Australian Vaccination Network investigated for fraud.

Well it didn't take long for the nations leading anti-vaccination organisation to run into more trouble with the authorities. Now the Australian Vaccination Network is being investigated for consumer fraud as a result of their dodgy financial reports.

Jane Hansen, The Sunday Telegraph

I wrote the following letter to the AVN in January to ask about the questionable finances regarding the Magazine Subscriptions.

I never received any response from the AVN, but I do happen to know that past president Meryl Dorey was very unhappy about this letter. I expect she'll be even less happy now that Fair Trading is asking the same questions.

A detailed look at the AVN's magazine scam can be found at Diluted Thinking.

While Ken McLeod's document: Meryl Dorey's Trouble with Finance is an excellent introduction to the shifty financial reporting of the AVN.

I expect to see a lot more bad news for the AVN just around the corner. Stay Tuned....

See how the AVN lied to Fair Trading about impersonation website.

One of the tactics that’s employed by the Australian Vaccination Network is to impersonate their opponents. It’s childish certainly, but we have come to expect such pathetic tactics from this organisation.  Misrepresentation and deception are the tools of choice for pathological liars so it came as no surprise that Meryl Dorey, who was president of the AVN at that time set up a website to impersonate Australian Skeptics Inc.

It is a poor impersonation and the intended deception is clear for all to see. The fake website in question is: AustralianSceptics.com and the whois record shows that it belongs to the AVN, plus it’s common knowledge that they own this site.

So back in May 2012 I wrote to the New South Wales Department of Fair Trading to notify them that the AVN was in violation of the ASSOCIATIONS INCORPORATION ACT 2009 (NSW) by refusing to identify that this website belonged to them.

I am writing to inform you that The Australian Vaccination Network Inc has recently established a new website at http://australiansceptics.com with the title "The REAL Australian Sceptics", this is a deliberate attempt to mislead and deceive the public by purposefully using a confusingly similar name to Australian Skeptics Inc.

Despite the requirement under Section 41 of the ASSOCIATIONS INCORPORATION ACT 2009 (NSW) which states "An association must not issue any letter, statement, invoice, notice, publication, order for goods or services or receipt in connection with its activities unless the association’s name appears in legible characters on the document.". The Australian Vaccination Network Inc has not included their name anywhere on the publication at  http://australiansceptics.com. This publication is being promoted on their official Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the domain name australiansceptics.com is registered to "Australian Vaccination Network" there is no doubt that this publication belongs to them.

Best Regards,

~Dan Buzzard

PO Box 72

Northbridge 6865

While I did receive a response from Fair Trading to say they would write to the AVN I never had the opportunity to see the correspondence that took place between the AVN and Fair Trading; until now.

The group Stop the Australian Vaccination Network was able to obtain copies of the correspondence between the Department of Fair Trading and the Australian Vaccination Network and sure enough on page 84 is a copy of the letter that Fair Trading sent to Meryl Dorey regarding my complaint the 11^th May 2012.

Then on page 89 I found the blatant lie that Meryl Dorey told to fair trading in order to avoid complying with the law.

Simply linking to another website is not the same as hosting it. If it were then it would mean the entire internet consists of a single website.  I am disappointed that Fair Trading chose to ignore the law breaking activities of the AVN and accept such an obvious lie. I will be following up on my original complaint as a result.

The correspondence released by fair trading is available here: AVN Trouble with Fair Trading (14 MB)

It's a big file to go through and I expect I'll beable to dig up a lot more dirt from it over the coming weeks.

Vaccination is a human rights issue.

On Tuesday the Australian Vaccination Network sent out an email full of their usual rubbish. Except there was one thing that caught my eye. About one third of the way down is the subtitle "Civil Liberties Organisation approves of Discrimination!" what I found was very amusing. It would appear that a member of the AVN has contacted Civil Liberties Australia regarding their stance on vaccination.

Thr CLA has responded:

Dear DM

We support vaccination, as it is a right of the child.

Note, the child. The child has a separate right from that of the parent.

Parents can believe anything they like, but we believe children have the right to the best chance at health.

