Australian Vaccination Network

This site has been set up in response to the Australian Vaccination Network's (www.avn.org.au) refusal to publish my comments on their blogs. Whilst I uphold everyone's right to investigate and to educate themselves, I am saddened that people insist on publishing downright lies with regards health matters. Here, I will attempt to present a response whenever www.avn.org.au present such lies, and will also attempt to present data that represents good scientific method.

23 February, 2011

Meryl,

To quote you... "Below is one article that shows an alternative explanation - there are many other articles that show similar information."

Did you actually read it?

It's explaining how "a combination of severe hypoxia, brain swelling and raised central venous pressure causes blood to leak from intracranial veins into the subduraÌ space, and that the cause of the subdural bleeding in some cases of infant head injury is therefore not traumatic rupture of bridging veins, but a phenomenon of immaturity."

Do you know how you can establish a combination of "severe hypoxia, brain swelling and raised CVP"? It's by strangulation Meryl - strangulation. So well done. You've reported on a study that explains why with strangulation you can get subdural bleeding.

It's not a defence of an innocent man - it's an explanation of how you can find these features at autopsy after strangling, and not necessarily beating a baby to death. Should I even mention that there's absolutely nothing in here about vaccination?

I think it once again displays how callous you are. Please post this in a separate blog. It's gold.

Punter,

“the two diseases TB and lung cancer are essentially impossible to differentially diagnose. That is why in the past 100 years the Western world saw a dramatic drop in the rate of TB but a massive rise in the rate of lung cancer.” How did I misinterpret that statement, as stupid as it is, and as stupid as your conclusion is.

For someone who has such a firm belief in scientific method, you find it quite easy to develop your own “non-germ theory”, with no references, no studies, no “real world data”, in fact, no evidence of any kind at all. But please go on. Tell me what the significance is of AFB’s within the granulomatous inflammation that is the hallmark of TB, as opposed to the lack of any bacteria within the necrotic lesions of lung carcinoma (I assume where not talking about adenocarcinoma), and the way in which TB patients improve with combination antibiotics, and lung Ca patients tend to just… die.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go on. Please expand. Put it on a website why don’t you and let us all bask in the glow of your amazing brain. What else can you shock me with? That MMR causes autism (should be easy), that seat belts are actually dangerous (oh, you did that too), and why not try that DPT causes SIDS (woops, that one’s gone now as well). How about septic arthritis? What causes that? How do the antibiotics kill people again? How would you treat septic arthritis? Actually, punter, what actually kills people? Why do people die at all? And is there a God?

21 February, 2011

I love punter

Michael says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

February 22, 2011 at 12:28 am
Punter,
you’re back-peddling quickly today. I think your words were “It did nothing of the sort it was just that doctors had pretty much stopped diagnosing TB, thinking it was a disease of the third world, and dramatically increased their diagnoses of lung cancer”. Sounds to me like that’s what you were saying. Damn those lazy doctors, just diagnosing things on a whim. I’m sure those lung cancer rates are just TB, or is it the other way now?
As for the studies, why don’t you look them up yourself. you’ve got a brain too, don’t you?
Michael says:
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February 22, 2011 at 12:39 am
Ahh why don’t I just tell you.
The Bouvier-Colle paper did two types of case-control studies. One was SIDS deaths vs other deaths, and the other was SIDS deaths to living controls. Both studies included vaccinated and non-vaccinated children, as that was one of the variables. When you get the study, look at table 4 – immunisation rate was not significantly different between (SIDS vs other deaths) and (SIDS vs alive).
The paper by Walker American Journal of Public Health 1987; 77; 945, “The mortality rate of non-immunized infants was 6.5 times that of immunized infants of the same age ”
What’s the balanced opinion? A link? No link?
Michael says:
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February 22, 2011 at 12:45 am
And then there’s The UK accelerated immunisation programme and sudden unexpected death in infancy: case-control study, Fleming PJ, Blair PS, Platt MW, Tripp J, Smith IJ, Golding J, BMJ, 2001 vol. 322 (7290) pp. 822
“After all potential confounding factors were controlled for, immunisation uptake was strongly associated with a lower risk of SIDS (odds ratio 0.45 (95% confidence interval 0.24 to 0.85)). This difference became non-significant (0.67 (0.31 to 1.43)) after further adjustment for other factors specific to the infant’s sleeping environment.”
“Conclusions: Immunisation does not lead to sudden unexpected death in infancy, and the direction of the relation is towards protection rather than risk.”
Shall I go on. What’s a balanced opinion? Is there a link based on one small paper with a small response rate, etc, or is there no link based on larger studies, or is there even a protective link as suggested by Walker and this paper?
I think a balanced opinion would be that there is probably no link. Perhaps a slightly protective one. Certainly not a harmful one. Of course, you’ll keep your one small study and keep dolling it out, and the studies I quoted won’t be real world blah blah blah, but the facts don’t change depending on your level of ignorance. The sun still shines, no matter what you might want to believe.
Michael says:
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February 22, 2011 at 1:59 am
Punter, have you actually read the studies I’ve posted, or are you just reflexly denying what has been laid out before you, like you have done so many times before.
“What an unbelievably ridiculous methodology. The vast majority of kids get vaccinated therefore of course there isn’t going to be much difference in the rates between those who got SIDS and those who don’t.”
Ahhhhh and that’s the point on the study. Case-control. Did you read it? The vast majority DIDN’T get vaccinated, only around 30-45% in fact. It’s as valid as any study you’ve ever discussed (although, come to think of it, you never even try to provide proof of your belief system).
Did you actually read it? If so, you didn’t read it very well.

