Australian Vaccination-risks Network

The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) is an Australian non-profit organisation registered in New South Wales formed in 1994 by a group of health professionals and parents that were concerned that not all sides to every health choice was being made available to parents . The AVN also operates a website (www.avn.org.au) and publishes several print magazines and quarterly fliers.

The AVN is at present being investigated by the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission for breaches of the Public Health Act of 1993, due to their dissemination of demonstrably wrong, misleading, scientifically inaccurate and dangerous advice to the public concerning healthcare practices.

Though a self proclaimed pro choice organisation , the AVN publishes material restricted to an anti-vaccination viewpoint .

History

In 1999, the AVN changed their name from the Vaccination Awareness Network.

Publications

The AVN publishes a monthly magazine called living wisdom (http://www.living-wisdom.com/). The magazine includes articles on topics such as home birth, civil rights, autism, hormones and swine flu. The AVN claims that “Living Wisdom” has a "circulation of over 2,500 to subscribers and 5,000 via newsagents”. The Australian Audit Bureau of Circulations has advised that those figures are not audited by them.

The AVN also seems to publish a magazine called Informed Voice but it is unclear if this is a different magazine than Living Wisdom

The AVN also has paid-for memberships which include a quarterly insert called Inside Edition containing 12 pages of current news from around the world regarding vaccination. A few early issues make several unsubstantiated claims regarding vaccination.

Quotes

The AVN president, Meryl Dorey, stated the following on the 17 December 2008 in a AVN Yahoo group message, number 36449.

There will come a time – I pray to God that it will happen in my lifetime – when those who have pushed vaccines upon innocent, helpless babies – doctors, pharmaceutical companies, government officials – will be proven to have lied and cheated these instruments of death into our children’s bloodstream. When that occurs, the outcry will be heard around the world and there will not be enough hiding places on the globe for these murderers to hide or enough money to pay for compensation. Of course, it will be too late for the babies, like this poor child, to be saved. But we will be able to take satisfaction from the fact that never again will anyone have to be pushed to poison their child because for once and for all, it will be known as poison and we will all wonder how it was we fell for the vaccine lie for as long as we did.

Criticisms

AVN Comments on Swine Flu

Meryl Dorey, who is the president of the AVN, was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as saying:

... the H1N1 vaccine could prove more dangerous than the disease itself. If we find that swine flu is milder than normal seasonal flu, and we have normal seasonal flu every year, and all the government does is simply offer a vaccine for those who want it, why should this flu be treated any differently.

Why are we spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this vaccine?

Later on in the same article, an infectious disease specialist, Professor Peter McIntyre, goes on to say that the AVN manipulates research and statistics to argue its case.

It's been a real characteristic of the anti-vaccine movement in Australia claiming to be looking very extensively at the scientific evidence.

If you're someone like me whose job it is to spend their time going through a lot of this evidence, then you realise that it really is a complete misinterpretation.

Complaint Filed against the AVN

In response to a large increase in pertussis cases during a 2008/09 outbreak, the Australian Skeptics focused efforts on countering information from the Australian Vaccination Network. The Australian Skeptics supported a complaint lodged by a private individual, Ken McLeod, against the organisation with the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission and running a national ad (funded by Dick Smith) in The Australian.

In supporting the ad, Smith was quoted as saying:

Dick Smith Foods has funded this advertisement in the public interest, to ensure parents access unbiased, accurate advice from reputable medical sources. The Australian Vaccination Network is no such source.

AVN Merchandise

The main page of the AVN website offers T-Shirts for sale and one of the slogans on the T-Shirt is as follows:

Love them. Protect them. Never inject them. (picture of a syringe) Adverse reactions to vaccine poisons include: Chronic Ear Infections ADD Allergies Asthma Autism Death Diabetes Meningitis Polio Seizures SBS SIDS www.avn.org.au

During a television interview, which included Dr Trevor Mudge, Australian Medical Association (AMA) Vice President, Dorey states that she is not part of a "anti-vaccination movement"

MUDGE: Oh, absolutely. Look, I think if you look worldwide the anti-vaccine movement has been responsible for a number of deaths and I think that they really should not be given any scientific veracity at all.

DOYLE: Meryl Dorey, your response to that?

DOREY: First of all I object to being called part of an anti-vaccination movement. I am part of a pro-choice movement, pro-information. Vaccination is a medical procedure. It's a science. No science is above question.

No credible scientific evidence has ever been found linking autism to vaccination. Furthermore, the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks.

External links

• Australian Vaccination Network - Organisation's Website
• AVN and RatbagsDotCom - A decade of interaction with the AVN