Aussies Fight Back Against Anti-Vaccine Nonsense
August 13th, 2009
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The anti-vaccine movement is nothing new. The US, the UK, Germany, Canada and many other countries all have their own anti-vaccine activists, working to misinform the public and kill people through preventable infectious disease. In the US, we have Jenny McCarthy, who I may remind everyone, is only well known because she showed everyone her who-who in 1993.
In Australia they have the AVN, or “Australian Vaccine Network.” The Australian Vaccine Network claims to be “pro-choice,” as opposed to “anti-vaccine,” as many other organizations do. They also claim to be empowering people by providing information, although their information ranges from one-sided and misleading facts to outright lies. The biggest anti-vaccine assclown in the Australian anti-vaccine movement is Meryl Dorey. Ms. Dorey makes the standard comments, claiming that vaccines cause autism (they don’t) and that they harm the immune system (they actually stimulate antibody production) and that they’re ineffective.
Click here for a video of the news report that got this started.
But recently there has been a major shift in public opinion in Australia, as a series of events have lead to the AVN getting some well deserved bad press...
What touched this off was a story on Australia’s Channel Seven over the tragic death of Dana McCaffery. Dana was only four weeks old when she caught whooping cough, the disease that would ultimately kill her. This disease was almost eliminated in most of the industrial world decades ago but is making a comeback. At such a young age, Dana had not yet received the vaccination that would have saved her life, and thus was counting on the “herd immunity” of the community to keep her safe and healthy.
I really don’t like the term “herd immunity,” but it’s an accurate way of describing how widespread vaccination can prevent illness, even in those who are not vaccinated. In any population, there will be a few individuals who are not immune to a disease through no fault of their own. Some of these individuals are simply too young to have had the vaccine. Others may have immune system diseases like AIDS. Still others may have received an organ transplant or have an auto-immune disease which requires immune suppression drugs. Yet in such cases, their chances of getting a disease is very low as long as the community has a high enough rate of immunization. For a disease like whooping cough to exist at all in such a community, it must be introduced by an outsider, who must transmit it directly to one of the individuals without the immunity. Even if this happens, the disease will not have a chance to get very far, because there are not enough suitable hosts to sustain the pathogens spread.
One could compare the concept to critical mass in a nuclear reaction. Bellow critical mass, one might get an occasional fission and it may even trigger a second, but it will not create a significant propagation of the effect and the reaction will die out rapidly.
So why didn’t herd immunity protect little Dana McCaffery? It seems that in her region of Australia, the level of vaccination has fallen to the point where the disease can take hold. This is not unique to Australia, as whooping cough has made a comeback in the US, along with diseases like measles. Full blown outbreaks of such diseases have occurred in areas that had not seen them in decades.
There is one thing that sets Australia apart from most other countries, however: the report on the death of Dana McCaffery seems to have touched out an appropriate level of outrage and the AVN has been enduring some very very bad publicity…
The report got so much attention that Channel Seven decided to hold a forum on vaccines. Meryl Dorey was spouting off her BS and writing off the deaths of children due to the lack of vaccination. However, she was countered by more rational guests as well. Our friend Richard Saunders (whom I had lunch with just last month) of the Australian Skeptics was there. Indeed, it seems that the Australian Skeptics have taken the bullshit by the horns on this one and are responding by countering these claims and working to improve vaccination rates. They’re joined by numerous medical professionals along with a few good reporters.
Here is a small portion of the broadcast. You can read a full account of it here.
There’s really nothing like a sad story of a dead baby to rally the press and public against the killers, even if they did so by indirect action. But make no mistake, this death was a tragedy and it should stand as an example of what this movement, which cloaks itself in claims of being for the children and against the big bad pharmaceutical companies, is really all about. No other couple should have to live their life in sadness over the childhood that never was, due to a disease that could be prevented.
