Stop the Australian Vaccination Network
04Aug. 09
It started after the second “Sunday Night” program dealing with Meryl Dorey and the AVN. I was appalled. How could anyone sit there and say that? How could anyone, in good conscience, sit there and tell a grieving mother whose child had died at the age of four weeks from whooping cough that her daughter’s death had nothing to do with whooping cough? How could anyone send hate mail to these people?
Yet that is what was happening. Members of the Australian Vaccination Network had been sending hate mail. I was furious. Sitting there in the studio, not three feet from Meryl Dorey, it took all of my strength not to launch at her. I can only imagine what the McCafferys were saying to themselves, listening to this woman rant.
I decided then and there to do something about it. I turned to Rachael Dunlop after taping was over and the conversation had degenerated into a slanging match between pro and anti-vaxers.
“I don’t care what it takes, I’m shutting these idiots down.”
That night, I went home and started pacing back and forth in my room. Something had to be done. The only forum I had to reach as many people as possible was Facebook. So I logged in and set about creating a group to counter the AVN’s presence there. I was floored by the immediate response and watched as the membership doubled on a daily basis. The biggest single increase came after Rachael Dunlop gave it a plug on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast. A petition was started and we were under way.
Our first major battle with the AVN occurred on their Facebook fan page. Our members, asking there members one simple question “Where is the evidence to support the claims made by the Australian Vaccination Network?” It didn’t surprise us that the only material we were provided with was the same, tired old quackery that we were used to. They obviously weren’t used to having this material criticised.
What followed was, on one hand, hilarious, and on the other, disturbing. The Australian Vaccination Network rank and file simply resorted to attacking those asking the questions. I can’t repeat here the things that were said there. Needless to say, it was the most base level ad hominem attack — childish and immature to say the very least.
What was eventually uncovered was something none of us expected. The true motives of the AVN were nonetheless exposed. They may sell themselves as “pro-choice” (the latest buzz-word in the anti-vax arsenal) but they are purely and simply conspiracy theorists.
No-one would be the least bit surprised that they invoke the “Big Pharma” conspiracy, but some would baulk at the depth of their lunacy. Indeed, it’s not just the big drug companies trying to take your money, it goes much deeper than that.
The AVN believes that there is a global conspiracy by a European based illuminati that wants to implant mind control micro-chips in every man, woman and child. They believe this illuminati plans a mass cull of human beings.
From Meryl Dorey:
“While we are already seen as rabid, idiotic fringe-dwellers by so many in the mainstream, it does our argument no good at all to bring in conspiracy theories which, though we may subscribe to them, are unprovable.
We have mountains, acres and incredible numbers of medical journal articles that prove our case — why weaken it by bringing up something that will turn 99.9% of the population off of what we are saying? Stick with the facts and our cases will be strong.”
The Australian Vaccination Network engaged in a campaign of censorship designed to silence its critics by summarily deleting all posts made by our members on their Facebok page and banning any of us they could identify.
This initially worked, but as our ranks grew and new members took up the fight, it wasn’t long before they were forced to shut their public page down and resort to a private group, with too few members to matter. This was our first major win against the anti-vax nutters.
The Health Care Complaints Commission will investigate after a comprehensive complaint was lodged by one of our members from the South Coast region of New South Wales. This complaint, if upheld, may see then end of the AVN for good. However, it alone will not be enough and we are appealing to the public for assistance.
If you would like to help shut down the Australian Vaccination Network, you can do so a number of ways. You can join the Stop the Australian Vaccination Network group on Facebook, you can download the complaint made to the HCCC, read it and if you agree you can do one or all of the following:
Sign the petition in support of the complaint
Write a letter supporting the complaint to:
ATTN Ms Kristie Brown — Health Care Complaints Commission, Locked Bag 18, Strawberry Hills NSW 2012
Also, send a copy to PO Box 51, Moruya NSW 2537
If you would like to make your own complaint to the Health Care Complaint Commission against the AVN, you can do so by downloading the form from their website.
Meryl Dorey and the Australian Vaccination Network have proven themselves to be deluded, dangerous people who are not only anti-vaccination, but anti-science. They must be stopped.
Tags: Anti-Vax, Australian Vaccination Network, AVN, conspiracy theory, Daniel Raffaele, Meryl Dorey, Vaccination
April 30th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Hi Nellie,
Thanks for the reply. I honestly don’t have the time to respond to everything you’ve said — hopefully someone else can pick up the thread with regards to the mechanisms and literature on vaccinations and alternative medicine.
