Meryl Dorey, head of the flailing Australian Vaccination Network — an organization dedicated to twisting the truth about vaccines and saying anything at all to scare people into an antivax stance — has once again put fingers to keyboard, and as usual the truth eludes her.
She wrote a lengthy essay about her dealings with Toni and David McCaffery, who lost their four week old infant Dana to pertussis two years ago.
I hardly need to point out that her interpretation of reality doesn’t come within a glancing blow of it; you can read what Dorey wrote, and then compare it to Toni McCaffery’s response detailing what really happened, and why Dorey is so wrong.
I also received a note from David McCaffery about a terrific site that helps educate people about vaccines: Chain of Protection. They have really good videos describing benefits of vaccinations. Here’s the one about herd immunity which shows just why it’s important:
Herd Immunity – How it works from Chain of Protection on Vimeo.
Check out the site. It’s what Meryl Dorey wouldn’t want you to do.
Related posts:
- AVN now getting routinely publicly humiliated
- Australian skeptics jeer Meryl Dorey
- Major step against antivaxxers in Australia
- The AVN is reaping what they sowed
- Australian skeptics strike back against antivaxxers
August 4th, 2010 at 7:27 am
Man, if Dorey tried that on me after I’d lost a baby, I would literally have to inject her in the eye with a smallpox filled syringe.
August 4th, 2010 at 7:28 am
The AVN and Dorey were slammed again on Lateline on the ABC tonight. They’re now being asked to justify their status as a charity and have 28 days to respond to the Government.
The NSW Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing look after charities and they’ve asked the AVN about:
Fundraising without an authority
Unauthorised expenditure
Failure to keep proper records of income
One thing that was nice to hear is they are now being referred to as an “anti vaccination organisation”.
Hopefully in the next day or so a vodcast of the story should be available here…
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/vodcast.htm
August 4th, 2010 at 8:01 am
The Lateline segment is already on YouTube, thanks to the lovely Sc00ter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1QykoYCg0c
Stop The AVN on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76305414878
August 4th, 2010 at 8:16 am
This quote from Dorey is quite telling:
“We find it amazing that some people firmly believe that God was not perfect. Apparently, according to these people, God forgot to add the heavy toxic metals, pig cells, chicken cells etc that are found in vaccines.”
Ok, even putting to the side that pig cells, chicken cells, etc aren’t in vaccines, she seems to be stating a “God made us this way, who does Medical Science think they are coming up with cures that God doesn’t provide” viewpoint. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she’d take that view.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Arrrghgh…Facebook fail. No access from work to read the McCaffrey’s response.
I did see that Dorey saw fit to put in a large section about all the families she’s cried with due to vaccine injury…blah blah blah…
Couldn’t just straight up defend herself without pushing her agenda.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Further to #2
The OLGR have also noted other breaches of the Charities Act, and will be referring their concerns to the NSW Department of Justice and the NSW Attorney General. For those US colleagues that is similar to your District Attorneys. Some serious legal pwnage may be on the cards.
This whole saga is an example of what grass root skeptics can achieve (whether they identify as such or not), and there certainly has been a dedicated bunch of people from all backgrounds and professions, concerned citizens all, over here in Australia. Thank you to everyone!
And thank you Phil, for your continued support as well.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Is anyone aware of AVN getting any support from the US’s cesspool of equally odious groups, like Generation Rescue, the National Vaccine (MIS)Information Center, etc?
AVN is one group where having Andy Wakefield as a medical advisor would be an improvement.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:34 am
Between today’s post at Respectful Insolence about the Geiers and this bit about Dorey, it is turning into a grumpy Todd day…though the AVN getting hammered does put a silver lining on things. Age of Autism ran Dorey’s nonsense on Sunday and are, predictably, supporting her.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:34 am
AVN makes me feel sick!
August 4th, 2010 at 8:38 am
Holy Crap, ok so great video and I’m glad people are fighting the anti-vax nonsense, but there wasn’t anyone on set with the ability to apply some make-up? I thought at first it was going to be a joke video comparing heard immunity with a zombie outbreak (not a joke).
