Australian Vaccination-risks Network
The Australian Vaccination-risks Network Inc., formerly known as the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network, and before that known as the Australian Vaccination Network, is an Australian anti-vaccination pressure group registered in New South Wales. As Australia's most controversial anti-vaccination organisation, it has lobbied against a variety of vaccination-related programs, downplayed the danger of childhood diseases such as measles and pertussis, championed the cause of alleged vaccination victims, and promoted the use of ineffective alternatives such as homeopathy.
Opposition to vaccination is a fringe medical science viewpoint. The group has been described by the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission as a provider of "misleading and inaccurate" vaccination information, and has been heavily criticised by doctors and other experts on immunisation. The group has been called the "stronghold of the anti-vaccination movement" in Australia and is subject to widespread criticism from medical professionals, scientists and other proponents of vaccination. It has also been criticised for harassing the parents of a victim of vaccine-preventable disease, and for promoting the false idea that shaken baby syndrome is actually vaccine injury.
On 14 October 2010, the organisation's right to raise funds was stripped from it by the New South Wales Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing, stating that its appeals had "not been conducted in good faith for charitable purposes". In December 2012, the New South Wales Office of Fair Trading issued an order for the group to change its name within two months or be de-registered. The department described the group's name as being "misleading and a detriment to the community". The group changed its name in February 2014. In July 2018 the group changed its name to Australian Vaccination-risks Network Inc. citing that many in their group "did not feel comfortable with having the word 'skeptics' in" their name as the reason for the change. The group decided that the word "skeptic" too closely aligned them with Scientific Skepticism organisations such as the Australian Skeptics.
Organisation
The Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network was formed in 1994 as the Vaccination Awareness Network by Meryl Dorey, a medically unqualified American who moved to Australia with her Australian husband, saying she got involved after her eldest son was allegedly adversely affected by DPT and MMR vaccines administered when he was a child.The group applied for tax-deductible charity status through the Australian Taxation Office and finally obtained it in 2002; it lost that status in 2007 by allowing it to lapse, and obtained it again in 2009. In 2010 the group's tax-exempt status was revoked by the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing after an audit of the organisation finding that AVN fundraising appeals had not been conducted in good faith for charitable purposes, had been improperly administered and were not in the public interest.
In July 2009, the AVN claimed it had more than 3500 members; however, in a constitutional change voting proxy form published in March 2010, the AVN revealed the actual membership is considerably lower, at around 1867 financial members. The AVN is headquartered in Bangalow, New South Wales.
In February 2010 Dorey announced that she was resigning, but held the position of President until 1 January 2013, when she was replaced by Mr Greg Beattie. Ms Dorey remains with the AVN as "Public Officer and spokesperson".
In addition to its website and associated blog AVN published a quarterly magazine called Informed Voice, later renamed Living Wisdom and offered as a digital publication. Living Wisdom ceased publication in January 2013. The AVN's paid-for memberships formerly included a quarterly insert called Inside Edition which contained "12 pages of current news from around the world regarding vaccination".
Beliefs
The group is strongly against any form of compulsory vaccination, but Dorey disputes that the group is an anti-vaccine organisation. "We don't believe we have the right to tell people whether or not to vaccinate", says Dorey who adds, "but neither does the government." She claims that the group is just trying to fill "the information void" created by a pro-vaccine government and medical community that ignores negative information. Dorey considers herself, "pro-information and pro-choice".Independent commentators generally reject these claims and point to numerous errors and distortions in AVN's statements about vaccines. Julie Leask from the University of Sydney, challenges AVN's claim that it is not anti-vaccination, by referring to the numerous examples of anti-vaccination rhetoric published by the AVN. In 2009, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation described the AVN as the "stronghold of the anti-vaccination movement" in Australia. In 2012 the AVN website promoted the anti-vaccination children's book Melanie's Marvelous Measles as well as T-shirts with "Love Them, Protect Them, Never Inject Them" printed on them.
The NSW Northern Rivers region, where the AVN is located, in 2007 had a childhood vaccination rate of only 70% compared to the national average of over 90%. In 2016 a recent National Health Performance Authority report showed the region's average vaccination rate for 5 year olds was reportedly still the lowest in the country at 89.2%. The North Coast Assistant Public Health Director warned "Pockets of unvaccinated people in the region was the cause for the rise and fall in whooping cough cases... because we do not have herd immunity to the illness on the Northern Rivers".
The Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network believes that vaccines contain a variety of toxic ingredients that have no place in the human body. The group argues that these alleged toxins can cause autism, ADHD, brain damage, and cancer, among other serious side effects. In response to medical and scientific research that shows few side effects to most vaccines, Dorey argues that doctors are very hesitant to report adverse reactions and thus the data is highly skewed. These claims are false: while minor side effects such as soreness, swelling, and fever are not uncommon, no large scale scientific study has found evidence of more serious reactions and the purported link to autism is refuted.
Former president Meryl Dorey claimed that most doctors are not fully informed about vaccination research and that the medical community as a whole relies on "selective evidence" to back its argument. She says there is a "very, very strong effort" by the government and mainstream medical community to suppress any information that may cause parents to question the safety of vaccines. Consequently, Dorey argues, doctors often don't adequately warn patients of potential vaccination risks. Several critics have pointed out that AVN itself is guilty of ignoring evidence not favourable to the anti-vaccination point of view and the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission found that the AVN routinely ignore information that is not favourable to its anti-vaccination position. The HCCC accused the AVN of deceptively removing selected parts of stories when they report on them, and the misrepresentation of the conclusions of reliable studies. Dorey countered that she was not guilty of selective reporting, and that she "simply quoted the sections that felt were important". In reality, doctors have access to extensive information on vaccine safety and the medical literature includes all known significant potential adverse reactions.
The AVN has also questioned the effectiveness of vaccines. While admitting that infection rates dropped dramatically in the twentieth century, they argue that the change is due in large part to improved hygiene and living conditions. Dorey has argued that infection rates were already on the decline before vaccines were invented and that effectiveness has "never been scientifically tested." Scientific evidence disputes this opinion by AVN. Dorey has also stated that the "vast majority" of people who contract disease have previously been vaccinated. Infectious disease specialist Paul Goldwater acknowledged a few vaccines are not completely effective, but said others were nearly 100% effective. In all cases, he said, "the benefits certainly outweigh any risks." The group has also expressed doubts about the cost-benefit ratio and effectiveness of flu vaccines. AVN's arguments are well-known and long debunked anti-vaccine tropes.
Dorey has written that "passing through a measles infection is sometimes required, for whatever reason, to strengthen some part of a person's vital force", and that diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox are benign conditions that do not kill children in industrialized countries. During a studio debate on Channel 7's Sunday Night current affairs program covering the death of a four-week-old baby from whooping cough, Dorey claimed that no one ever dies from the disease, and described her own children's case of the disease as a "storm in a teacup" that was easily handled with natural remedies. The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission criticised the AVN's position, saying that it "ignores the risks of exposure to, and the adverse effects of childhood illnesses". Independent data shows that measles causes the most vaccine-preventable deaths of any disease. It resulted in about 96,000 deaths in 2013. Before immunization in the United States between three and four million cases occurred each year, and the fatality rate is approximately 0.2% of those infected. Most of those who are infected and who die are less than five years old.
Infectious disease specialist Peter McIntyre has accused the group of manipulating research and statistics in order to make its case. "It's been a real characteristic of the anti-vaccine movement... to be looking very extensively at the scientific evidence," says McIntyre, " really a complete misinterpretation." Paediatrician Chris Ingall says that the AVN's efforts are "negative, destructive and no scientific basis." Australian Medical Association SA state president Andrew Lavender states that groups like the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network " on very little information and... a risk to others."
Dorey argues that scientific studies cannot be trusted because they are usually funded, she claims, by biomedicine and pharmaceutical companies that develop and manufacture vaccine products, and that doctors have "financial incentives" to push vaccines. In fact, paediatricians often lose money on vaccinations.
According to The Panic Virus, by Seth Mnookin; then AVN President Meryl Dorey signed a petition claiming "that the "AIDS industry and the media" had tricked the public into believing that the HIV virus causes AIDS".
When during a government inquiry in 2015, Greens senator Di Natale asked AVN why they still referred to themselves as the "Australian Vaccination Network", a name they have been legally instructed to cease using, AVN member Brett Smith accused Di Natale of being part of a Murdoch media conspiracy. Journalist Bernard Keane noted this is the first time anyone had suggested a conspiratorial link between The Greens and a media organisation that has been highly critical of the party.
In April 2007, Meryl Dorey compared a NSW Health policy change requiring immunisation for its workers to Nazi concentration camps saying "these are the sorts of tactics you would expect in concentration camps, not the sort of tactics you would expect in the Australian health-care system." The policy was also opposed by some civil libertarian and health-care groups, but the NSW Nurses' Association noted that "vaccinations have always been compulsory for health workers" and that the change was only a minimal update to the existing policy.