But it does not end there. Her father posted a heartbreaking account of the death of his daughter on a major skeptic blog in Australia in the hopes of preventing this from happening again. The Australian Skeptics have really taken advantage of the recent momentum on this issue, and I don’t mean “taken advantage” in a bad way. The organization has lead the charge that has the AVN playing defense.
Thanks to the generosity of Australian Businessman Dick Smith, the following advertisement ran in “The Australian,” one of the country’s largest newspapers.
The ad even generated some press of its own. The fact that many of those involved clearly had no interest in pharmaceuticals and are independent from the government makes this all the more helpful. It seems that the amount of negative press to rain down on the AVN has become a deluge. It’s great and very heartening to see such a big shift and to see a country start to wake up about this important issue.
(Note to any Australians: Please send some of that our way, because we need it just as bad!)
Keep up the good fight. Don’t let up on these murdering bastards. Send them back to the state of disrespect and ridicule they deserve. Australia, I salute you!
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 12:52 am and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Good Science, Misc, Obfuscation, Quackery, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 7th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Oh look. An allcaps comment. Good on you, CJ. It’s always useful to be able to tell the worth of a comment at a single glance rather than have to do all that tedious reading.
So what about all the kids around the world who died from lack of vaccination because of your murderous paranoid fantasies?
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March 7th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Finrod said:
You seem to be unaware of the fact that vaccines have never protected anyone or saved anyone’s life, so obviously nobody has ever died from a LACK of vacination. Plenty of people have however died BECAUSE of vaccination.
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March 7th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
BTW, the youtube video above has been removed due to terms of use violation.
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March 7th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Erwin Alber said:
One of the sure signs of a crank is the way he challenges scientific consensus. Admittedly, this is a time-honored tradition in science — but the crank does not challenge established science in the usual educated or reasonable way. Cranks are often angry at the scientific mainstream and rather than admit that their theories might be flawed, cranks hurl accusations of basic stupidity and corruption at the entire scientific community. “I’m right — the whole world is wrong” is their credo.
Cranks are usually not educated in the fields in which they attempt to speak however their presumption of their own expertise is such that they often have no idea what they are attacking, even though they are swaggeringly confident that they alone possess the truth.
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March 7th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Erwin Alber said:
So why don’t most people who have had measles once catch it again? Because the have antibodies that can be detected in their blood. And you know what? Most people who have received measles vaccine also have the same antibodies in their blood. So how can the antibodies in the person who has actually had measles protect them yet those same antibodies in the person who received the vaccine doesn’t protect them? Is it some kind of magic?
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March 7th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Erwin Alber said:
Oh puh-lease. Now you’re just arguing the semantics. Many died of a disease because they were not vaccinated and therefore got the disease.
That’s like saying “Nobody ever died due to lack of a parachute, but people have died from hitting the ground”
DV82XL said:
Maybe it’s the fact that people seem to focus on the examples of those who challenged the scientific consensus and managed to change it. However, they miss an important aspect of that – those who manage to prove the consensus wrong do so by having evidence.
Conclusive evidence trumps all. It doesn’t matter who you are or what the consensus is or was. Pony up the proof and everyone has to shut up. Do unheard of people from outside the scientific world, possibly even not formally educated change the scientific consensus? Yes, but rarely, and in all cases it’s not because of who they are but because of the evidence they have. The evidence matters. Just the same, no scientist, no matter how prestigious can make something so just by saying it without reason.
“They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” – Carl Sagan
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March 8th, 2010 at 3:21 am
ddpalmer said:
It’s because childhood illnesses usually confer lifelong immunity, while vaccination doesn’t. Vaccination supposedly imitates natural infection, but that’s not the case. Natural infection occurs via the skin or via the mucous membranes of the mouth or the intestinal tract, while vaccination by-passes these defenses and give the disease material including foreign protein and foreign DNA direct access to the blood, the lymph and organs – exactly what the immune system is there for to prevent! This is said to be medical science in action, when really it is just pseudo-science designed to fool the public, including doctors.
