@Statelibrarywa Promoting Dangerous Pseudoscience – Not Really A Fairy Tale About Meryl Dorey And The AVN

If you are here due to PZ Myers linking to this site and are in Perth – the Perth Skeptics Meetup are planning to attend. Contact me via the comments on this blog-post.

THIS LECTURE IS SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW, 1st June at the Library.

The State Library does not make any judgment about individuals, groups or organizations, unless there is a clear breach of law, policies or procedures, in which case we may act to exclude clients.

I acknowledge your opposition to the Australian Vaccination Network but this does not provide grounds for the State Library to exclude this group from using a public facility for lawful means - Margaret Allen, Chief Executive Officer and State Librarian, State Library of Western Australia.

Dr Paul Effler, the medical co-ordinator of the immunisation program in WA, said people no longer saw the diseases prevented by vaccines and so focused on the side effects.

“I think vaccines have been a victim of their own success,” he said. “If you think of a world with no vaccines, think of what disease rates in children would look like. It would be like going back 50 years and seeing what meningitis did to children, killing them and making them deaf…

…Dr Effler said the rise in conscientious objections was partly because some parents had been convinced by anti-vaccine campaigners. – The West Australian Newspaper, ‘Child Vaccination Rates Plunge’, 28th May, 2010.

Are you seated comfortably? Then we’ll begin.

Once upon a time in Australia, there was a horrible, horrible group who called themselves the Australian Vaccination Network or the ‘AVN’.

Unlike their rather sensible and science-forward-sounding name, they were actually all about telling parents and communities that vaccinations gave kids autism and poisoned them.

With cheerful (and bordering on the demented) dedication, they gave misleading advice in parenting magazines, radio shows and essentially anywhere they could snap up an audience. This included the State Library of Western Australia, with a lecture scheduled in June.

Because of their name, many media groups in their country thought they had some kind of authority behind their claims and would often consult them in an effort to create ‘balance’.

They even had groups book them to do lectures, as they posed as health advisory experts and drew upon sciencey-sounding claims that were also touted by people overseas with similar goals to them. Some of those overseas people used terms like ‘mother’s intuition’ on popular daytime programming, and had famous boyfriends who gave them insane amounts of money to keep them shining the smiles that turned up on Oprah specials.

Oprah? Oprah. Yes, that Oprah, the one that features in a Newsweek article called “Why Health Advice on ‘Oprah‘ Could Make You Sick” and was criticised in Slate Magazine.

The head of the AVN was Meryl Dorey, and many Australian skeptics could quite easily point out her errors in reasoning, using the power of the internet, speaking out at public venues and even running advertising.

Despite all the growing evidence to the above statement, there was always the gruesome reality that this was much like the James Randi ‘unsinkable rubber duck’. Worst of all, Dorey and her followers treated with intense cruelty those who tried to question them, especially if they were lone families or individuals.

One such case was the tragic death of a little baby. The AVN claimed that it wasn’t because whooping cough rates rising due to lowered vaccination rates in their region as a result of their intense campaigning – and in fact, shouldn’t the parents of the dead child make the autopsy records available to the AVN on demand so it can be dragged through the mud even further for their ends?

Meryl Dorey’s endorsement of David Icke (a British writer who promotes the notion that vaccines are deadly, and has also devoted himself since 1990 to researching “who and what is really controlling the world’, and claims that the Illuminati are a race of reptilian humanoids and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including Queen Elizabeth II)… was also rather disconcerting:

“…we are already seen as rabid, idiotic fringe-dwellers by so many in the mainstream, it does our argument no good to bring in conspiracy theories which, though we may subscribe to them, are unprovable” – Meryl Dorey.

Naturally, the AVN leapt at the chance to spread more misinformation in Western Australia, after reports from the Department of Health and Aging reported on how ‘Health authorities continue to put seasonal flu vaccine on hold for young children‘. Sadly, it appeared that the State Library of Western Australia wants to promote the AVN and their message regardless.

Nobody may live particularly happily-ever-after if the lecture at Perth’s Alexander Library is canceled – but at least it’s an improvement over promoting pseudoscience and dangerous anti-health views, in what should be a venue that promotes education and culture.

The End.

To find out more about responsible vaccination schedules and where to consult qualified and caring medical practitioners: Visit WA Health – Public Health – Immunisation

Tagged as: Austalian Vaccination Network, AVN, conspiracy, links, Links Elsewhere, Meryl Dorey, news, Perth, Science, Skepticism, State Library of Western Australia, State Library WA, vaccination, vaccination myths