Australian Vaccination Network

Comment and Opinion

Anus Maximus Award 2001 The Australian Vaccination Network was the big winner in the 2001 Millenium Awards, taking out the prestigious Anus Maximus Award. The award was announced in the following words:

Several years ago I wrote book about the Internet and I had to research pornography and other "offensive" things because it was obvious that I would be asked about this in most, if not all, promotional interviews. Nothing I found then offended, saddened, upset or angered me as much as a web site belonging to an organisation called the Vaccination Awareness Network, where, in perfectly rational and calm language, parents were advised to kill their children with measles and cripple them with polio. It was the closest I have ever come to being converted to the cause of censorship.

In 1999 I discovered that the organisation had changed its name to the Australian Vaccination Network and had a new web site. I can only assume that this change to a more neutral name was made to deceive people into thinking that the organisation was about vaccination, not about preventing children from getting it. That name change and web site were the inspiration for The Millenium Project.

The AVN again has a new web site, with a new domain name this time. I don't know why they have the new domain name unless they are planning to move the organisation into the more lucrative US market. I expect that the organisation name will also change to something a bit more international. It will probably be something a bit more innocuous as well so that more parents can be deceived into thinking that this organisation is interested in the welfare of children.

The AVN backed up to win an Encouragement Award in the 2009 Millenium Awards. The award citation read:

2009 wasn't a good year for the AVN. It got off to a bad start when some AVN members thought that it would be a good idea to abuse the parents of a baby girl who died of whooping cough at the age of four weeks. The parents were less than amused by this and went to the media, resulting in some less than flattering coverage for the AVN and its child-endangering activities. No longer seen as the experts on vaccination, suddenly the organisation was being asked to justify its actions, something that could only be done by denigrating and abusing their opponents. Later in the year they came to the attention of the authorities for collecting money without a current charitable organisation registration and then found themselves being investigated by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission. To make matters worse it was discovered that they had not been telling the truth to advertisers in their magazine (one advertiser said that they didn't want to be involved with "deranged" people like the AVN) and had been claiming an association with a charity when no such association existed. They closed a couple of Facebook pages when people started asking questions, purged their email mailing list, took their magazine out of newsagents and naturopaths' waiting rooms and begged for money several times to keep the doors open. The President of AVN, Meryl Dorey, won the Australian Skeptics' Bent Spoon Award for 2009.

The purpose of this award is to encourage them to continue as they are because this means that they might soon disappear completely, thus making a positive contribution to public health and particularly the health of children.

Dear Ms Dorey,

Congratulations. The Australian Vaccination Network won an Encouragement Award in the 2009 Millenium Awards presented by The Millenium Project. While this might not be as pleasing to you as the Anus Maximus Award that the AVN won in 2001, the judges felt that after the year of bad publicity that the AVN received in 2009 you need some encouragement. The award citation read:

[see above]

Please feel free to publicise your award and display the award logo on your web site. If you wish to collect the physical prize (a tube of haemorrhoid cream and a wire brush applicator) you can do so at your own expense, but please give me sufficient notice so that I can organise the location for the public application of the cream and the accompanying media coverage.

You can see the other award winners at https://ratbags.com/rsoles/history/2009/2009awards.htm

The AVN did it again with an Encouragement Award in the 2013 Millenium Awards. The award citation read:

The Australian Vaccination Network has appeared twice before in the Awards listings (in 2001 and 2009), and it is time to give them some more encouragement, especially as this will be the last time they can appear using that name. 2013 was a bad year for the AVN, losing court cases initiated to silence critics by abusing the legal process, seeing legislation changed to close a loophole that allowed them to avoid government scrutiny, finally being told that there are people with the authority to order them to change the deceptive name, seeing the introduction of stricter rules designed to keep the pox-ridden spawn of vaccine deniers away from children in preschools, and getting Facebook to look at the way that their complaint systems can be manipulated by liars.

The AVN needs encouragement now more than ever before. Encouragement to continue the downward spiral into oblivion. They will leave a vacuum that will almost inevitably be filled by another organisation or group lying about the dangers of vaccines, but that replacement group will be working in an environment much more hostile and aware than that which allowed the AVN to flourish and endanger children for so many years.

Dear Ms Dorey and Mr Beattie,

Congratulations. The Australian Vaccination Network won an Encouragement Award in the 2013 Millenium Awards presented by The Millenium Project. This makes the third time the AVN has appeared in the winners' list. Hopefully it will be the last. The award citation read:

[see above]

You can see the other award winners at https://ratbags.com/rsoles/history/2013/2013awards.htm

The AVN has a mailing list at https://groups.yahoo.com/group/AVN/, but they are so ashamed of their activities that they won't let me join the list. In fact, I have been banned. You can see the full story of the banning by clicking here.

