Since I began debating my research on the control of infectious diseases in Australia I have experienced verbal attacks and denigration in all mainstream media, Wikipedia and on social media. The vaccination debate has even been censored in the official channels of debate. This is due to the influence of powerful industry-medical lobby groups – globally and nationally – that have impunity from denigrating and defaming academics/scientists in all of these media.
The information presented by Wikipedia is influenced by the Global Skeptic groups and the BIll and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) that promote corporate interests in government policies. Whilst the public is told that Wikipedia is an independent source of information this is false and on scientific issues the information is controlled and individuals cannot change this information. This is the case with the information that is provided about me on Wikipedia. This false information is used to denigrate me whenever I present my academic research for debate.
In this article I will correct the false and misleading information that Wikipedia is providing about me:
Part 1 Judy Wilyman PhD
Firstly, the photo that appears on Wikipedia has been taken from the presentation that I gave at the University of Technology, Sydney on 15 October 2015. This was a Q and A panel that was organised to invite the government health ministers, vaccine advisors, public health experts and doctors to come and provide the science that supports mandatory and coercive vaccination programs (for 16 vaccines), to the community at this public forum. Forty-five gov officials/doctors were invited and all declined to attend this forum to defend mandatory vaccination policies. This included Peter McIntyre and Robert Booy, the directors of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) who were required to provide the safety and efficacy science for the Australian government’s vaccination program from 1997-2018.
Here is the link to the video of this event – Q and A Panel Discussion of the No Jab No Pay Policy (Oct 2015) – in which we list all of the authorities who declined to defend this policy with the science. The policy was approved by the Australian government on 29 November 2015 and to date the government has refused under the Freedom of Information Act to provide the science that the Chief Medical Officer relied upon to approve coercive vaccination policies in Australia – a situation that breaches the ethical guidelines for medical doctors.
- I am a campaigner for choice in all medications and for human rights.
- The PhD was not controversial
- The criticism of my PhD when it was published in January 2016 was from organised medical-industry lobby groups – The Friends of Science in Medicine (FoSM) working with Peter McIntyre – director of the government NCIRS at the time. Peter McIntyre’s NCIRS department was responsible for providing the underpinning science of Australia’s vaccination policies for 22 years so he had a serious conflict of interest in using a petition with the FoSM to attempt to remove my PhD thesis from publication (inappropriately) in January 2016.
- Stop the Australian Vaccination Network (SAVN) was an anonymous facebook group with links to the Australian Skeptics groups – another medical-industry lobby group. They are responsible for smearing professional’s reputations. The leaders of this SAVN lobby group are Dr. John Cunningham (spinal medical practitioner) and Dr. David Hawkes (virologist). SAVN is an offshoot of Dick Smith’s – Australian Skeptics lobby group but they operate anonymously on FB. Dick Smith paid for the first advertisement for SAVN, that denigrated parents who were presenting the risks of vaccines, in the Australian newspaper in 2009, when SAVN was first established.
- There were no formal debates or critiques of my research until January 2019 when the founders of the government National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) (the department responsible for providing the science on the safety and efficacy of Australia’s vaccination program), Margaret Burgess and Peter McIntyre, published a critique of my thesis in the Vaccine journal using false and misleading information about my PhD research. On two occasions prior to this the director/deputy of the NCIRS for 22 years, Peter McIntyre, had declined to debate my research in a public forum (in 2015) and in the Federal Circuit Court (in December 2018). Here is my response to the false information that McIntyre and Burgess provided in their critque of my PhD in the Vaccine Journal (2019).
- My thesis does not talk about a ‘conspiracy theory’ it provides evidence of the involvement of the pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies in the design of global health policies through the Bill and Melinda Gates funded Global Alliance for Vaccines and Initiatives (GAVI).
- The University stood by its process of approving PhDs in 2016 when it was requested by the industry lobby groups to disapprove my PhD using a petition. Further, there are no academics at the University of Wollongong (UOW) who have read or debated my thesis – then or now.
