs and viruses don't exist and where diseases like pertussis and measles are benign. (Yes, Ms Dorey did actually describe measles as benign. She is also on record as stating that a measles infection has a prophylactic effect because you can't have two diseases at once. There is a word for people who think like that but I can't use it here lest I offend people with less than robust sensibilities.)

And as for Johanna's suggestion about contacting employers, all I can say is "Bring it on". I have two jobs. At one of them the employer's attitude to vaccination can be seen by the policy of providing free flu vaccination to all staff. If she contacts my boss at the other job he will tell her which of her orifices would be the most appropriate place to insert a red hot length of reinforcing rod, the rustier the better.

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I'm a fascist? (10/7/2010)
A wonderful attack on supporters of real medicine has been circulating for the last few days. It even made it as a featured article on the Age of Autism web site, a sure sign that anti-vaccination liar paranoia is very much on the boil. I happen to run the Australian Council Against Health Fraud in what little spare time I have (and I hope to get more active with the organisation in the next few months) so I was particularly thrilled to find that ACAHF is now a "major corporate lobby group".

I am so ashamed, chagrined and fearful of the facts disclosed in the article that I have decided to publish it here so we can all see how stupid and idiotic anti-vaccination liars can get. Be prepared, though, before you start reading. Don't wear good clothes, put down some plastic so the carpet doesn't get wet, wear a raincoat to protect yourself from the boiling mouth foam and put on some welding goggles to protect your eyes from sparks of burning stupid. Oh, and a note to Martin Walker: Thank you for the heads-up to a couple of anti-vaccination liar web sites that I wasn't aware of and remember that we're laughing at you, not with you.

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HCCC and AVN (12/7/2010)
The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission has released its findings into complaints made against the Australian Vaccination Network. While the findings are not as dramatic as we could have hoped for, the HCCC was able to reveal that much of the propaganda pushed by Meryl Dorey and the AVN was either inherently unscientific or could not be supported by the references provided. The HCCC made the following recommendations:

I am very disappointed about this, because it doesn't amount to much more than a small slap on the wrist, and recommendation 3 allows any quack or alternative medicine provider to give advice as long as they are allowed to adopt the title of "health care provider". I suspect that for the AVN it will be business as usual, with the added propaganda advantage that they can claim that they are the victims of a witch hunt. I also expect the attacks on Ken McLeod and the McCaffreys to escalate, especially on overseas based anti-vaccination liar websites.

One good thing that might come out of it, however, is that the media might be a bit more careful in future when getting advice from Ms Dorey and the AVN and take what they hear from there with some very large bags of salt.

You can see the HCCC report here.

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A bit more about the AVN (17/7/2010)
It's sad when your former supporters turn on you. Here is the local paper in the Australian Vaccination Network's region reporting on the recent Health Care Complaints Commission ruling on the AVN's activities. The paper used to be favourable to the AVN, but sense has broken out.

And here is a comment from my friend Darryl.

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Numerology (24/7/2010)
During the week I was accused on the Australian Vaccination Network's Facebook page (from which I am banned, of course) of lying for challenging a claim that children in Australia receive more than 30 vaccines by the time they get to their first birthday. (Part of the attack on me consisted of providing a link to this wonderful web page about me. Enjoy!) One wonderful comment said that it didn't matter if the number wasn't exactly 30 because it was more than that. As I cannot respond in the forum where the attack on me happened I have to respond here in public, so I thought I would dust off my numerology skills to see if I could derive the number 30 from the information provided in the Australian National Immunisation Program Schedule.

The vaccines given are:

Hepatitis B (hepB) Diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (acellular pertussis) (DTPa) Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) Polio (inactivated poliomyelitis IPV) Pneumococcal conjugate (7vPCV) Rotavirus

Number of occasions on which vaccines are administered:	4
Number of injections in the complete schedule:	19
Number of unique vaccines:	6
Number of diseases vaccinated against:	8
Total:	37

To be generous, and knowing how anti-vaccination liars like to stretch things out to fit their prejudices, I have added these vaccines which are only administered after the child's first birthday, and I have included the extra doctor's visit.

Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) Measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) Meningococcal C (MenCCV)

Number of occasions on which vaccines are administered:	5
Number of injections in the complete schedule:	22
Number of unique vaccines:	8
Number of diseases vaccinated against:	12
Total:	47

Do you see the number 30 there at all? Neither do I. What is interesting to note is that the PhD student who made the "30 vaccines" claim was saying only 12 vaccines back in May. I am surprised at this as it is obvious that no further research should have been needed for her thesis, based as it is on the a priori assumption that vaccines are dangerous and therefore no research at all is required.

How do you tell when an anti-vaccination campaigner is lying? When their lips are moving or their fingers are typing.

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Speaking of numbers ... (24/7/2010)
On July 7, 2010, the Australian vaccination Network was asked by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission to take the following action within 14 days:

This followed an investigation of the AVN by the HCCC which resulted in some pretty damning criticism of the AVN's activities.

As more than 14 days have passed I thought I would check the AVN's web site to see the prominent notice. To nobody's surprise there is is no such notice, although at the time I looked there was a link to a repetition of the lie that pharmaceutical companies are the largest purchasers of advertising. (I addressed this lie in June.) There is also an article in which someone claiming to be a real doctor states that the tetanus shot is more dangerous than the disease. (I have included a picture of a child with a mild case of tetanus to show how harmless it is.) What is definitely missing is any notice suggesting that the AVN is taking any notice of the HCCC.

Just in case the AVN executives have forgotten, I will run the following counter on the front page of this site until they comply with the HCCC recommendations.

