AVN

Anti-vaccination group stripped of status

A CONTROVERSIAL NSW-based anti-vaccination group has been stripped of its charitable status after the state government found its appeals had not been conducted in good faith.

The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) was ordered in July to publish a disclaimer on its website stating the group was anti-vaccination and its material shouldn't be read as medical advice.

So, the Australian Vaccination Network has had their arse handed to them. The media no longer seems to call on them for "balance" and they're regularly being taken to task on the radio. Since the HCCC reached their conclusion and Ken McLeod released it to the world I can only think of one interview where Meryl Dorey was not taken to task. It does indeed feel like the Australian Vaccination Network is finally circling the drain.

The complaint filed with the HCCC against the AVN by Ken McLeod and Toni & David MacCaffery has been upheld. While this is a big win for rationality the next question is will the AVN follow through with the ruling? Does the HCCC have teeth?

This reference was originally posted at the Vaccination Awareness and Information Service site and was made available by Ken Mcleod. It is available for public release. The attached file is the report.

MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: gold [at] freelancers [dot] net [dot] nz
Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 14:50:52 +1200
Subject: Regarding the AVN/Living Wisdom talk
From: Gold gold [at] evolved [dot] net [dot] nz
To: margaret [dot] allen [at] slwa [dot] wa [dot] gov [dot] au
Cc: meryl meryl [at] avn [dot] org [dot] au
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hello Mrs Allen,

It's recently been brought to my attention by Meryl Dorey of the
Living Wisdom news letter that the AVN are hosting a seminar at the
State Library of Western Australia.

Earlier this week (April 6th, 2010) Meryl Dorey, of the Australian VaccinationAnti-Vaccination Network, sent out a complaint to her mail list. The complaint centered around the refusal to take advertising from them. The company that was approached is Copeland Publishing. They publish a series of free, localized magazines that would appeal to new mothers and mothers of young kids. Dorey's target audience to a tee.

The newsletter is long and full of spite, with a sprinkling of conspiracy and a dash of irony. The ironic thing is that Dorey plays the ethics card. This coming from a group that is actively spreading mis-information due to their own active ignorance of how science actually works.

Last night I had the unfortunate experience of attending one of Meryl Dorey's webinars on homeopathy and it's use in treating autism. There were a number of us ( @podblack, @dianne_, @bastardsheep, @fuzztwin and @joel_birch) in a skype back channel taking notes.

Sorry for being so lax on reporting from Briskepticon. Have been listening to the talks, which are excellent by the way, and have been focusing on live reporting via twitter. There is a fairly decent back channel going on.

What I did want to report on sooner rather than later is the announcements from the dinner last night.