This is a formal right under international agreement. the Convention on the Right of the Child.

You can make any choice you like...that's your right. You can insist on your right to say 'no' as a new parent, but it could be your child who suffers the consequences.

Or another child: see the example in our policy document, or see the vision of the baby whooping in Sunday night's documentary on SBS http://www.sbs.com.au  under Video Highlights, "Jabbed: Love, Fear and Vaccines" (you only need to watch a few minutes, the child comes at the start of the program). The child was whooping because an unvaccinated children had passed on the disease to the baby before the baby was old enough to be vaccinated.

If you choose to not vaccinate your children, we believe you are taking away their right to their best chance at health.

Your choice.

FROM OUR POLICY DOCUMENT:

The child has a right to health, independent of the right of a parent to adopt measures for her or his child that accord with the parent's view

CLA believes that a child has a right to immediate vaccination in the face of an imminent and preventable illness (for example, Hep B for children born to mothers who have the disease) and has a right to a 'best chance' at life, which would support the well-tested schedule of childhood vaccinations.

Parents have a responsibility to act in the 'best interests' of the child (this is a formal responsibility on a parent under the Convention on Rights of the Child).

CLA's position allows children (and their parents) to make their own decision on some types of vaccines, especially those that come later in life, such as the HPV[1] vaccine (which isn't life saving in the same way Hep B, tetanus or whooping cough vaccines can be). It also allows parents a way to opt-out of 'new' and less-tested vaccines such as seasonal influenza.

Cheers,

Bill Rowlings

-Civil Liberties Australia

The idea that an anti-vaxxer would contact a human rights organisation is just beyond laughable. People who don't vaccinate are contributing to a lower heard immunity and placing other members of the community at risk. Vaccination is a human rights issue and should be mandatory, with the only exception being medical reasons. Even adults should be required to be vaccinated if they wish to take part in society.

There is no "right" to lower heard immunity put others at risk of potentially fatal diseases for the same reason there is no "right" to drink and drive.

Meryl Dorey likens herself to the Jews in the Holocaust

Godwins law states that:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

Clowns like Meryl Dorey who posses an over inflated persecution complex are particularly prone to mentioning Hitler and Nazis when talking about their opponents. This morning Dorey likened the activities of the NSW government to the holocaust.

On first reading of this bill, it is easy to see how little thought has gone into it. Calling it a knee-jerk reaction would be putting it mildly. This is legislation driven by a sector of the media with close ties to vaccine manufacturers and run on the back of a hate-filled vilification campaign which Australia has never seen the likes of before. This campaign has gone beyond all reasonable boundaries expected in a civilised society. Comparisons can be drawn between the current situation in Australia and historical social conflicts such as the McCarthy Era in the US and Hitler’s vilification of the Jews during the 1930s and 1940s. At least with these issues, there was plenty of public debate going on. Today, there is censorship and suppression of any discussion which is not in line with government and medical opinion on the subject. Should this blatant discrimination continue, history and the world will not judge Australia well.

-Meryl Dorey

She was quickly taken to task by a commenter on her own blog. But as usual she fails to see just how wrong she is. Much like the time she compared vaccinations to Child Rape.

The Rabbi is right! Meryl Dorey is out of touch with reality, warped and dangerous. Her own actions condemn her more than any of her critics can. No reasonable person could possibly compare health care legislation to the genocide of 6 million people.

Health authority takes aim at the AVN

The New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission has launched a new investigation into the Australian Vaccination Network.

The New South Wales Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, has told State Parliament the Health Care Complaints Commission is launching an investigation into the anti-immunisation group, the Australian Vaccination Network.

The announcement came after the Opposition raised concerns that the AVN was using its Facebook page to encourage parents to join up to a religion, in order to avoid new State Government vaccination laws. -ABC News

Yes the Australian Vaccination Network really is trying to promote a new religion in order to flout the law.

Anti-vaxxers are nothing if not creative when it comes to dodging the law. I'm confident that our lawmakers will soon find a remedy to patch this unscrupulous attempt to circumvent the law. This is not the first time the HCCC has investigated the AVN.