The supporters of the lobby group, Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM), a lobby group that promotes vaccines and hence the interests of the vaccine industry as well as public health, have posted Kristin Boyle’s personal opinion of my PhD on social media. Here is my response to Kristin Boyle’s blog in which she discusses my PhD without providing any supportive evidence. My thesis stands on its merits and scholastic achievement. Stating that a thesis has errors does not make it true. This personal opinion is not supported by the experts in science and politics that assessed the thesis. The important issues that need discussing are not the PhD but the types of studies that are being used to recommend vaccines to the public, as ‘safe and effective’, and the way in which vaccines are being promoted to the community. It is of serious concern that lobby groups are focusing on denigrating a PhD, supported by many academics, and not addressing the important arguments being presented in the thesis. It is well recognised that when individuals cannot address the evidence in a scientific argument they attack and disparage the messenger. This has been observed by both medical practitioners and journalists in articles in the mainstream media. The public should be asking why the supporters of pro-vaccine lobby groups, including many medical practitioners, are accepting the claims about vaccines without scrutinising all the academic literature?
The concerned public wants a proper debate of the academic literature and falsely asserting that a thesis contains errors is ignoring the fundamental health issues that need to be addressed. Here is my presentation at the Questions and Answers public forum at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) that the government and medical practitioners would not attend to answer the public’s questions.
My Response to Kristin Boyle’s False and Misleading Opinions:
Kristin Boyle, the senior emergency medicine registrar at the University Hospital Geelong, admits that she only attempted to read my 390 page thesis for “..the better part of two days…” before posting her comments on her blog. After this brief examination she concludes it is “…irrelevant, deliberate or unintended misinformation..” and “a junk thesis”, without providing any supportive evidence and despite the University of Wollongong stating publicly that it “stands by this thesis” because the assessment process was rigorously followed. She simply states that the evidence for her opinions is provided by Dr. Helen Petousis-Harris. But Helen Petousis-Harris also makes her arguments by attacking the messenger and using her own interpretations of my research to influence the reader with disparaging comments. Helen Petousis-Harris even attempts to discuss the global postlicensure safety surveillance data for the HPV vaccine that I was discussing from 2009, by using an article written in 2015. The discussion I presented in my thesis was about the conclusions drawn on safety by researchers in 2009 so it is not appropriate to be using data from 2015.
Scientific arguments should not be based on personal opinions yet this is how the Australian media is promoting vaccines. The Australian journalists who have stated they will not present the published academic literature that I am presenting that describes the lack of safety and efficacy of many vaccines include Jane Hansen (News Ltd), Janet Albrechtsen (News Ltd), Caroline Marcus (News Ltd), Sarrah Le Maurquand, (News Ltd), Jonathon Holmes (ABC) and Virginia Trioli (ABC, who made false claims that the link between vaccines and autism has been “debunked” and “..expunged from the medical literature.”). Other journalists such as Rick Morton (News Ltd), Kylar Loussikian (News Ltd) and Emily Laurence (ABC) have written biased stories without interviewing me and these stories based on their personal opinions are then quoted on the blogs of lobby group activists and vice versa: journalists and individuals such as Kristin Boyle are quoting comments taken from pro-vaccine lobby group blogs such as FSM and SAVN.
The pro-vaccine lobby groups are claiming that “all vaccines are safe and effective” and they are not addressing the overwhelming academic literature that demonstrates many vaccines are not safe and effective. For example the HPV vaccine. Why are pro-vaccine lobby groups not allowing proper scrutiny of the science? Kristin Boyle incorrectly states that my PhD was not assessed by experts in the scientific fields of immunology and epidemiology. This is false. My thesis was scrutinised by experts in these fields before it was submitted to the examiners in the UOW School of Humanities. My thesis covers the politics and science of the governments vaccination policy and these individuals are misinforming the public with unsubstantiated comments. The factual basis of the literature in my PhD thesis is not being debated in the media.
I have demonstrated my willingness to attend a public debate on vaccination by agreeing to be on a panel for a public forum discussing the Australian government’s ‘No Jab No Pay/Play’ policy in October 2015 – before this legislation was passed. Yet Peter McIntyre and Robert Booy plus 45 other government representatives and public health authorities would not attend this forum to debate this science at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Why not? The director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) for Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Peter McIntyre, is not demonstrating his willingness to entertain evidence that contradicts his beliefs by declining to debate vaccination in a public forum organised at a university. This is most likely because he knows that the NCIRS has never investigated the link between vaccines and the increasing chronic illness in children. Here is Peter McIntyre telling the public that they have not proved that vaccines are not causing the increase in autism and other chronic illness in children. This means that the combined schedule of vaccines is being used on our children without providing evidence that the recommended schedule of vaccines is safe.
Why does Kristin Boyle not question why medical practitioners in 2016 are seeing an escalating increase in autism and chronic illness in children, including significant neurological damage and autoimmune diseases, that make parents life-time carers for their children? Why is Kristin Boyle not prepared to question or scrutinise in-depth all the causes of this new chronic illness? Instead health practitioners of 2016 are happy to suggest that this is the “new normal” and “just a coincidence” when it occurs after vaccination. Whilst correlation is not causation, there can be no claim to using “evidence-based medicine” if this correlation has not been investigated for a causal link.
It is time for the belief system of medical practitioners in 2016 to be questioned and properly debated with academic literature as opposed to the personal opinions of individuals and lobby group supporters promoting the use of more and more vaccines. Whose interests are these pro-vaccine lobby groups promoting when they do not question or investigate the serious illnesses in children in 2016, and they disparage with personal opinions the in-depth academic research assessed and defended by academics at an Australian university?