Banned from a mailing list!

Here is a rather unambiguous statement about vaccines. It was made on December 17, 2008, by Meryl Dorey, AVN president, on the AVN's mailing list. Remember that these people claim to only want vaccines to be safe and for parents to make informed choices.

There will come a time – I pray to God that it will happen in my lifetime – when those who have pushed vaccines upon innocent, helpless babies – doctors, pharmaceutical companies, government officials – will be proven to have lied and cheated these instruments of death into our children's bloodstream. When that occurs, the outcry will be heard around the world and there will not be enough hiding places on the globe for these murderers to hide or enough money to pay for compensation. Of course, it will be too late for the babies, like this poor child, to be saved. But we will be able to take satisfaction from the fact that never again will anyone have to be pushed to poison their child because for once and for all, it will be known as poison and we will all wonder how it was we fell for the vaccine lie for as long as we did.

When that time comes, will you be able to say that you did everything in your power to help bring the truth out? Support your local pro- vaccination choice organisation, speak to friends and family about these tragedies and never, ever stay quiet about the dangers of vaccination. Those of us who know owe it to others to speak our truth.

All the best,
Meryl

When anti-vaccination liars go mad 1 (27/4/2019)
Some people will believe anything if it supports their insane agenda. A satirical web site publishes a joke about how the authorities are going to use dart guns to vaccinate children and it gets lapped up by people who don't understand the joke because it's just the sort of nonsense they believe. Strangely, this was so transparent that even some of the craziest anti-vaxxers were a bit skeptical. But only a bit. Can't have too much (any?) dissent in the ranks, you know.

When anti-vaccination liars go mad 2 (27/4/2019)
With measles breaking out all over the place, President Trump has come down in support of vaccination. While this might be the only sane utterance to come out of Trump's mouth since 1963 it has been jumped on by the anti-vaxxers. Focus has been placed on his use of the word "shot". As it is singular it can only be a code for a gunshot, and shows that Trump is only saying this because he is afraid of being assassinated by Big Pharma and its allies.

How strange and terrifying it must be to live in the parallel universe inhabited by anti-vaccination liars and other conspiracists, where nothing is as it seems and everything must be feared.

A free video you can pay for. Or a paid video for free. You choose. (29/6/2019)
The woefully still existing Australian Vaccine Risks Network (the latest name) is planning on hosting a film night. The cost of entry is about $17 and you will get to see Robert F Kennedy tell lies, sorry, reveal the truth about the HPV vaccine. To save you money, here is the film for free. I make no apology for the sound quality, but I do like the way that in the introduction there is mention of two articles that Kennedy wrote for Rolling Stone and Salon (actually one article published twice). What the speaker conveniently forgot to mention is that both publications withdrew the article because the number of lies in it reflected badly on their journalistic integrity and reputations.

Public warning posters 1918 (left), 1939 (centre) and 1941 (right). Photos: Wikimedia Commons

Stop it! Please! (13/7/2019)
Just when we thought that the media had finally become aware of the problem of false balance (where both sides of every story must be presented even if one of them is nonsense) my Facebook feed and email inbox caught fire with a perfect example. A quite reasonable article in a small-circulation local paper promoted vaccination under the headline "Just get the jab". Everything was going well until the following paragraphs appeared:

Founder of the Australian Vaccination-risks Network, Meryl Dorey disagrees with NSW Health's efforts and believes that flu vaccinations are both ineffective and "reactive". Ms Dorey referenced the 2009 case of Saba Button, a Western Australian child who successfully sued the state government after becoming severely disabled from receiving a flu jab.

"The flu vaccine has been used since the late 1970's and since that time it has been shown to not only be incredibly ineffective but also incredibly reactive," she said. "In 2009 an experimental flu vaccine was pushed by the government in Western Australia, New South Wales and Victoria in the lead-up to the so-called swine flu epidemic, which never occurred. One child sued the government successfully because she is now permanently disabled as a result of the flu vaccine.

"When people vaccinate, they do so because they think that the vaccine is going to prevent a disease and keep them healthy. The flu vaccine has shown that it does not prevent flu, in fact flu like symptoms are one of the most common side-effects reported after the vaccine and it doesn't keep you healthy because it can cause life-long disability and even death."