August 4th, 2010 at 8:39 am
This whole saga is an example of what grass root skeptics can achieve
…and how ridiculous it is that they have to. The AVN are hardly a secret organisation and yet it has taken a monumental effort by average people (and several baby deaths) to get government agencies even mildly interested in looking at them. And the result so far… the AVN were told to put a notice on their website and they replied “bugger off”.
The TGA are similarly impotent on advertising. The WA Coroner has called on state and federal governments to take a close look at alternative medicine yet here we are, in the middle of a federal election, and neither side of politics has taken it up as an issue.
If the real watchdogs had a fraction of the fervour and tenacity of the AVN, Australia would be a very different place.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:51 am
Ouch! I so feel for McCaffery having to wade through the filth produced by Dorey’s inanities. It’s telling that I couldn’t, I had to just check McCaffery’s context vs Dorey from time to time.
And why am I not surprised that Dorey sets up this scenery of people milking the death of an innocent baby all they can, while it is exactly what Dorey is doing? Granted, she is an anti-vaccination fundamentalist dodging and weaving a hurtful shower of events. But she is stooping so low that she rakes the mud she has trampled up and tries to fling it.
A sane person would have stopped trampling, with a “mea culpa”.
@ #3 TechyDad:
Interesting. I can’t follow Dorey’s logic or lack thereof, but it does seem to imply she is fundamentalist (“inerrant” gods) in more ways than one. That is indeed not surprising because such thing correlate. But it is telling.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:52 am
If you haven’t read Dorey’s billious drivel Phil links to above you really should. She is as “sensitive” in the comments. Then you should read Toni’s response. It is heartbreaking.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:59 am
@ #9 Rhacodactylus:
Not a joke but LOLable! I hear you, I had to refrain form that one; facts are never (should not be) so ugly.
Well, not exactly ugly, that is unfair on real persons, but facts are not so unshaven.
[Que the no-hair theorem. See!? ʘ‿ʘ]
August 4th, 2010 at 8:59 am
@TechyDad
WRT Meryl’s “god” nonsense, she claimed to me, on her blog, that she’s a deist. I LOL’d. She clearly doesn’t know what the word means.
Every word she utters is wrong.
Jason
http://www.youtube.com/thatmeryl
August 4th, 2010 at 9:08 am
The quotes that Dana McCaffery has posted from emails and letters sent to her by Dorey’s followers are just disgusting. This is a family that lost an infant child, I cannot even imagine their grief, and these people send them long diatribes about how they ‘totally sympathize with them, but you know it was the toxins they let their child be injected with what really killed her’ (shorter paraphrase of nutty emails). At least save your screed for “Big Pharma”, Australian health officials, and Phil Plait. They can take as well as they dish out, but a grieving mother? Seriously?
August 4th, 2010 at 9:11 am
I’ve never taken a course in statistics, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but I see a HUGE problem with this statement:
“subsequent research has shown me that this is a test which gives false positives up to 100% of the time.”
“up to 100%”??? That’s as dishonest as advertisements which use the phrase “up to n% off”.
In (precisely) 100% of those instances, “up to” directly translates to “less than”.
August 4th, 2010 at 9:12 am
I can’t imagine the self-restraint it takes on Toni’s part to continue her response in a civilized and respectful manner. I’d have long since broke down into violent hysterical profanity, being forced to deal with that person over and over again.
August 4th, 2010 at 9:17 am
AVN and their ilk puts me into a nearly inarticulate rage. Can they even be counted as members of the human race? Are they some sort of depraved offshoot? *sigh*
http://factsnotfantasy.com/vaccines.php for good measure
August 4th, 2010 at 9:34 am
@Larian
Perhaps they are reptilians?
August 4th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Just the other night we were talking about how the US govt had to step in and create a fund for vaccine lawsuits because most of the pharma companies were getting out of the vaccine business. So much for the “Big Pharma” in for the money.
If I were the McCaffertys, I would have locked the Doreys up with a rabid dog then given them the choice to get the vaccine or not.
August 4th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Toni and David have my utmost respect. They’re better people than Meryl Dorey ever was or will be. I would have done bad things to those AVN people long ago.
August 4th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Anyone who promotes not vaccinating children is directly responsible when these children (and those not yet vaccinated) die or suffer from the disease for which the vaccine is supposed to provide immunity.
