Vaccination Facts

The Australian Vaccination network, more correctly known as the ANTI-Vaccination network, are coming to Perth tomorrow night, June 1st.

Theoretically they plan to disseminate "vaccination information" to parents who wonder what it is and and what it's for. If history is any guide, they will go all out to scare those parents into avoiding vaccinations for their children at all costs - and they will tell them how to still qualify for government handouts intended to support community vaccination.

The AVN had planned to present this "seminar" a couple of weeks ago but their venue booking was refused at the last minute, requiring a new venue to be found and booked.

Somewhat bizarrely, the WA state government has provided the AVN with a venue through the State Library.

Though frankly, I'm not surprised. Governments both state and federal - and even international - often don't seem the least bit concerned about groups that push anti-scientific views, products and services in the area of health.

People thinking of attending the evening should first visit this new website to get some grounding in the facts about vaccination...

VACCINATION FACTS


Thanks to Podblack

More - from EoR & The West Australian

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NOTE TO THE INFORMED

If you are already familiar with the benefits of vaccination and wish to assist in minimising the potential fallout from anti-vaccination "information", Podblack has announced that she will be there handing out flyers after the event. If you're in Perth, please consider helping her out. Meet around 6pm at the library coffee shop.

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Note: I am not a doctor or health practitioner and have no relationship with pharmaceutical companies or government. I do have kids though - and one one day will likely have grand kids - and people who choose not to immunise put those people at risk.

Perth Vaccine Seminar - take two

A week or so ago I reported that the Perth Uniting Church had reversed a decision to allow the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) to use one of its city venues for a vaccination seminar. The Church, which sponsors a vaccination program in West Timor, decided the AVN message did not fit within its ethical framework.

Not to be deterred, the AVN have found a new venue, at the State Library of WA, and plan to present the seminar next month.

Promotional material for the event claims...

In her talk, Meryl Dorey will discuss how vaccines are intended to work and why it is that they often don't.

People planning to attend this event in the hope of getting useful, up-to-date information on vaccination should know that the AVN have been associated, via a link on the AVN blog, with a conspiracy article that claimed the Swine Flu vaccine was inflicted on the world as part of a global conspiracy of mind control and genocide. The article was written by David Icke who also promotes the theory that many of the world's leaders are actually shape-shifiting lizard people.

If you are partial to fantastical conspiracy theories and want to know how the Swine Flu vaccine is supposedly planned to microchip and/or kill us all then you will find the Icke article here. Remember as you read it that the AVN linked to this on their vaccination information blog.

If you think that theory sounds just a bit silly then consider that it was promoted by the AVN without one line of criticism or ridicule and ask yourself if the AVN are really likely to be a sound source of advice on vaccination and if you think they deserve the $10 they hope to charge for their misinformation evening.

If you want to believe that article might have been linked in error (though it's not exactly a secret and the link still hasn't been removed or qualified after almost a year) and that the AVN are just an impartial watchdog trying to give parents both sides of a supposed vaccine debate so as to let those parents make an informed choice, then at least consider that the AVN offer t-shirts for sale imprinted with the message "Love them, protect them, Never inject them". They have no pro-vaccination merchandise.

I'm pretty darned certain the AVN are neither impartial nor especially well informed on the topic of vaccination.

Yes, lizard people. Seriously.


For more details, visit the Vaccination Awareness and Information Service

via Podblack

Church shuts doors to AVN

In news to hand, it appears the Uniting Church in Perth has withdrawn its support for an "information evening" to have been presented tomorrow evening by the Australian Vaccination Network's Meryl Dorey.

In short, the Church has apparently decided the AVN's anti-vaccination message does not fit within its ethical framework and has chosen not to make its venue available to them.

The planned presentation in Perth comes hot on the heels of a genuine vaccination scare with dozens of WA parents reporting adverse reactions following their child's seasonal flu vaccinations.

The AVN promotes itself as pro-choice on the issue of vaccination but it also sells T-shirts printed with the message "Love them, protect them, NEVER inject them". Hardly a neutral stance. The AVN's blog also carries a link to an article by renowned conspiracy theorist David Icke claiming the swine flu vaccine was part of an international plot to microchip large parts of the population and commit genocide on millions of others. Is this the sort of "information" parents would be subjected to if they attended one of these presentations?

The Uniting Church is to be commended for taking an ethical stance.

MORE:

Podblack: AVN vaccination seminar in Perth

Sceptics' Book: Perth Vaccination Seminar. AVN.

"Vaccine of the gaps"

Seasoned sceptics and atheists would be well aware of the "God of the gaps" tactic, a fallacious argument from ignorance used by religious fundamentalists. This involves inserting their preferred god into any place where science has left a question unanswered.

"Okay, so now we know the world goes around the sun but science can't tell us what keeps it all moving so [god] must be responsible".

"Science can't explain gravity - but [god] can."

"Right, so the universe was born from the Big Bang - but the cause of the bang is [god]."

...and so on. In every case, unbelievers are expected to disprove this new "fact" and as each one is disproved their god takes up residence in a different gap.

After some lengthy discussion about vaccination over at the Sceptics' Book of Pooh-Pooh, I've decided that anti-vaccinationists apply similar "reasoning" in an attempt to prove that science doesn't know everything (not that anyone is actually claiming that it does) so we should accept their opinion as fact.

The main difference is that creationists are arguing that their inserted god is a good god while the anti-vaccinationists are filling their perceived gaps with evil vaccines.

They'll make a statement about a particular vaccine evil - like "toxins" - then when they are shown evidence of where they've gone wrong they try a different gap, like the big-pharma conspiracy, to continue their "everyone knows vaccines are evil" tirade.

"It's the mercury... it's MMR... it's the aluminium... the formaldehyde... the squalene... it's too many, too soon... it's the lizard-people... the micro-chips..."

No amount of evidence is ever enough because there's always another question that can be made up asked and until that question is answered, they'll insist that this is evidence that vaccines are evil. For every gap that's puttied over, one or two more supposed gaps are found. In every case, vaccine advocates, like atheists, are expected to either disprove or accept this new "fact".

So if someone had a vaccination and suffered some strange ailment some time later (and the time in between vaccination and ailment can run into months) then if science can't prove it wasn't the vaccine [god] then there is a gap in knowledge so it must be the vaccine. We might even be schooled in the "fact" that common sense tells us it's the vaccine [god]. What else could it be?

And if, by some miracle, they can be convinced that vaccines were not responsible in that case, well, there's another case... what about that one? That one must be the vaccines.

When enough time has passed and a few kilograms of Poly-Filla consumed, they go back to the toxins, or the big-pharma conspiracy and start the whole process over again - all the time demanding proof it isn't the vaccine that's at fault and all the time insisting that, without that proof, we must know that it is the vaccines so why won't we admit it?

Vaccine advocates, like atheists, are supposedly scared of the "truth" that these other people just know in their guts is right.

From now on I shall be referring to this tactic as the "Vaccine of the gaps" gambit.