Australian Skeptics win Battle against Anti Vaccination Group
The New South Wales, Australia Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) has written a report on Australia’s largest anti-VAX group, The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN).
From ABC:
The HCCC accuses the AVN of providing inaccurate and misleading information and selectively quoting research out of context to argue against vaccination.
The report has also noted accusations that the AVN harassed the parents of a child who died of whooping cough last year, after the parents advocated the importance of childhood vaccination.
The AVN is run by Meryl Dorey out of her home in Bangalow, NSW which is two hours south of Brisbane. They have a magazine, a website and host seminars.
The Australian Skeptics have long been a thorn in the side of the AVN. In August of 2009, they ran a quarter page advertisement in a national newspaper stating the AVN is spreading misinformation and risking the lives of children.
“The campaign aims to just alert parents to this information and pointing them to a number of places where they can find factual information about all these issues and these are very serious issues,’ Mr Mendham said.
“I mean, the sceptics deal with a whole range of different areas from the fun areas to the serious ones and this one’s on the very, very serious end of it, we’re talking about children’s deaths here,” he said.
“A lot of people (are) no longer vaccinating their children based often on information that we considered misinformation or misunderstandings,” Mr Mendham said.
In March of 2009, Toni and Dave McCafferty’s 32 day old daughter, Dana died of Pertussis (Whooping Cough). She was too young to be vaccinated against it. They live in an area with one of the lowest rates of childhood vaccination in the nation. They also live a few minutes South of Maryl Dorey’s home and AVN headquarters. They claim that the AVN and Dorey have harassed them ever since their daughter died.
“Our daughter wasn’t even buried and it began,” Ms McCaffery said.
“It began the day before her funeral, it began with phone calls to the health department to get her medical records, contending she didn’t die of pertussis.”
An email from Paul Corben, the director of Public Health at the North Coast Area Health Service, backs up Ms McCaffery’s claims.
In the email, Mr Corben says Ms Dorey called him on March 12 seeking details of Dana’s death and accusing him of misleading the public by attributing the cause to pertussis.
Ms Dorey denies the claims. She repeatedly says Dana “supposedly” died of pertussis, but the McCaffery’s say that is an offensive claim.
They have made their own complaint the the HCCC about the AVN and Dorey and continue the speak publicly for vaccination and say the AVN continues to publish false and hurtful comments about them.
The HCCC report is expected to be made public within the next two weeks.
The AVN has been given 14 days to comply with the HCCC’s findings and place a statement on their website telling consumers they provide anti-vaccination information and that the information should not be read as medical advice.
The video of the news segment and a full transcript can be found inside the forums here.
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