Australian Vaccination Network Arrogance Indicator The AVN is now days overdue with the web site changes requested by the HCCC

And do you wonder if the HCCC have noticed that the AVN hasn't done as it was asked? Here is the media release:

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AVN near death? Children feel safer already. (7/8/2010)
Time appears to be running out for the Australian Vaccination Network. They might be able to ignore the Health Care Complaints Commission, but it is doubtful that they can ignore the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing who oversee charities in the state.

It gave me enormous satisfaction in May, 2009, to be the first person to notify OLG&R that the AVN was quoting an expired charity authority registration code on their web site.

 The registration had expired almost two years previously and in the arrogant fashion we have come to expect from the AVN they just kept on asking for money. To justify asking for money they said:

The second item listed is the soliciting of donations for the purpose of "offer[ing] our services and our magazine in the Bounty Bag". Remember that this had been on the AVN site since the start of 2007. The people who run the Bounty Bag program had never heard of the Australian Vaccination Network and have stated categorically that they would in no circumstances allow anti-vaccination literature to be included in the bags. So where have those donations been going?

The OLG&R is now asking the same question, and they can ask with the force of the law behind them. Here is how the local newspaperin the AVN's region, the Northern Star,  reported the news. It is worth pointing out that until recently this paper appeared to be a strong supporter of the AVN. Not any more, it seems.

Similar stories appeared in many newspapers, so it looks like the very extended honeymoon period during which Meryl Dorey and the AVN were seen as the "go-to" people when stories were being written about vaccination is over. Not a second too soon. Here is a story on Lateline, one of Australia's most respected news commentary programs.

Meryl Dorey loves to whine about censorship and suppression, so I am only too happy to publish her media release about the OLG&R here. Feel free to be soundly amused at the claim that the purpose of the AVN is "to provide referenced information to the Australian public regarding the benefits and risks of vaccination". When are the references to real science going to start, Ms Dorey? And please tell us the benefits of vaccination. And while you are putting your answers together consider this:

The OLG&R wanted an answer days ago Did you forget?

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AVN bleats on (14/8/2010)
The Australian Vaccination Network's erstwhile president, Meryl Dorey, has been publishing a stream of whines on her blog attacking everyone in sight over the attention that the AVN has been getting lately from government organisations. It would seem to be a simple matter to post a requested notice on the AVN web site and then get back to the business of endangering children, because the true believers who orbit the AVN can be told that it is a formality and therefore inconsequential. That is not the Dorey way, however, so instead there has been a series of increasingly hysterical blog posts describing the witch hunt. Any day now I expect to see mentions of the Illuminati and the Rockefellers or perhaps even David Icke's lizard people. (Ms Dorey once famously republished an article by Icke which said that the swine flu vaccine was designed to kill almost all of the world's population and implant mind-control microchips in the rest. She has been trying to deny this ever since, but is always immediately directed to the blog post in which it appeared.)

In her latest rant she has decided that anybody who criticises the AVN is thereby practising medicine or giving medical advice and should be reported to the Health Care Complaints Commission, as if this exonerates the AVN's activities. I rated a mention, but as usual what Ms Dorey said about me contained several examples of what could politely be called "inaccuracies". I posted the following reply. The probability of it being published is less than that of me winning lotto two weeks in a row.

I know Ms Dorey is very busy ducking and weaving, so just in case she hasn't had time to moderate messages to the blog I sent her the following Kind and Gentle email.

Dear Ms Dorey,

In your blog post "The HCCC – don’t confuse them with logic #1 – Health Education" of August 9,You say:

"Peter Bowditch from the Australian Skeptics, has several websites, one of which is dedicated exclusively to vaccination. On this site, not only does Bowditch link to many media stories and articles about vaccination, but he specifically gives medical advice to all who come to view his page. His advice is that everyone MUST vaccinate in no uncertain terms and his lack of information on either the necessity of vaccination for every person and his refusal to inform about any potential side effects is in opposition to the NH&MRC’s rules governing the responsibility to allow for fully informed choice regarding this issue".

I am not the Australian Skeptics. Yes, I started The Millenium Project as a reaction to your vile organisation but I did it several months before I ever knowingly met anyone from Australian Skeptics. You have been told this before, so why do you keep repeating the lie?

I have only one web site, and a part of it is devoted to pointing out the lies told by anti-vaccination campaigners.

Nowhere do I say that everyone must vaccinate.

There are several links on my site to Australian Government literature mentioning possible adverse rfeactions to vaccines.

But why go on enumerating the untruths? It is obvious that you could not tell the truth under torture, so pointing out your lies about me is useless. Still, that won't stop me in the future.

I posted this reply to the blog but my words have not yet appeared. I assume that this is an oversight and you will allow the comment to appear, in accordance with your often stated commitment to free speech.

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AVN and OLG&R (28/8/2010)
Do you remember how the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing had asked the Australian Vaccination Network to show cause why OLG&R should not take action over the AVN operating without a valid charity registration and collecting funds which were not passed on to where they were supposed to go? AVN were given 28 days to respond, but they have apparently been too busy lying about the benefits of influenza, measles and chickenpox to get the paperwork done.

I always try to be helpful, so I sent this kind and gentle reminder email to Meryl Dorey at AVN:

Dear Ms Dorey,

This is just a reminder in case you have been busy and forgot, but your response to the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing was due last week. You know, where you had to explain why AVN kept asking for charitable donations for two years after your registration had expired and why you said that you were collecting for Bounty Bags when the people who distribute the bags had never heard of AVN and wouldn't want your propaganda in them anyway.

Just as an aside, the charities collecting for flood victims in Pakistan have put a very high priority on vaccination. Are you going to issue a media release criticising this approach and suggesting that donations only be made to organisations which promise not to vaccinate children. You did this for both the Aceh tsunami and the Haiti earthquake, so I look forward to you being consistent in your attempts to deny life-saving assistance to the victims of natural disasters.

Your friend,
Peter.

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