15 April 2019
In Newsletter 227 I provided the information regarding Richard Di Natale’s false information about vaccines and lobby groups that he provided in the Australian Federal parliament in 2013. These false claims have been used to form the basis of mandatory vaccination legislation in Australian social welfare programs – a breach of bodily integrity and human rights.
I provided false claims 1 – 10 in Newsletter 227 and I will provide Richard Di Natale’s false claims 11 – 19 in this Newsletter – 228.
Here are False Claims 11 – 19:
Claim 11:
‘The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), misleadingly named, …….have styled themselves as providers of vaccine information.’
The AVN is exactly what they say they are – a grassroots consumer group made up from the concerned community wanting to maintain their right to choice in this medical procedure.
Since mass vaccination programs began in the 50’/60’s, vaccines have always been voluntary and the AVN is requesting that the Australian government justifies the mandating of 14-16 vaccines in social welfare, childcare policies and employment situations. The public wants to know why vaccines are being made mandatory in 2016 when there has not been any increase in the risk from these diseases.
The AVN is requesting that the government justifies these mandatory vaccination policies that will cause significant health problems to a percentage of children in the population. Yet Richard Di Natale falsely states that ‘their mission is to deter parents from getting their children vaccinated.’
Di Natale is hindering proper academic debate by misinforming politicians about the community’s concerns about these policies and by suggesting that the AVN is ‘dressing it (the information) up in the language of science’ when the AVN is providing the science that is presented in government documents and in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. It is the mainstream media that is creating ‘fear and doubt’ in parents about infectious diseases by using biased statistics (Ch 6 PhD thesis).
Claim 12:
‘The AVN is fiercely ‘anti-vaccine’.
Again Di Natale is providing false information about this community group; a group that wants a debate on our right to choose how many vaccines we use in our own body. A right that has always existed in Australia with respect to vaccines and all other medications and Di Natale and his pro-vaccine lobby groups have not provided a reason for removing this right in 2016.
Claim 13:
‘The claims made by the AVN …..beggar belief…….they continue to propagate outright myths about vaccines and their safety. They say that the MMR vaccine causes autism a claim that has been thoroughly and comprehensively debunked.’
This false information presented by Di Natale in parliament will cause significant harm to the Australian population because the MMR vaccine is plausibly linked to autism and the pro-vaccine industry-medical lobby groups that are providing Di Natale with this information are ignoring the hundreds of studies, including significant studies performed by the CDC that have causally linked vaccines to autism.
Di Natale must be held accountable for the misinformation he has provided on the risks of vaccines in parliament that is resulting in mandatory vaccination policies being implemented in Australia. Di Natale has misrepresented in parliament the information the AVN is providing to the public on the links between vaccines and autism, SIDs, neurological damage and autoimmune diseases etc. He has taken the AVN’s information out of context to provide misinformation in the Australian parliament.
Claim 14:
‘In 2001 the WHO estimated 158,000 deaths from measles. It is one of the leading causes of infectious diseases world-wide’.
Di Natale is providing misinformation to politicians about the severity of measles by not explaining to the parliament that these deaths are in developing countries not developed countries like Australia.
This is a seriously misleading statistic that Di Natale has provided because deaths to measles were very rare in Australia from 1950 onwards and there was no vaccine in Australia until 1970. Deaths to measles in Australia have been no more than 1 or 2 deaths per year since 1950 and these are a result of a complication of measles due to the special lifestyle/environmental circumstances of the individuals.
Exposing a child to measles in a developed country like Australia is not ‘reckless, dangerous or fatal’ as Di Natale stated in the federal parliament and as a former doctor he should be made accountable for these false statements that are designed to make parents fearful of these diseases.