- However, the academics in the UOW Faculty of Science, Health and Medicine were asked to sign a declaration of support for the government’s vaccination program on the UOW website – one week after my PhD was published in January 2016. This was organised by Professor Heather Yeatman, Head of the School of Public Health, who was also the president of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) who works closely with the SAVN lobby group – an anonymous offshoot of the Australian Skeptics. This is a non-scientific organisation that uses industry-funded scientists such as Peter Doherty, Dr. Karl and Norman Swan to promote their false and misleading information on vaccines to the Skeptic subscribers and also in the mainstream media.
- After I completed my Master of Science degree with Distinction in the School of Public Health in 2006 the UOW Faculty of Health refused to provide supervisors for me to continue with a PhD in the School of Public Health. The head of the School of Public Health, Professor Heather Yeatman, suggested that the most appropriate place for this research was the School of Social Sciences which was in the Faculty of Arts at this time.
- The control of infectious diseases comes under the umbrella of Social Medicine because these diseases were controlled through economic and political decisions that improved the public health infrastructure in developed countries by 1950. This is why Social Sciences is an appropriate area of study for an investigation of the control of infectious diseases.
- I started my PhD at the University of Wollongong in 2011 with Professor Brian Martin in the Faculty of Arts, School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication.
- In 2014, prior to me completing the PhD in December 2015, the UOW re-arranged the faculties and moved the School of Public Health, still headed by Professor Heather Yeatman into its own faculty called the Faculty of Social Sciences.
- However, my research was never completed in the Faculty of Social Sciences. This is because I was denied supervisors in the School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences in 2007 and I was completing my research in the Faculty of Arts.
- In 2014 the University re-named all the faculties/schools and my school was re-named the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry (instead of Social Sciences, Media and Communication) and it was now in the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts.
- My PhD did not need to be investigated when UOW was petitioned by the medical-industry lobby groups because it had been approved under the guidelines and standards that were set for all PhDs at the university. All the correct procedures were followed.
- I have never implied or stated that anyone has “cashed in” on their child’s death. In 2012 I wrote a letter to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) to describe how anecdotal evidence was being used to promote vaccines, such as the whooping cough vaccine, to the public and that this type of evidence is not used to design public health policies.
- I also discovered that these parents are receiving awards from the Australian Skeptics /SAVN lobby group, (and some receive financial benefits from the health department), for promoting their stories in the media. Publicising this fact is not implying that they “cashed in” on their daughter’s death and I have never used this term. Further, a subscriber from the Australian Skeptics was permitted to claim in the mainstream media in 2012 that I was “attacking grieving parents” when I pointed out that anecdotal evidence should not be used to promote vaccines to the public. These terms are mischievous and emotional misinterpretations of my comments that denigrate my academic arguments.
- It should also be noted that the parents whose child dies or is injured by a vaccine are not permitted to promote their anecdotal evidence in the media. They are also told that this ‘anecdotal evidence’ cannot be used to argue against using vaccines. The hundreds of thousands of vaccine injuries and deaths that are occurring every year are rarely reported to the community in the mainstream media and this gives a false presentation of the safety of vaccines to the public.
- I have never charged the ‘large sums’ that were publicised in the mainstream media to any parent for an expert witness report in a court case. I have also never claimed to have medical qualifications. My PhD is in public health.
Part 2 – Background:
- In 2007 my Master of Science (Population Health) was awarded in the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences (not in the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts). This was a degree done by coursework (not a thesis) and it was completed in the School of Public Health.
- I did a major research project for this Master of Science, investigating “An Analysis of the Federal Government’s Whooping Cough Policy”. This thesis received a High Distinction.
- In this thesis I provided the medical literature that shows there is a plausible connection between vaccines and autism/and other chronic illnesses. I also provided the evidence that demonstrates that the whooping cough disease was not controlled by a vaccine and that the government has never provided evidence to show that this vaccine is effective in preventing whooping cough.