I will comment quickly on some comments you made regarding chemistry and physics. First,
On the contrary, the basic discovered principles of chemistry flatly contradict (rather than complement) the principles of homeopathy — particularly the notion that a substance can be diluted to the degree claimed by homeopathy. The fact that there are still things we don’t know about chemistry does not leave wiggle room for homeopathy, given that homeopathy has failed to make any novel and accurate predictions and is in direct conflict with science that is supported by evidence.
Water may be a rather special compound, but it is not special in anyway that contradicts modern chemistry. I’ll note here also that delta bonds are not unique to water — indeed, my understanding is that delta bonds do not occur in water at all, and I would again urge you to examine carefully the sources you’ve received this information from.
The comparison of homeopathy and chemistry with Newtonian mechanics and quantum mechanics is also misguided. There is nothing in Newtonian mechanics that is irreconcilable with quantum menchanics, nor vice versa, and indeed mathematically Newtonian mechanics can be thought of as the limiting case of quantum mechanics as we move from the quantum level up to the macro world.
When you say,
I am not entirely sure what you mean. I assure you, however, that neither Einstein nor anyone else has ever found that photons can ‘choose’ anything. I’m also not sure whether you meant ‘physics’ or ‘psychology’ when you wrote ‘pych’ — if you meant ‘physics’, again I can assure you that there are no such experiments and that physics remains unimpressed by repeated attempts to anthropomorphise it.
If you meant ‘psychology’, I’m not really sure what relevance it has to the situation.
Cheers,
Richard
August 5th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
I think it’s interesting that you guys don’t like anyone who challenges you at all.
I started out so offended that you were trying to shut down the AVN, because contrary to your statements, they are not a health care provider, they are just a source of information for those who question the status quo (could be considered sceptics… hmmm interesting)
Now after reading what has been written, I am feeling much more relieved. I don’t immunise my kids, I know far to many people who have had children die, or be harmed by vaccination to do it. If you want to do it knock yourself out, I couldn’t care less. I’m on no crusade to abolish vaccination, it is what it is, a choice. I made a choice using my own personal experience, as I’m sure others do. I am sure that if there were people that had experience with the diseases involved in vaccination, they would feel compelled to vaccinate.
Then again the vast majority of the population never question it and just do as they are told, and given incentive by the government to do so.
My question is this, if you really believe in vaccination, why are you fighting so hard to have the AVN shut down. In your estimation if vaccination is faultless, what does it matter if a few “free thinking hippies” like me chose to risk vaccination related diseases over other side effects? I often feel that the ones fighting so hard are the ones with the most self doubt. I may be wrong… I don’t really care, just thought you should know that you don’t really come out of this smelling of roses if you know what I mean!
August 6th, 2010 at 10:22 am
The AVN is dangerous to public health and peoples lives because the ideas they peddle are wrong and go against the evidence. To not combat the crap they put out would be the crime.
August 6th, 2010 at 11:05 am
@Be:
“My question is this, if you really believe in vaccination, why are you fighting so hard to have the AVN shut down. In your estimation if vaccination is faultless, what does it matter if a few “free thinking hippies” like me chose to risk vaccination related diseases over other side effects?”
For one, we here at the Young Australian Skeptics care about whether or not those who are not vaccinated (children too young to be vaccinated, people with compromised immune systems and people who, for whatever rare reason, don’t maintain high enough antibody levels after vaccination to be immune to the disease in question) live or die. The safety of the entire population against particular diseases is mostly maintained by herd immunity, a concept that requires a large percentage of the population become vaccinated. When herd immunity exists, even people who can’t be vaccinated or didn’t react properly to the vaccine will be protected through a lack of transmission in the general population — in other words, they’ll never be exposed to the disease because nobody around them will be infected.
Fighting against an organisation such as the AVN, which indirectly puts the very lives of people on the line, warrants ferocity and passion, as does any cause that resists a human death toll. We don’t fight because we’re insecure, we fight because the public is being mislead about the efficacy and safety of vaccines and people are becoming sick and are dying because of it.
August 6th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
In addition to what Jack said, we too want people to make an informed choice. If you’re fed nothing but lies, misinformation and blatantly false statements it’s impossible to be informed, only uninformed. If people listen to the AVN their choice will be an uninformed one. Many people will make the wrong choice for the wrong reasons, and it is for them as well that we do this. They are nothing but innocent victims in the AVN’s misinformation campaign.