” … We were virtually being accused of being responsible for the death of this baby who was 5 months too young to have been protected by vaccines … ”
It shows her ignorance that she does not understand herd immunity and that those who are ” … too young to have been protected by vaccines … ” are just as much at risk as those who parents don’t vaccinate them.
Angry!
August 4th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Here, here! (Hear?) Well put! Let’s scuttle this dorey! To the bottom with Meryl!
In the video, however, the mother should’ve been wearing blue to show her immunity status…
Or am I missing something?
August 4th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Just recently we’ve been having a pertussis outbreak here in California. Last couple of days San Diego had a fatality, month old infant died of Whooping Cough likely caught from the adults around her. So the call is going out to get vaccinated against the disease. People like the AVN put folks in danger with their lies about vaccines and innoculations, and they have deaths on their hands.
August 4th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Yuk, I couldn’t read past the point where she just spent several paragraphs admitting that she was trying to get some NCAHS official to breach doctor-patient privelege and then gets on a high horse about how her (supposed) right to confidentiality was violated… The gall of that woman!
August 4th, 2010 at 10:07 am
The AVN also has a number of very informative articles on their website. I found the travel vaccination article particularly helpful. Here is what they say about polio:
Oh, and if you go to a malaria zone don’t use mossie repellents that contains DEET. Apparently they’ve been linked to brain injuries and cancer.
That is what passes for advice by the AVN.
August 4th, 2010 at 10:10 am
@Dennis, #15 – My thoughts exactly when I read that. It doesn’t even make sense. There should be one single percentage of false positives, you can’t use “up to” with a single number.
August 4th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Toni McCaffery’s response is heartbreaking. Personally, I would have applied a flaming boomerang directly to that knob Dorey’s backside. Living Wisdom indeed!
August 4th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Please help me if I’m wrong, but I thought the video didn’t present the notion of herd immunity very well at all. My understanding is that herd immunity is gained when there are enough people with immunity from some transmittable disease that the bug cannot establish a viable base. In other words, in a community with adequate vaccination, the number of potential carriers is too small to maintain an infected subpopulation. Herd immunity reduces the red-shirts to near zero.
The video makes it sound like the number of red-shirts stays the same, and you just reduce the likelihood that a pre-vaccinated infant or immuno-compromised person will interact with one. That doesn’t seem to capture the real benefit of herd immunity.
Or am I mistaken?
August 4th, 2010 at 10:23 am
I still have a hard time fathoming what drives these people. They’ve been proven wrong time and again. They’ve seen how their meddling hurts people. What could possibly motivate them to keep spewing the anti-vax garbage?
August 4th, 2010 at 10:28 am
@Shane
Perhaps Meryl should be informed about how hygiene “helped” in the U.S. Improved sanitation resulted in worsening of the complications of polio because people were being exposed less often as infants. She may also want to see some videos of the iron lungs used to treat individuals with paralytic polio, not to mention the people who walk about on crutches because of post-polio syndrome.
Ugh…she is a disgusting person!
@Tom
Ideology? Blind, religious fervor?
August 4th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Friggin’ conservative bot a-holes. This sends me into enough of a rage I need a good nasty bumper sticker to stick on my car. Suggestions?
August 4th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Tom — “What could possibly motivate them”? My guess is, among other things, they wish to feel superior, important and lead action-packed lives in a mundane world, as well as enjoy the soothing ego-strokes of fawning acolytes who parrot their every utterance. In other words, they’re wannabe cult leaders.
August 4th, 2010 at 10:42 am
@Shane – That’s some serious cherry picking by AVN. That 1% is an awful lot of people if the infection rate is high enough. And the paralysis “generally passing with time” bit, that’s half the time. One quarter will be permanently disabled and 5-10% will die. Do these people really want polio to come back? A friend of my dad’s had polio. There was no way his legs were going to get better or that he’d be able to walk again.
August 4th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Hmm… lets see, should I risk a significantly chance of death for my child or a minimal risk (really none, but just trying to see it from the other side) of autism.
Wait! Is autism worse than death?
August 4th, 2010 at 11:35 am
#28. idahogie:
You might be onto something there! We need Dr. Mark Crislip (host of QuackCast) to set us straight!