I say this because I am sure that the people in charge are fully aware that vaccination is a fraud and the science behind vaccination junk science. On doing even minimal research, it quickly becomes obvious that vaccines are NOT given to prevent, but to promote diseases.
Antibodies are evidence that the organism has been exposed to an antigen or a disease, such as a natural infection, or an artificial infection, such as vaccination, events which produce measurable changes in the blood which are specific to the antigen responsible for triggering the change. Measles antibodies are e.g. different from measles vaccine virus antibodies, but I assume that you already know that.
Antibodies are therefore evidence of exposure, not of immunity, except that in the case of normal childhood illnesses, antibodies are a coincidental indication that exposure has led to immunity. Antibodies however do not represent immunity as such. Even the medical literature admits that people with high levels of antibodies may be remain susceptible to disease, while some people may be immune even though they may have few or no antibodies.
In spite of this, the vaccination cult mantra goes: “Vaccination = antibodies = immunity” because it’s convenient way to explain how vaccines supposedly work, even though there is no evidence whatsoever to show that vaccines actually prevent diseases. As others have pointed out, it’s tobacco science.
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March 8th, 2010 at 3:29 am
drbuzz0 said:
Nobody has ever died of a lack of vaccines because vaccines have never protected anyone.
Here is the evidence. It is these graphs which turned me from a supporter of vaccination to an outspoken opponent:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=98346&id=69667273997
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March 8th, 2010 at 3:35 am
Erwin Alber said:
Except of course when the illness kills the child and then the child has no further life to have such immunity.
Erwin Alber said:
That’s ridiculous. Diseases get into the body by getting past those defenses. Besides, vaccines can be given orally or as a nasal spray and diseases can get directly into the blood stream. There’s no coloration at all.
Erwin Alber said:
If you really believe that based on what you’ve observed of the evidence, then you have less to worry about from infectious disease health issues than from mental health issues.
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March 8th, 2010 at 3:36 am
DV82XL said:
“If you find yourself on the side of a majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”
Mark Twain
Interestingly, George B Shaw and Mahatma Gandhi were both outspoken opponents of (smallpox) vaccination.
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March 8th, 2010 at 3:46 am
Erwin Alber said:
(assuming they were) that means nothing. You cite a playwright and an Indian independence leader. Neither were doctors or scientists and both were wrong.
There are plenty of brilliant and well regarded people throughout the ages who have been right about many things but completely wrong about others. If you base your view on a topic like the science of immunology on the statements of an Irish Playwright whose been dead for 50 years then I truly pitty you.
Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong.
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:04 am
Erwin Alber said:
Crank is the proper term used for a person who unshakably holds a belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false. A crank’s belief is so wildly at variance with commonly accepted truth as to be ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making rational debate an often futile task.
You have a religion. Your religion tells you that only antibodies from infection are “good” and those produced via vaccination are “bad.” However your definitions of good and bad are in your mind, and is based only on your belief that you are right. In the end there is not much difference between you and any religious extremest – nether one of you operate on reason.
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:04 am
DV82XL said:
The truth is the truth; it’s not something one can possess, but only something one can have access to – only, collective cultural delusions effectively prevent such access. Vaccination is a good example of this. We have been told for about 200 years that vaccination prevents diseases, but just because someone is doing their best to promote this nonsense, doesn’t make it true.
In fact, NOTHING we are told about vaccines is true: that they are safe and effective, that they have eradicated smallpox, that they have saved millons of lives, that antibodies indicate immunity, etc. etc: it’s all lies. Don’t take my word for it though, because blindly trusting someone else’s ideas is what got us into trouble in the first place.
I can assure you that I was at first incredulous when I stumbled across the evidence showing that vaccines have never prevented any diseases, but once I came across the truth I could no longer go back to believing in lies, regardless of whether millions of doctors believe in them. The erronneous belief that vaccines prevent diseases is in fact far more contagious as well as more dangerous that the risk posed by “vaccine-preventable” diseases. There is actually no such thing as a vaccine-preventable disease. It’s really just a fancy notion which has become rooted in the public’s mind due to a constant barrage of propaganda of the sort Goebbels was famous for, under Hitler. I think it was Goebbels who said words to the effect that “The bigger a lie, and the more often it is told, the more likely it is that people will believe it.”