19 February, 2011

"Being wrong about vaccination can and does have far-reaching negative health effects on the entire human race. "

Like those in Nigeria and surroundings who are now dead after they stopped vaccinating. And Japan, UK and Sweden when the pertussis herd immunity dropped. Oh, and Pakistan.

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/conspiracy-rumours-keep-polio-alive-pakistan

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18690921

If Greg's and Meryl's beliefs are correct, these diseases shouldn't be on the increase. Gosh. Maybe they're wrong.

17 February, 2011

Simple Greg.

Follow the bouncing ball. Or just read the long post I wrote. Think confounders - does that make it easy?

And then there's Nigeria, where hundreds of people died in the early 2000's when they withdrew vaccinations.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18690921

I thought these diseases were naturally going away, according to your graphs? No, instead here, in the Western World, the mortality has reduced through better standards of living, health, hygiene, etc, but incidence didn't change until vaccinations. Your graphs don't show that, mine did. It's what's missing that's important.

In Nigeria, where the health, hospitals, hygiene, etc, aren't up to scratch, when the incidence returned, so too did the deaths, by the hundreds.

Do you want to incidence to go up again? That's what you're missing, and that's what's important in your interpretation. You're looking at one graph, an not the whole picture. The graph of the data is correct. Your conclusion isn't.

Maybe I'll tell my Nigeria story (and my UK, Japan and Sweden story as well) when you show them your graph.

Good day.

Vanessa, it's not anyone's business until you proclaim it in a public space. So here's some facts to think about. Your decision is still yours...

In Great Britain, a drop in pertussis vaccination in 1974 was followed by an epidemic of more than 100,000 cases of pertussis and 36 deaths by 1978. In Japan, around the same time, a drop in vaccination rates from 70% to 20%-40% led to a jump in pertussis from 393 cases and no deaths in 1974 to 13,000 cases and 41 deaths in 1979. In Sweden, the annual incidence rate of pertussis per 100,000 children 0-6 years of age increased from 700 cases in 1981 to 3,200 in 1985.

They were also really healthy kids too... Until they dropped dead. Really dead.

Shall we turn into another Nigeria, where hundreds of people died in the early 2000's when they withdrew vaccinations? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18690921

Yep. Healthy right up until the day they died.

Closer to my home...
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/cda-cdi3302k.htm
In an outbreak of 25 cases of measles in Qld in Q1 2009, NONE of the cases were vaccinated. Also, referring to another outbreak, “The number of vaccine doses was known for 57 of the 78 cases, of which none had received 2 doses of a MCV, four (7%) had received 1 dose and 53 (93%) had received no doses: the remaining 21 cases were of unknown vaccination status”
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-cdi3301c.htm
During an outbreak in Q2 2006 in NSW, of the 33 children with measles, only 6 had received 1 dose of MMR, and the others none. None of the cases had received two doses.

ie: non- and under-vaccinated children get diseases.