What Ms Dorey forgot to mention (and I know she forgot because she knows the truth) is that immediately following the Saba Button tragedy the vaccination schedule for young children was changed and procedures were put in place to ensure that safety was increased. It was taken very seriously indeed by the sane people who support vaccination. She also "forgot" it when she ambushed me with Saba's story in a radio interview which was about a totally different matter. But we all know what will happen if Meryl Dorey ever tells a truth about any vaccine.

Hypocrisy 1 (5/10/2019)
Meryl Dorey, once president of the Australian Vaccination Network but now just the puppet master behind the curtain, decided to have a go at people who claim that professional anti-vaccination liars are in it for the money.

The little fact that the AVN has collected about $2 million over the years to pay for overseas trips and other essential activities related to lying about vaccines seems to have slipped her mind (I use the word "mind" loosely here). That figure is what people were able to ascertain from the annual reports submitted (usually very late) to the government body charged with the oversight of non-profit associations. More has come in since a change in the law has meant that only income over $250,000 a year has to be declared in any detail but we will never know how much.

To show another example of her hypocrisy, here's an email from 1999 posted to the AVN's mailing list (from which I was banned).

To: <AVN@onelist.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 05:53:46 +1000
From: "Meryl Dorey"
Subject: RE: Anti-vaccination Liars webpage

You're right Heidi (and I love the name of the page – vaxquax :-) Not only that, but he has given me the links to a lot of pro-choice sites that are missing on the AVN web site so he's done my research for me. I am very proud that the AVN site is at the top – we must be doing something right (of course, it's alphabetical too ;-).

Thanks for pointing this site out Jan – I don't really think there is much point in corresponding with the person who has done this – they are on somebody's payroll (or payrolls) – but we are in very good company and like Heidi says – anyone who goes to this page will get some great resources to choose from for information.

Take care,
Meryl

There is reason to believe that this is the first detected example of the Pharma Shill Gambit in the wild. So it's perfectly acceptable to accuse me of being "on somebody's payroll (or payrolls)" without any evidence but evidence of a lot of income can be ignored when it applies to her and her cohort of liars.

Two million dollars and counting but they "don't make a cent". Actually I suppose that last statement is true, because the make a lot more than "a" cent.

Hypocrisy 2 (5/10/2019)
According to Wikipedia, Dr Richard Pan is a Democratic California state senator representing California's 6th Senate district. He is also a practicing pediatrician. Prior to being elected to the State Senate in 2014, he was a member of the California State Assembly. Dr Pan was born to immigrant parents from Taiwan.

Dr Pan is a target of hatred by anti-vaccination liars because he initiated and pushed through legislation limiting the ability of parents to lie in order to avoid having their children vaccinated. As anyone who has observed the liar species knows, anyone who opposes them must be vilified, demonised and generally abused. Here's something Meryl Dorey thought was an appropriate comment to make about Dr Pan.

And did her followers criticise her for this or think that suggesting murder was going a bit far? Don't be silly.

I should point out that even as an atheist I'm offended by this appropriation of Jesus to the anti-vaccination agenda, but since when have principles or sensitivity to the thoughts and beliefs of others ever mattered to this vile collection of creatures? The end always justifies the means. As she is supposedly a practising member of the Jewish faith, I wonder if Ms Dorey might like to discuss the image and its connotation with her Rabbi. But what would he know anyway? He probably allows his children to be vaccinated.

And where does the real hypocrisy come in? Dorey seems to think it's acceptable to threaten a vaccine proponent with death but she wasted a year of my time and wreaked enormous and permanent damage to my personal and family life because I told her to leave my family out of her campaign against me and she thought this threat was enough to involve the courts.

I never use bad language on the front page of this site so I will just have to ask someone else to tell Meryl Dorey to fuck off whenever she's ready.

And theft (5/10/2019)
Meryl Dorey has been producing series of videos using the title "Under The Wire". These videos aren't at YouTube but are hosted on a site owned by the disgusting Mike Adams of Natural News infamy (you know those old clichés about being known by the company you keep and lying down with flea-ridden dogs?). Sadly for her (but a cause of amusement to the rest of us) not enough people have been clicking on the "Play now" links and Adams threatened to remove the series, but now everything seems to be back in line and the videos can stay. (I helped by starting to view one. I was counted even though I stopped watching after a few seconds. I'd just had lunch and didn't want to regurgitate my sandwiches over the keyboard, although I do keep a spare keyboard handy following earlier experiences.)

Here is the image used to promote the video series. As Ms Dorey has form for stealing other people's work I thought I'd see who actually owned it. (I once tipped Dorey into Getty Images for using one of their pictures without the required accreditation, and the AVN was caught stealing for profit in 2010.)