Vaccination is arguably the biggest lie ever. It’s a medical superstition which has been rammed down our throats for two hundred years now. Not surprisingly, it has become firmly rooted in people’s minds, where it causes mass psychosis.
“If people can get you to believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire
Indeed; there is no greater absurdity than the claim that the injection of highly toxic substances into the human organism will prevent diseases, and no greater atrocity than having brain-washed morons inject defenseless babies and children with this filth.
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:21 am
Q said:
But the invention in 1796 of an English country doctor, based on a rural myth according to which exposure to cowpox prevents smallpox, and which caught the imagination of his contemporaries and developed into a fad, not to speak an outright moneymaking racket which crippled or killed countless children as well as adults, is to be trusted?
Ignaz Semmelweis was ridiculed by his colleagues when he suggested that they should wash their hands before delivering babies, after having dissected cadavers.
Before that, the authorities told people that the earth was the centre of the universe and that the sun was moving around the earth and threatened to burn anyone who dared to disagree.
The fact that Dr Wakefield is hounded for daring to suggest that the MMR vaccine may cause autism as well as the fact that Jenner’s barbaric invention is still in vogue is an indication that we stll haven’t emerged from the Dark Ages.
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:28 am
This has degenerated into yet another troll who thinks he can use there threads as a personal soapbox.
There is no longer even an attempt on Alber’s part to discuss this topic.
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:38 am
DV82XL said:
I never said that natural antibodies are good and vaccine antibodies bad, only that they are different. I do however consider natural childhood infections desirable because they help children develop a healthy immune system, while vaccinations are IMO harmful because they impair children’s immune system.
It’s vaxers who are followers of the cult of medicine, of which vaccines are its holy water, according to Robert S Mendelsohn MD, the author of “Confessions of a Medical Heretic” and the classic “How to raise a healthy child … in spite of your doctor.”
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March 8th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
DV82XL said:
To remind you, the topic is “Aussies Fight Back Against Anti-Vaccine Nonsense.”
What I’m doing – in case you hadn’t noticed – is to do the best I can to debunk the vaccination nonsense.
Question: “What’s the difference between an Australian and a computer?”
Answer: “There is no difference; one has to punch the information into both of them.”
There are however always exceptions to any rule, Meryl Dorey obviously being one of them. I say obviously, because she’s obviously better informed about vaccinations than the average brain-washed doctor, but then that’s true for any well-informed mother (or father) as well.
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Erwin Alber said:
I wonder how well that joke would go down if you tried it on Dana McCaffrey’s parents?
Incidentally, I believe Meryl Dorey is American.
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Now, here are my big problems with the so-called anti-vaccine movement:
1. The irrational, almost comical need to demonize public health agencies:
The majority of people working for public health agencies around the world are probably good at their jobs and probably have their hearts in the right place, and when anti-vaccine zealots flatly insist that everyone working for these agencies is paid off by big pharma and that the only reason any paediatricians push vaccines to children is to make payments on their BMWs, it just sounds dumb.
2. The conspiracy angle:
I find the conspiracy theories about vaccines to be amusing. Sure, there are government officials sitting around deviously concocting schemes to inject the populace with toxins…. All medical professionals secretly know that vaccines are poisonous but they push them anyway because of a desire for world domination. Right.
3. The refrain of “do your research:” (a particular favourite of mine)
Like all cranks, anti-vaccine zealots have a fondness of self-righteously telling others to “do your research,”
indicating that any reasonable person who “did their research” would conclude that vaccines were proven harmful. However a reasonable, critical-thinking person could just as easily conclude the opposite based on the available research. There is no scientific research that proves vaccines to do more harm than the benefit they confer. There is no convincing body of research to support the anti-vaccine stance. “Research” does not consist of reading essays by other anti-vaccine fanatics who don’t cite sources to support their claims, nor does it consist of reading anecdotal stories of people who suffered adverse events after vaccination. These people may indeed have been harmed by vaccination, but it isn’t scientific evidence, that vaccinations are inherently dangerous, any more that someone dying from anaphylactic shock due to a peanut allergy proof that peanuts are inherently dangerous.
