In August 2018 the NSW Health Department was provided with false and misleading information about my university research that was sent to them by the NSW HealthCare Complaints Committee (HCCC).
This false and misleading information was presented to the HealthCare Complaints Commission (HCCC) in a complaint by Ken McLeod, a subscriber to Dick Smith’s Australian Skeptic/SAVN lobby group. Ken McLeod is a retired air traffic controller and he does not have any qualifications in health or science.
The HCCC informed me that Ken McLeod had made a 70 page complaint about my university research on 19 March 2018. At this time I was engaged as an expert witness in the court case for Dr. John Piesse. The court hearing for this case was set for 9 April 2018 and the HCCC informed me that this was an anonymous complaint about my research.
I responded to the HCCC informing them that I am an educator not a healthcare practitioner, and therefore I do not come under the remit of the HCCC. I do not have qualifications as a healthcare practitioner and I do not give health advice to patients. I educate in science and public health issues in schools, universities and in public seminars and I do not live in NSW. I suggested that any complaints about my academic research should be addressed to the University of Wollongong – not the HCCC.
After submitting my report for the court hearing for Dr. John Piesse I was informed by his lawyers (26 March 2018) that they would no longer be using my report at this procedural hearing. My evidence would be preserved for the ultimate hearing at a later date (this case has still not been heard in court).
The very next day, 27 March 2018, I was informed by the HCCC that the complaint about my university research had been dropped and it would not be investigated. This was based on my response that I was not a healthcare practitioner and I don’t live in NSW. An official letter dismissing the complaint was sent to me on 14 April 2018.
I insisted that the HCCC tell me who the complainant was because otherwise the HCCC’s complaint procedures can be used by lobby groups for vexatious complaints. I was told it was Ken McLeod – a well known industry-lobby group activist who has previously complained to the HCCC about the Australian Vaccination-Risks Network (AVN) in 2009. This complaint was thrown out of court after a 2 year investigation because the AVN was not a healthcare provider.
In 2012/13 the HCCC expanded its remit to include educational services inorder to control the information that the public receives on vaccines.
2009 was the same year that Dick Smith was involved in setting up an anonymous facebook group called SAVN (Stop the Australian Vaccination Network) and funded its first full page advertisement in The Australian (Murdoch) newspaper. This group abuses and ridicules parents and academics who ask questions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
In April 2018 the HCCC rejected Ken McLeod’s complaint about my research, without investigating it, based on my response that I was not a healthcare practitioner. However, after I became an expert witness in another court case Ken McLeod was allowed to appeal this decision.
The first hearing for the court case was due to be heard on the 1 August 2018 and on the 26 July 2018 I received an email informing me that the HCCC would be reversing its decision regarding Ken McLeod’s complaint. This was being done without investigating the information that Ken McLeod (who is not a health expert or an academic) provided to the HCCC.
The hearing on the 1 August 2018 was cancelled due to the solicitor for the government’s case being sick.
The HCCC letter on 26 July 2018 simply stated that the HCCC review now concluded that I am a healthcare practitioner ‘delivering a health service in informing and educating people on the topic of vaccination‘.
This conclusion allowed them to claim that I was an ‘unregistered health practitioner‘ and the letter states ‘While there is therefore insufficient justification for the Commission to formally investigate the complaint (by Ken McLeod), the Commission has resolved to refer all the relevant material to the NSW Ministry of Health‘.
If there was insufficient justification to formally investigate the information Ken McLeod provided then why was his information about my university research passed on to the NSW Health Department?
When I asked in July 2018 what the ‘relevant material’ was that was being sent to the NSW health department the HCCC would not tell me. I was eventually informed on 7 September 2018 (6 weeks later after I persisted) that they had sent Ken McLeod’s 70 page document to the NSW Ministry of Health – a document that the HCCC did not investigate and that contained false and defamatory information.
On the 23 September I heard via the mainstream media – the Sydney Morning Herald – that Peter McIntyre, former Deputy/Director of the government NCIRS for over 20 years, had been drafted into the court case that I was involved in, out of proceedings, to respond to my affidavit.
At this time, my confidential expert witness report was leaked to the SMH (23 September 2018) even though the case was still before the courts (12 December 2018) and even though Peter McIntyre’s affidavit was not submitted in court until 24 September 2018.
Peter McIntyre was quoted in the SMH providing false information about my qualifications and the journalist quoted from my confidential expert witness report. The leaking of an expert witness report is a federal crime punishable with up to one year in jail.
This incident was reported to the Australian Federal Police on 22 January 2018 but I have not had any response.
After Peter McIntyre provided false information about my qualifications in the media article with quotes from my leaked affidavit, the court hearing on the 12 December 2018 was cancelled. This occurred because the mother was informed by her lawyer that the judge would automatically side with the government if she took the vaccination issue to court and she would also lose custody of her four children if she continued.
Peter McIntyre’s affidavit did not provide evidence to refute my expert witness report and this is why he could not allow this case to go before the courts.
I believe that the NSW Health Department provided my clients lawyers with the false information supplied by the HCCC in Ken McLeod’s complaint and this led to them informing my client that ‘the judge would side with the government on the issue of vaccination regardless of the evidence that was presented in court’. Pressure on the mother to drop the case was then added by saying that she would lose the custody of her four children if she challenged vaccination in court.
The issue of the NSW Health Department being sent information in a complaint that was never investigated by the HCCC is a corruption of the integrity of health information and it allows my reputation and ability to work to be defamed by a lobby group activist who has no scientific or health qualifications. I have not been informed of how the NSW Health Department is using the false and misleading information provided to them by the HCCC and the NSW Ombudsman and the Information and Privacy Commission would not take action to assist me.
Since my PhD was published in January 2016 Peter McIntyre has been involved in many attempts to remove or discredit my PhD thesis. He has used a petition with the industry-lobby groups that failed to remove my thesis, he has provided false information about my research and qualifications in the mainstream media, he has attempted to suppress the academic debate of vaccination in Australia and recently (January 2019) he was one of the authors on a paper published in the journal Vaccine that was designed to discredit my university research.
This paper was written three years after my thesis was completed and it twists and misrepresents the aims of my thesis and its focus. Here is my response to the flawed and false information presented in the critique of my thesis by ex-government representatives of Australia’s expanded vaccination program. This includes McIntyre and Burgess, who are the founders of the NCIRS in the 1990’s and two NCIRS researchers, Leask and Wiley:
My Response to this Vaccine Journal article: ‘Judy Wilyman’s Response to the attack on her PhD thesis by Former Government Representatives’.
Further evidence for the lack of transparency and accountablity in the government’s coercive vaccination policies is provided by Elizabeth Hart in her open letter to Prime Minister, Scott Morrison (7 May 2019). This letter reveals the web of conflicts of interest between Australia’s vaccine advisors and the vaccine manufacturers. The public is entitled to see who is recommending vaccines to the public and what financial arrangements they have with the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that the public interest and not vested interest is protected in government policy – Challenging Conflicts of Interest in Australia’s Coercive Vaccination Policies by Elizabeth Hart.