The image was tracked down to a photograph collection made by Patrick Hendry, so I wrote to him.

I thought that you might like to know that a group of anti-vaccination liars are using what looks like one of your photos as the masthead for a series of videos. I assume they haven't asked permission. I know that I had to report the same people for using a copyrighted photo from Getty Images once before so they have form.

He replied:

Ugh, yeah that's one of the down sides of free photography. Unfortunately they can use this all they want. The only way I can pull images down is if they're adding them to products for sale. I cannot do much about this one.

Thanks for the heads up.

Mr Hendry was caught in that same dilemma that faces anyone who puts material up on the web. There's not a lot you can do without a lot of expense. All my stuff is copyrighted with Creative Commons but if some low life steals it all I can really do is publicise the theft. Stealers still gonna steal.

And another scam continues on its merry way (12/10/2019)
The frequently renamed Australian Vaccination-risks Network is at it again (they seem to change names about as often as they pretend to change presidents). They are holding another event where people are expected to pay to see a liar lying in a video that can be seen for free, and again they are hiding the venue until the last minute. The purported reason for the secrecy is to prevent harassment and disruption from pro-vaccine people, but the real reason is to stop sane people notifying the venue of the real nature of the event. When they were promoting another pay-to-see-a-YouTube-video they managed to lie their way into schools and public halls, seriously upsetting people like headmasters and council officials. But lying is what liars do.

The event was announced on a community Facebook page. so I did the Kind and Gentle thing and posted this comment.

And you can see it for free too if you have a spare hour to waste and a bucket handy to catch the vomit (and are prepared to risk damage to your esophagus from all that acid coming up). Just go here.

Something you might not know (12/10/2019)
Did you know that October is not only Breast Cancer Awareness Month (something ridiculed by believers in magic "medicine") but it's also "Vaccine Injury Awareness month in honour of lives taken or forever altered by vaccination"?

Now out here in the real world we know that severe reactions to vaccines are so rare that when they happen they make big news. There have been no deaths caused by vaccines in Australia for as long as anyone can remember, and the only recent serious reaction was from a young child who was mistakenly given an adult vaccine. The rules about which vaccines could be given to which children were strengthened and the family received much sympathy and even some monetary compensation.

Of course none of this matters to those evil creatures who want to see medieval diseases return and harm or kill children (and by opposition to HPV and flu vaccines cause harm to adults as well). As to them the end (more dead and diseased children) justifies the means (lying as if there's no tomorrow) it's business as usual for the merchants of death. Apparently there will be vigils across Australia to remind people about these non-existent vaccine injuries, and no doubt there will be collection tins rattled to raise some cash. You can see the list of events here.

I must say though that like Homeopathy Awareness Week where people can be made aware of the fraud of selling magic water or Subluxation Awareness Month when people can be made aware of the dangers of letting chiropractors anywhere near their backs, Vaccine Injury Awareness Month could be useful to educate the public about how such injuries are really nothing to worry about and therefore get hesitant parents to do the right thing and have their children protected from diseases.

She won't stop, will she? (7/12/2019)
I won't apologise for harping on about this harpy because she epitomises why this site exists. She lies without remorse and her activities present a danger to the public. This is Meryl Dorey, occasional President of the Australian Vaccination-[something or other] Network, someone who blocks anyone on Twitter or Facebook who might disagree with her, removes any critics from mailing lists she manages, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get a court to censor me and most recently refused me entry to an event to which the media were offered a general invitation.

They just can't help themselves (7/12/2019)
The grand tour of the country getting people to pay to be lied to about vaccines has started. Vaxxed 2 is appearing in secret theatres and halls all around the place, with venue operators being lied to about what is going to be exhibited, locations only being announced immediately beforehand and the media being invited and then excluded if the organisers don't like the journalists. A friend of mine managed to get into one showing and we will hear all about it as soon as she gets out of therapy.

Another friend lives in the area of Australia with the lowest levels of childhood vaccination in the country so she had no trouble picking up one of the promotion pamphlets.

Some people have been laughing at the misspelling of the word "Australian" but I have pointed out that a deliberate error is often introduced into anti-vaccination literature just to make sure that it contains at least some falsehood. Total truth is anathema to the vultures.

And the 2019 Millenium Award for Quote of the Year goes to:

Meryl Dorey, lying through her teeth.

This is Meryl Dorey, occasional President of the Australian Vaccination-[something or other] Network, someone who blocks anyone on Twitter or Facebook who might disagree with her, removes any critics from mailing lists she manages, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get a court to censor me and most recently refused me entry to an event to which the media were offered a general invitation.