4. Unquestioning trust in “natural” processes:
To categorically deny the benefit of any and all approved vaccines while never questioning the idea that death and major health problems can be the result of becoming infected with the pathogen is typical of the blinkered approach they take to the problem. A dead or blind child as the result of measles is apparently acceptable to them whereas a potential allergic reaction to immunization is a crime agaist humanity,
5. Failure to get facts straight:
It’s hard to take seriously anyone who consistently make errors of fact. It’s even harder to take these people seriously when, if confronted with the fallacies in their statements, they insist that the source contradicting them is lying.
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March 8th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Erwin Alber said:
“desirable”? Right…. they do help provide an immunity as long as they don’t also kill the child or leave them crippled, deaf, disfigured etc.
That’s the thing about infections. They’re not harmless. They’re pathogenic. They cause harm. They sometimes kill.
Erwin Alber said:
Except they don’t and it doesn’t change no matter how many times you say so.
Erwin Alber said:
The fact that the authorities say something does not automatically make it right. It does not automatically make it wrong either. These notions were always dispelled by presentation of evidence. That seems to be what you don’t understand.
Erwin Alber said:
Dr. Wakefield has been rooted out as being a complete fraud. He violated ethics rules numerous times and he made up his data. His study was audited and found to be bogus. Why is it so hard for you to understand that?
If MMR vaccine did really cause autism and if he had proven this he would have been a hero and his discovery would have been confirmed by other researchers.
You really think that medicines don’t occasionally get found to be harmful? It does happen. The modern system of testing and approval catches most of them but on rare occasions drugs are pulled because of side effects. Thalidomide was found to cause birth defects in the 1960’s.
You know what these have that’s different thought? There’s real, provable evidence. That’s what matters!
Erwin Alber said:
Except it turned out that this “myth” was true. It’s because cowpox is closely related to small pox but rarely as severe. It was confirmed by several researchers to work. The antigens are nearly identical, and that is what matters. It was in some ways one of the turning points of medicine.
The use of cowpox is completely obsolete, though. It crude by later standards. The first step toward modern vaccines, perhaps, but still just the earliest step. They didn’t even understand why it worked at the time. It founded the basic idea of vaccines – to provide for an immunity while not causing the dangers of the infection itself.
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March 9th, 2010 at 3:50 am
Finrod said:
I was just joking. I have nothing against Australians. I have some very good friends who are Australian. I just get a bit frustrated when people are so thick they can’t see the obvious. I was kind of hoping that e.g. the SARS swindle, the bird flu swindle and the recent swine flu and swine flu vaccine swindles would have opened people’s eyes to the fact that this whole vaccine business is an organised criminal enterprise, but to judge from the comments on this site it seems that some people still have their heads stuck up their back passage.
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March 9th, 2010 at 4:42 am
Q said:
Q said:
“
Yes, it provided the foundation for this global fraudulent multi-billion dollar money-making racket.
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March 9th, 2010 at 4:46 am
Erwin Alber said:
The only one here that is being obstreperously stupid here is you. You haven’t brought one thing to the discussion except your conviction that you are right, and everyone else is wrong. What constantly amuses me about your type, is that they somehow assume that we have not considered these matters before they showed up to set the record straight.
Well guess what moron, we have been over this time and time again, and not one of you idiots has ever brought one scrap of evidence to support your contentions. Never. Like them you lack the education and the intelligence to evaluate the information available or even to understand it. You will never have the respect of people like us because you are pathetically and transparently over your head in these matters and you can’t see it. You are making a first-class fool of yourself, and it hasn’t yet sunk in that we are only responding to you for our own cruel amusement; you’re a laughingstock.
