CybrgnX said:

Good News!! Great!!!
Don’t be fooled!!
Never underestimate the absolute power of human stupidity!!!!!
Someone there will pickup the reigns and carry on this silliness.
It would be nice if the antivax thing was because people are delusional and stupid, but it is not!!!
Just as in TV evangelism, the antivax has power, money and fame linked to it.
You don’t think people like Jenny McCarthy are doing this for humanity-only?
There is media coverage, fame, exposure, money to be made for the movers and shakers.
They will carry on so be ready to continue the battle.

Well hopefully this organization won’t come back because iot sounds like they are having a funding problem and their one full time worker is going bust. You are right though, this is only a token victory in a much greater war and even if the AVN is gone forever it doesn’t mean that there won’t be nonsense from other individuals and groups.

It is progress though. I think the tide is turning.

I’m hoping the forces of reason can add a couple of “No Nuclear Power” groups to the kill sheet next.

What about this other major news yesterday?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/02/lancet-retracts-mmr-paper

The Lancet has finally come around and retracted Wakefield’s paper…

        Curtains said:

Thanks should also go to Dick Smith for taking out full page adverts in the major newspapers slamming the AVN for their anti-vax stance.

Yes, indeed that was a big help and very generous of Dick Smith. I think it also really helps a lot to have third parties with no real connection to the issue chipping in like that. Dick Smith obviously donated the ad simply out of concern for the welfare and health of everyone. It is more powerful than if it were paid for by the Australian Medical Council or something.

This is also why I think comments on news stories and blogs posting about this helps. These groups like to argue that they are being persecuted by the powers that be – the big evil drug companies and government trying to shut them up.

In the case of the AVN, this was clearly not the case. If you Google them, what you’d find is a huge chorus of voices of reason condemning them. Everywhere they were reported there was a three page long comment thread where most of them were rational arguments against them. There was a big chorus of “Little guys” opposing them and this pretty much destroys the argument that it’s a conspiracy.

In this age of the internet and social networking, grass roots efforts are really gaining new power.

This is what its going to take. A broad base of people with only one thing uniting them: a concern for the truth and for public health.

This is good news indeed.