- The Australian Vaccination-Risks Network is not an “anti-vaccination group”. It has always advocated for choice in vaccinations and we are parents who are requesting that the government provides the science that supports mandating any vaccine.
- Vaccination Decisions and Vaccination Choice are not “anti-vaccination groups”. Vaccination Decisions is the name of my website that presents my academic literature and Vaccination Choice was the name of my Facebook page. They are not “groups”.
- In 2011 I provided the scientific evidence showing that the benefits of HPV vaccines have not been established and my articles were published in the proceedings of a British peer-reviewed conference in 2011 and in peer-reviewed journals in 2013.
- HPV vaccines have not ‘significantly reduced rates of cervical cancer’. There is no evidence of this because scientists are using an inappropriate surrogate to make this claim. The evidence is showing that HPV vaccines are increasing cervical cancer in the under 26 year demographic – a demographic that did not get cervical cancer (extremely rare) prior to the introduction of the HPV vaccine in 2006.
- I have never claimed that parents are promoting vaccines for the money. I have described the awards given to parents by the medical-industry lobby groups. These awards are given to parents for promoting vaccines to the public based on their child’s experience. This is called anecdotal evidence and it is not used to design public health policies.
- It is not appropriate for a medical-industry lobby group, the Australian Medical Association (AMA), to publicly criticise the funding provided to a student to present a paper at an international conference. Universities are responsible for funding students for this purpose and the AMA has used this situation to denigrate my scientific findings to the community because my paper provides evidence that does not support their vested interests in vaccination policies. This was the only funding I received from the university in the 10 years that I was researching this topic at university. This science needs to be publicly debated not denigrated with a false framing of the situation – this puts human health at risk.
- At the time I attended this conference (2013) in San Francisco the university was not aware of any negative connotations surrounding the conference organisation and other attendees at this conference included an Australian who was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She did not receive the same derogatory treatment in the mainstream media as I did for presenting a scientific paper on the HPV vaccine at this conference.
- The “questions of misconduct” regarding my Masters (whooping cough research thesis) that were raised in 2014 were fabricated by Dr. John Cunningham. The University permitted him to be make an anonymous complaint about my research 8 years after my Masters thesis was awarded a High Distinction by UOW academics. This situation allows academics to be targeted by vexatious complaints by organised industry lobby groups. The anonymous complainant, was Dr. John Cunningham, leader of the SAVN lobby group. He made “allegations of academic misconduct” that the University of Wollongong investigated even though it was 8 years after the research was completed and the degree awarded.
- The allegations were never technically “academic misconduct” but the investigation was run under that heading and it was leaked anonymously to the mainstream media by “two medical experts” before the investigation was complete. The story was published with my name on it in every ABC news bulletin for a whole day (November 2014). Yet when I received an apology from the university for the unwarranted investigation six months later, the media would not put out a press release to clear my name.
- The investigation was found to be unwarranted and the complainant, John Cunningham, was informed that he had misused the complaint procedures. The university stated “the complaint procedures are not a place for scientific debate”. Cunningham’s allegations of misconduct were fabricated and the regulatory board for doctors, AHPRA, did not take action against this behaviour by a medical practitioner. I reported AHPRA’s decision not to investigate John Cunningham to the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman Privacy Commissioner (NHPOPC) and they supported the AHPRA’s decision to support Dr. John Cunningham’s conduct that defamed my reputation for the purpose of discrediting valid health research.
- The Australian newspaper’s framing of comments about the promotion of an immunology conference in Wollongong are influenced by the medical-industry lobby groups and they are not a truthful representation of the issues.
- In January 2016, immediately after my PhD was published (10 January 2016) the Australian newspaper ran a series of derogatory articles on my PhD thesis every day for one week. Many of the comments made in these articles were made by Dr. John Cunningham – a SAVN activist and leader and they provided false and misleading information to the public about vaccines, and my thesis, at the time when mandatory vaccination policies were being approved in Australia.
- On the 26 January 2016 Dr. John Cunningham received an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for his services to “science and immunisation”. He does not have any qualifications or publications in immunology, vaccination or public health.