But what the biggest howl is though, is the day you or a loved one really falls sick, or is in serious need of medical attention, you will come crawling to people like us, begging for help. And I am satisfied knowing that eventually that time is coming, and deep down you know it too, deny it as you will.
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March 10th, 2010 at 3:46 am
I’ve posted your Depleted Cranium link on my facebook profile and got this response from a grandmother which I thought would be good to share, to show you that the world can be looked at from more than just one viewpoint:
“Two of my grandchildren almost died from vaccines, so they can take their phony science and shove it where the sun don’t shine. I know the truth because I have witnessed the truth. Better to die from a disease that can be properly diagnosed than to be put through the hell that my family has suffered because of these lying terrorists. One child dies from a disease, thousands die or are disabled for life from vaccines. The reason these Australian terrorists have to make fun of someone’s looks is because they have no evidence to support their claims that vaccines are safe.”
I can’t resist adding “…and because they suffer from depleted craniums.”
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March 10th, 2010 at 4:04 am
DV82XL said:
Oh dear. Let me explain my way of looking at things:
If my car plays up I take it to a car mechanic to get fixed, if I can’t sort the problem. If I have a tooth ache I go to the dentist. If I break a leg I’ll get a doctor to set the fracture and to put it in a cast. If I were to get involved in a car accident i would hope that a surgeon will sort me out. If I were to fall ill I would consult a homoeopath. So, please note that I am not averse to consulting a doctor should I need a doctor’s services ad that I’m not saying that doctors are bad people; they just happen to be brainwashed into believing that injecting babies and children with poisons immunises them.
I will consequently not let anyone blackmail me into taking some crap vaccine by means of fearmongering. In fact, I won’t have any more vaccine – ever – even if I was offered a million dollars. Speaking of which, have you come across Jock Doubleday’s offer?
JOCK DOUBLEDAY’S VACCINE OFFER
$250,000
as of March 1, 2010
Jock Doubleday, director of the California 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc., hereby offers $250,000.00 to the first medical doctor, pharmaceutical company CEO, or ACIP member who publicly drinks a mixture of standard vaccine addit…ive ingredients in the same amount as a six-year-old child is recommended to receive under the year-2005 guidelines of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
http://www.spontaneouscreation.org/SC/VaccineOffer.htm
This offer started at a much lower figure and was gradually increased to the above amount, yet there have been no takers! The psychopaths who advocate vaccines say it’s ok to inject babies with their crap, yet they won’t go near the stuff themselves, the f*^%@ng cowards. Why is Dr Paul Offit not fronting up? He’s the clown who said that it was ok to inject a child with 10000 (yes, ten thousand) vaccines.
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March 10th, 2010 at 4:30 am
Why didn’t you post Jock Doubleday’s offer in full? It is not as simple as you have presented. A few of the other parts of the offer requires the person accepting the challenge to take a physical and mental examination and release those exam results to Mr. Doubleday with no requirement for those records to be kept confidential. There is also a require for 6 separate written tests prepared by Mr Doubleday. Along with all the other conditions he places on the offer he can easily disqualify anybody who applies to take the challenge. You think that may be intentional so he can claim that no one will accept his challenge when he knows he will never really let anybody even try?
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March 10th, 2010 at 4:33 am
Erwin Alber said:
Oh a random grandmother from facebook gives anecdotal evidence with no background or proof agrees with you. Well why didn’t you say so. That changes the whole situation.
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March 10th, 2010 at 6:32 am
Erwin Alber said:
Why am I not surprised?
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March 10th, 2010 at 6:41 am
Erwin Alber said:
And after you died because you took a useless scam “cure” would your family consult a psychic to see how you were doing?
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March 10th, 2010 at 7:03 am
ddpalmer said:
I’m willing to bet his grandmother would.
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March 18th, 2010 at 3:16 am
[...] It’s because Dick Smith went out of his way and beyond any call of duty to donate money to buy…. [...]
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