Monday, May 20, 2013

Bad Times for Australian Anti-Vaxxers

Meryl Dorey of the Australian anti-vaxx group (although they hate being called that) Australian Vaccination Network or AVN has lost her bid to silence some of her critics via Apprehended Violence Orders (AVO).  Ms. Dorey sought AVOs against Peter Bowditch, founder of the Millenium Project, Daniel Raffaele, founder of the Stop the AVN Facebook page and Daniel Buzzard, a sceptical blogger and outspoken opponent of Meryl Dorey and the AVN.  Ms. Dorey's AVO petition against Mr. Bowditch was thrown out and apparently she cried about it.
But she suffered a setback last month when her AVO was thrown out against one critic, Peter Bowditch, who she claimed posted harassing and abusive messages online.
Unfortunately, Dan Raffaele agreed to the order for lack of will to fight it:
Mr Raffaele, who denied making any threatening calls, said he eventually agreed to the order because he was "sick of dealing with it", although he made sure her "gag order" was struck out.
"The only thing I was never going to agree to was being silenced on the internet," Mr Raffaele said. "The information (the AVN) spread is dangerous and it's not based on anything other than lies - and it costs lives."
All Ms. Dorey succeeded in doing was ensuring that Mr. Raffaele wasn't doing to begin with, which was personally harassing her.  She couldn't silence him though.

Mr. Buzzard is defending his complaint:
Western Australia-based Dan Buzzard, another AVN opponent, said Ms Dorey probably saw taking out the AVOs as a "quick and easy" way to silence her critics.

He will defend the application today.
It is obvious that Ms. Dorey is abusing the laws of her land to silence her critics, a play out of the book that other anti-vaccinationists have done because they want to spread their fear and lies uncontested.  Barbara Loe Fisher, Meryl Dorey's American counterpart and head of the also misleadingly named National Vaccination Information Network (NVIC) tried to sue one of her critics Dr. Paul Offit. The suit was dismissed before even being heard and she whined miserably about it.  JB Handley also tried to sue Dr. Offit and was unsuccessful (correction for the actual settlement here).

We wish Mr. Buzzard defeat over Ms. Dorey's frivolous complaint and hopes she cries again.

Labor leader John Robertson will introduce amendments to the public health act which would give early childhood centres the right to refuse kids who haven't had their shots.

The move comes amid concern about high rates of unvaccinated children in some parts of
 NSW as well as the emergence of so-called "anti-vaxxers" who refuse vaccination.

Some parts of NSW had lower vaccination rates than Rwanda, Mr Robertson said.
In other words, no jabs-no school.  Congratulations AVN!  And another inadvertent action due to Meryl Dorey and her misnamed AVN is the unanimous denunciation of Meryl Dorey by parliament and her deceptive work along with greater scrutiny of dubious healthcare practitioners.  Keep up the great work Meryl, you're your own worst enemy.

4 comments:

  1. Good news indeed, Science Mom.

    I'm especially pleased that NSW is considering the mandating of vaccines for children entering Early Childhood Centers.

    Now...if only the U.K. would considering mandating of vaccines prior to entering child care programs and schools. How many more multi-case outbreaks of V-P-Ds will it take, before Parliament takes the lead on this issue?

    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/50000-mmr-vaccinations-so-far-in-battle-to-halt-welsh-measles-epidemic-8619312.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Harder to do in the UK lilady, the tradition of freedom of choice for parents runs deeper than in many other countries. Unfortunately this view is based upon the presumption that parents are going to make informed, rational decisions about vaccination, and guess what? They don't.

    So in principle I support the freedom to choose, but regarding vaccination I am prepared to give way somewhat and let my head rule my heart. Some parents are just too deluded to be given the freedom to choose. And unfortunately there are still too many dissenting voices clamouring that vaccines are evil that they can listen to.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @ Anonymous:

    More like wishful thinking on my part. :-)

    Wales which has a population of 3 million has 1,158 cases of measles, as of May 31, 2013.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22731784

    Imagine if we in the United States, with a population of 314 million, didn't have mandated vaccination programs. Would we be facing 115,800 cases of measles, YTD? (During 2011, we had our *worst year* in recent history; a total of 222 cases of measles).

    ReplyDelete