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Jane McCredie’s MJA Insight Article is Spreading False Information about University Research on Vaccination

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Here is yet another article in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) Insight Online that has been written to provide false and misleading informaiton about my university research. This article has been written by Jane McCredie and, like the SMH/Australian Newspaper journalist Kylar Loussikian, this is not the first time that Jane McCredie has written an unsupported and derogatory article about my university research.

In her article ‘Academic sanction of immunisation claim has lasting consequences’ McCredie makes several false or misleading claims about my research:

  1. The ‘storm of controversy’ that she refers to occurred in the Murdoch media’s Australian newspaper in 2016 just after I was awarded my PhD. These articles were written by Kylar Loussikian who is now continuing his derogatory and unsupported stories in the SMH.
  2. My thesis did not allege any ‘underhand shenanagins’ from the pharmaceutical companies. It provided evidence of the influence of the pharmaceutical companies and other industry in the development of global public health policies. This needs to be transparent to the public not dismissed as “underhand shenanigans’, ‘anti-vaccination’ or ‘conspiracy theories’.
  3. There has been no open and transparent debate of my research where “scientists and clinicians have criticised the awarding of my PhD” as the journalist claim. Further my supervisor Brian Martin ensured that my PhD was sent to several vaccine scientists/public health experts for comments before the PhD was sent to the examiners in Social Sciences.
  4. Note that McCredie says “….without any apparent scientific oversight” to cover her lack of knowledge on the examination of my thesis.
  5. The scientific studies that are necessary to prove the safety of vaccines are those that use an inert placebo in the unvaccinated trial groups in a statistically powerful study. These studies do not exist and this is the ‘hard evidence‘ from properly designed causality studies that is necessary before you recommend vaccines ‘as safe’ in genetically diverse populations.
  6.  A review of the medical literature shows that the pharmaceutical companies are funding all the clinical trials for vaccine safety and efficacy and there are no trials that use a true inert placebo. The trials use the aluminium adjuvant that is in the vaccine or a previously marketed vaccine as the ‘placebo’ in the unvaccinated group. These trials cannot be considered ‘safety trials’ if they do not use an inert placebo.
  7. McCredie then presents the false claims made by Peter McIntyre about my qualifications and research in her article.
  8. Scientists were involved in the oversight of my PhD thesis before it was sent to the examiners in the field of social science. McCredie has provided false information that can be confirmed by UOW.
  9. McCredie falsely claims that I have started my PhD from an ‘entrenched ideological position’. She makes this opinion by ignoring the information I have provided on my website that clearly states I vaccinated my first 2 children before embarking on this research. Further I do not have any vaccine damaged children so I do not have any agenda to push, particularly as my research is unfunded. My hope was that I would find vaccines are safe and effective to confirm my actions in vaccinating my children.
  10. The fact is that my research has been scrutinised by the most ‘rigorous experts in the world’ and that is why UOW is standing by this research. The industry lobby groups tried to have my thesis removed when it was first published in 2016 but they were not successful because UOW did have scientists look over it before it was examined in social medicine.
  11. McCredie mouths the mantra that ‘nothing should be beyond scholarly question, including immunisation….’ but at the same time she denigrates the PhD research with unsupported statements without addressing the scientific arguments.
  12. My PhD has had more scrutiny than any other PhD because of the vested interests that are threatened – and the UOW is standing by this research. This includes more scrutiny than Peter McIntyre’s PhD (1994) on the HIB vaccine that he did not give permission to be publish in the open repository at the University of Sydney when I asked in 2016. As the director of the NCIRS for 20 years I would like to know why his PhD has not been openly published on the NCIRS website or the University of Sydney during this time to proivde evidence for his claims?

Jane McCredie has provided her opinion of what my PhD can and cannot provide but she has not read the PhD or addressed the scientific arguments that I have presented. Instead she has written a derogatory opinion piece using false information that attacks the messenger but not the scientific arguments. This has been done to prevent open and transparent debate of the scientific arguments I am presenting.

Judy Wilyman PhD