August 4th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Dart Wader — you ask, “Is autism worse than death?” Good point, but for religious fanatics death is often preferable to life, because only in death do you get to sit on a cloud and have pleasant chats over cookies and cream with The Savior, who has nothing better to do and wants nothing more than to spend quality time with said religious fanatic, who must be a totally awesome dude or dudette indeed to deserve such attention.
August 4th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I need a good nasty bumper sticker to stick on my car. Suggestions?
One suggestion: Anti-Vaccination: Population Control through killing innocent babies
??
J/P=?
August 4th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I need a good nasty bumper sticker to stick on my car. Suggestions?
Skeptics Do It With Proof?
(Not originated by me, alas)
August 4th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
#28. idahogie:
I’m with idahogie too. There should be many less people with red shirts in that video. As I understand it, it’s not a ‘blocking’ action as they seem to portray it, but more of a ‘less in numbers as a percentage of the population’ thing.
August 4th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
I agree that Dorey is a despicable excuse for a human being, but I am not liking the violent rhetoric I am seeing. I do not think that is an appropriate response, even as a joke.
August 4th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
@TheBlackCat
Agreed. That’s the sort of thing that antivaxers engage in. Let’s not stoop to their level.
August 4th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
@TheBlackCat
Who is joking? You kill my child and you better hope the police get to you before I do. If the “justice” system won’t hold these people responsible, who will?
August 4th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
@Ray
I think it’s more the “sticking needles in her eye and injecting smallpox” type comments that BC was objecting to (correct me if I’m wrong, BC). While such feelings are understandable, considering how utterly despicable Dorey and her group are, comments like that are exactly the same kind of thing we often criticize them for.
August 4th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Thanks for posting the links to the two versions of the story. I can’t imagine what the McCafferys are going through. I hope their pain leads to something positive happening both in Australia, and elsewhere. Thanks for posting this Phil. You and I don’t always see eye to eye on other stuff, but you’ve educated me greatly on this subject, and helped me in situations in my own family where mis-information was being spread. Keep up the good work.
August 4th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
#31 @ Katharine this really isn’t an issue delineated by political leanings. There are many liberal types who refuse vaccination, also. Some of the outbreaks of vaccine preventable disease in California were initiated by affluent, liberal thinking people not getting their kids vaccinated. The biggest enemy is fear and ignorance, not left or right politics.
August 4th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Agreed. I don’t want anybody to do anything violent to Dorey. What I want is for public health watchdogs to crack down on purveyors of dangerous lies.
And as noted, this issue doesn’t seem to split along political lines. It’s really irritating that the Huffington Post, which has presented a lot of good liberal writing, has become a home for this crap.
August 4th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
One of the more subtle but telling impacts this whole affair is having is that the media consistently refer to them as “Anti- Vaccination group…” now. There’s no tiptoeing around their scarcely veiled agenda any more.
(As it should be too. It often said that if you scratch an anti-vaxxer on the scalp you’ll probably hit tinfoil. But it’s hard to tell with some of the more prominent US names. In the case of the AVN, however, it’s plain as day. Arch cranks through and through.)
August 4th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Surrey skeptics shame astrologers
August 4th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Let’s shoot Dorey into space, she would enjoy the anti-gravity.
August 4th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I think you all have it wrong. Dorey should be given booster shots for any vaccine she has taken and new ones for one she hasn’t. It’s only wrong in the eyes of anti-vax people (no not talking about Unix-heads).
August 4th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Please don’t take this as a threat, because this is just my internet outrage talking, but if my baby had died in agony and Dorey treated my family like this, she would be having a Sopranos style meeting with an aluminum baseball bat.
August 4th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
The AVN are despicable in a comletely non-comic way. I wish there was an immunization against stupid!
/cue Phil’s stupid pic!
August 4th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
@33 Katharine. How about, “Vaccinate. This prick will protect you against those pricks.”
August 4th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Tom @31:
As for why these people persist even after they’ve been proven wrong, try googling “cognitive dissonance”; or, better yet, read Mistakes Were Made (but not by me). In fact, everyone should do the latter.