Claim 15:
‘Di Natale describes the McCaffery’s experience with whooping cough disease in 2009’
The McCaffery case was described in many media articles in 2009 and the health department has encouraged these parents (and others) to promote this vaccine in the media by providing financial rewards for their efforts. Dick Smith’s pro-vaccine Australian Skeptics Inc/SAVN lobby groups have also provided awards of $1,000 to the McCaffery family for promoting the whooping cough vaccine to the public.
Other parents have also been paid fees by the health department, for e.g. Catherine Hughes, to provide their child’s experience with an infectious disease. But the health department does not provide fees to parants of vaccine injured children to promote their experiences with a vaccine. In addition, the media does not provide any information on the thousands of children that are being damaged or killed by vaccines each year. This provides false balance on the risks and benefits of vaccines and diseases to the community.
A false impression of the safety of vaccines is being promoted to the public by this biased reporting of vaccines supported by the health department. When parents attempt to debate the health department’s use of anecdotal evidence to promote vaccines, the pro-vaccine lobby groups accuse parents of ‘attacking grieving parents’. This is a mischievous way of denigrating concerned parents/academics and of intimidating them into remaining silent on this issue and not debating the use of anecdotal evidence in the promotion of vaccines.
This is a strategy that ensures that the benefits of vaccines are promoted constantly in the media and the risks of vaccines are removed and ignored.
Claim 16:
‘In response to this disgraceful situation the group Stop the Australian Vaccination Network (SAVN) was set up with the purpose of combating this dangerous campaign.’
The SAVN facebook group was set up by Dick Smith’s Australian Skeptic Inc lobby group in 2009 after my research on the whooping cough vaccine (showing that the vaccine was ineffective in preventing whooping cough in many children) was published in the Public Health Association of Australia’s (PHAA) newsletter in April 2009.
In 2009 Dick Smith paid for a full page advertisement in the Australian newspaper promoting SAVN’s mission to close down the AVN – a grassroots consumer group that wants to debate children’s health. The SAVN lobby group was set up as an anonymous facebook group and it was used by many non-health experts to ridicule and abuse academics and parents who provided the academic literature showing the risks of vaccines. Many of the Australian Skeptics subscribers set up blogs that defamed and ridiculed any community member who provided information on the harm caused by vaccines in individuals.
These individuals included Daniel Raffaelle, Peter Bowditch and Ken McLeod who Richard Di Natale defended in the Australian parliament in 2013. They do not have any qualifications in health or vaccination science and they have harassed and intimidated the AVN and myself with abusive comments in emails and by falsely representing our comments on blogs and in the mainstream media and to the NSW HealthCare Complaints Commission (HCCC). Richard Di Natale is continuing the harassment and denigration of the concerned community by defending these disreputable individuals in the parliament with false information.
The University of Wollongong (UOW) also permitted these SAVN/Skeptic subscribers to make vexatious complaints to the University about my vaccination research that resulted in unnecessary investigations whilst I was a student. These bloggers were given disclaimers about my research with the university logo, without my knowledge, that were used in the media to provide false information about my research.
Peter McIntyre, the former director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) provided false information about my research in the Australian media from January 2016 until – September 2018.
Claim 17:
‘Dana McCaffery was too young to receive the whooping cough vaccine she died though because the vaccination rate in the Northern Rivers area of NSW where she’s born is alarmingly low at only 70% when you reach a threshold at that level the conditions for an outbreak occur and the virus (bacteria not a virus – a doctor should know this) was only able to thrive in that community because the vaccination rates were so low.’
There is no evidence to support this claim. The research shows that ~30% of children that get the whooping cough vaccine still get whooping cough and through the seventies and eighties the vaccine was causally inked to brain damage in children. This resulted in the Australian government changing to an acellular whooping cough vaccine in 1999 that they claimed was safer. Richard Di Natale has provided an assumption about vaccines and this region of NSW that is not supported by any scientific evidence.
Claim 18:
‘They (the AVN) are the consequence of an irresponsible campaign based on fear and lies’.