August 4th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Here’s a little more news about the AVN from the SMH…
http://www.smh.com.au/national/vaccine-opponent-risks-charity-status-20100804-11fog.html?skin=text-only
August 4th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
[...] with the AVN in Australia getting hammered repeatedly in the press, I can now have some hope that the movement here in the United States, [...]
August 5th, 2010 at 12:27 am
It’s very hard to post this without swearing:
“I [Meryl Dorey] have been accused of harassing this grieving family by making this call. It is my assertion however that the official from the NCAHS has not only committed a serious breach of confidentiality by informing a third party that I had contacted him; he in fact, has harassed the McCafferys by calling a grieving family to tell them that I had asked for confirmation of Dana’s diagnosis. What possible reason could he have had for taking this action?”
First, she claims some right of medical privacy to protect her from revealing that she was attempting to violate someone else’s medical privacy. The arrogance of this is overwhelming.
She accuses the people she attempted to suborn of harassment for revealing that she did so to the people whose privacy she was invading. That’s like accusing someones neighbors of harassing them when they call them to inform them that they’ve just spotted you attempting to burgle their house.
Finally, show asks what possible reason they would have for doing this. Maybe to warn them that were being stalked by a psychotic child-murder?
I used to wonder if Meryl Dorey was simply ignorant and misguided. She is clearly evil incarnate.
August 5th, 2010 at 1:16 am
I’m sorry, but I can not respond to people like Dorey with anything other than threats of violence.
Dorey has issued and implemented a violent campaign whose end effect is the death of a lot of people.
She does this in order to change a political stance.
She, and those who support her, are, by the US State Department’s definition, terrorists.
The definition of “terrorist” would apply even in cases of violence against property, so saying that a dedicated campaign that has resulted in multiple deaths doesn’t meet the US definition of terrorism because the victims were babies is BS of the highest degree.
Note Bene that I realize that this is occurring in Australia, but, Damn .
Prosecute this “person” to the fullest extent of the law.
August 5th, 2010 at 2:11 am
I agree with all that has been posted about the awful Meryl Dorey but please lets get rid of the silly term “Herd immunity”. Animals are in herds, people are in groups.
At the start of the video the commentator says “herd immunity is a term used to describe the protection that a group of people” Ok if its a term used to describe a group of people why not just call it group immunity because thats what it is. Just call it what it is without trying to come up with a cute or catchy name. Plain and simple group immunity.
August 5th, 2010 at 4:55 am
I can’t read any more of Toni’s post and I’m only up to #7. I was getting teary
That a parent who’s had to bury their child, should have to defend themselves from this is just disgusting and for Toni to feel she needs to do it in such detail must be agonising for her.
but at least I know about it, I woulda had a sad no matter how I learnt about it. Another ta for the heads up.
I has a sad
Comment from Marge FTW !
Marge Innovera [..] Meryl, since you’re American, let me respond to this post in American: You’re a lying sack of shit. There’s a job for you at Fox News.
August 5th, 2010 at 5:26 am
I can’t imagine how it must feel for the McCaffery’s to have to keep revisitting this. How horrific.
August 5th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Two things. First, I find myself in the irritating position of defending Meryl Dorey, specifically to refute TechyDad’s comment #4: she did *not* say anything about God making us this way, or pig or chicken cells being in vaccines. That was one of her group’s members, making a comment on (I think: it is not explicit in the post itself) Facebook. Yes, the quote is both mind-numbingly ignorant and blood-boilingly offensive. But no, it was *not* Dorey herself, and should not be represented as such.
Yuck. The bad taste in my mouth won will take a while to go away, I think, but it is our responsibility as sceptics to keep things as accurate as possible!
Now, the original reason why I was going to comment: I had no idea until reading Dorey’s post that she had any connection with the McCafferys beyond her heading an organisation essentially responsible for their baby’s death. But that Mr Dorey and Mr McCaffery knew one another before the whole debacle started just pushes the irony meter into the uncomfortably-close-to-exploding zone.
August 6th, 2010 at 12:12 am
[...] with the AVN in Australia getting hammered repeatedly in the press, I can now have some hope that the movement here in the United States, [...]
October 15th, 2010 at 12:54 am
[...] The AVN falsehoods keep on a-comin’ (blogs.discovermagazine.com) [...]