It is the mainstream media and the information provided by Richard Di Natale himself in parliament that is responsible for perpetuating a campaign about infectious diseases that is based on fear and lies. This has been provided by non-objective sources of information.
Richard Di Natale’s suggestion that ‘he does not know what motivates them (the AVN)’ is a sad indictment on his role as a politician to represent the community.
Claim 19:
‘All of that can be forgiven but the tactics they have used to spread their message of fear and doubt to unsuspecting parents are abhorrent.’
This is the pot calling the kettle black. The role of politicians is to listen to the concerns of the community, not to misrepresent them and ignore their serious concerns on an important health topic. It is time for Richard Di Natale to be made accountable for this blatant disparagement of parents who are requesting an open and transparent debate on children’s health.
His claim that ‘because of the potential for harm we have rules about misleading medical claims’ should be applied to himself as a former medical practitioner and politician. The Australian public will ensure that he is made accountable for this incredible attack on parents that he has made in the Australian parliament.
It could be a fatal decision if parents listen to his misinformation and this needs to be addressed with open debate not censorship and false balance by the Australian media.
Judy Wilyman PhD
Bachelor of Science, University of NSW
Diploma of Education (Science), University of Wollongong
Master of Science (Population Health), Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Wollongong.
PhD in A critical analysis of the Australian government’s rationale for its vaccination policy‘ (the science, politics and ethics of Australia’s vaccination policies) , UOW School of Humanities and Social Inquiry.
Website Vaccination Decisions
Some of the Ingredients in Vaccines:
Did you know that antibiotics are in most vaccines? Many people are allergic to antibiotics and using any vaccone carries the serious risk of anaphylactic shock to this and many other vaccine ingredients. Are you being informed of this before you give consent to givng your newborn baby a vaccine?
Here is a link to the Australian government’s list of ingredients in vaccines and the US CDC’s list of ingredients that is not provided to politicians, doctors or parents before vaccines are given to children.
Please consider whether you want these substances injected into the tissues of your new born infant before the blood brain barrier is developed at 6 months of age or their other body systems. These ingredients and more are present in vaccines and the vaccination schedule has expanded to 16 vaccines requiring 52 doses from birth to adolescence.
And the ‘new norm’ – allergies, anaphylaxis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), autoimmune disorders (diabetes, childhood rheumatoid arthritis, arthritis, multiple schlerosis etc.), thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP), autism, speech delay, neurological disorders, encephalopathy, meningitis, ADHD, childhood cancers, and many more…..
But your doctor will inform you that this is ‘just a coincidence‘ because the MBA and the Australian government have never funded a causality study that would disprove this association. That is, a study that uses an inert placebo in the unvaccinated trial group to prove the safety of each vaccine over an appropriate time period that includes the delay in the appearance of these diseases – or the safety of the combination of vaccines on the government schedule:
Antibiotics: Neomycin, Polymxin, Gentamicin, Kanamycin
Aluminium hydroxide
Aluminium hydroxide/phosphate
Aluminium phosphate
Thimerosal (50% mercury compound) (flu vaccine multidose vials and infanrix-hexa and hep B 2013)
Borax (‘sodium borate’ – causes infertility and is found in HPV vaccines and hep A)
Polysorbate 80
Egg protein
Formaldehyde
Gelatin
Phenol
Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
Phenoxyethanol
Yeast
Supporting Public Interest Research
I would like to thank everyone who has supported my research and newsletters over the last 5-10 years. If you have appreciated this unfunded independent research and debate of children’s health I hope you will consider a $5 donation for the up-keep of my website and continuation of my voluntary newsletters.
Only funded research is promoted to the public and universities do not promote student research. Hence the need for my website and newsletters to promote my independent research that is in the public interest.
My website Vaccination Decisions became necessary because the University of Wollongong is not required to rectify the academic record to the public when organised lobby group activists, such as Australian Skeptic Inc / SAVN, and other activists from the powerful industry-medical complex provide false information about my university research in the mainstream media.