And one more thing: Freedom of speech does not exist unless we support those we disagree with in expressing their opinions too. Allowing those you agree with to speak and blocking those who you think are wrong is censorship. Plain and simple.

Who are you, who who who who? I really want to know. (29/2/2020)
On January 18 this year the Australian Vaccination-[this week's word] Network issued a media release misrepresenting a vaccine conference organised by the World Health Organization.

The headline on the release was "World Health Organization Questions Vaccine Safety" and the first paragraph said:

"In Medical school, you' re lucky if you have a half day on vaccines, never mind keeping up to date with all of it." – Prof Heidi Larson, PhD. Director Vaccine Confidence Project

I've marked the words with the Yellow Marker of Lying because, well, they are lies. I did a bit of research into the Vaccine Confidence Project and to my amazement it seems to have received support from WHO, although the project seems to be focused on hesitancy and rumour rather than addressing the real problem of anti-vaccination liars lying about vaccines. Prof Larson is an anthropologist who seems to have managed to attach herself to various hospitals, although I have reason to believe that it would be possible to obtain a doctorate in anthropology without ever setting foot inside a medical school. She has attached herself to legitimate vaccine promotion organisations such as GAVI, but doing something to do with communication (anthropology degrees are big on that) rather than anything scientific. I have had some experience with other "researchers" who have a lot to say about rumours, hesitancy and communication and how anti-vaccination liars should be shown some respect so I'm not about to start thinking that the Vaccine Confidence Project is doing anything more than providing legitimacy and comfort to the opposition. Why else would the AVN quote her in a media release? I should point out that in undergraduate anthropology school you are lucky if you have a half day on the evolution of cultural food taboos.

And what did the WHO have to say about the media release?

Click on the image to see the full letter, including an image of the original media release.

"[G]ives the misleading impression that it is an official press release of the Organization". The cynic in me suggests that this impression was not accidental. Being misleading is what the AVN is all about.

I do us all a favour. Or maybe not. (28/3/2020)
In November last year I mentioned that the amount of pollution in the world was about to increase with the release of a film called "Vaxxed II", a sequel to a film released in 2016 which caused demand for anti-emetic medications to surge so badly that patients on chemotherapy were severely disadvantaged and for some manufacturers of Ipecac syrup to file for bankruptcy.

The good news is that the sequel is now available on DVD and will be on sale through the Australian Vaccination-[this week's lie] Network on Monday, April 6. The even better news is that you don't have to waste money, only time, because I have magnanimously made the film available for free. The usual disclaimers apply – wear waterproof clothing and cover your furniture and carpets with plastic sheeting before sitting down to watch. Vomit stains are difficult to get out of some fabrics. (You could take your laptop out into the yard where you could hose the vomit off your lawn, but the retching noises might alarm the neighbours.)

But wait, there's more! (28/3/2020)
Not content with just threatening everyone with damage to the esophagus caused by explosive gastric reflux, Meryl Dorey of the AV-[xxx]N is of course warning about overreaction to the coronavirus epidemic. (She is also an AIDS denier, but that's no surprise either.) Here she is on Twitter setting someone straight. Why should someone calling themselves a "living kidney donor" be worried about the "common bloody cold"?

Ms Dorey has also issued a newsletter warning of the coming apocalypse. Not the disease apocalypse, of course, but the imminent introduction of mandatory vaccination for everyone. Here is something by artist Albrecht Dürer predicting the arrival of the flu vaccine in Australia in the next few weeks.

If you have recovered from watching the awful video, you can go here for more scary scaremongering.

It's inexorable, like a glacier of frozen sewage (4/4/2020)
One of our old friends here, Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination- (lies,lies,lies) Network, has been as happy as a pig in excrement about the COVID-19 outbreak. It has given her the opportunity to declare that it's "just a bloody cold", that it is killing fewer people than the 1918 flu epidemic so why worry, that viruses don't really exist and if they did they would be harmless (she forgets this mantra when telling us how bad the flu is in comparison, but consistency of thinking is never a strong attribute of medicine deniers), and her latest trick is to ask her followers to break quarantine and the rules about non-essential travel by going into hospital emergency departments and taking photos of the waiting patients. It is true that the load on EDs is down a bit, because people are avoiding going there for a very good reason (or without a very good reason). My GP's waiting room has been far less busy than usual, but this is probably because, like hospitals, patients are being triaged over the phone or before they come in the door. I had my semiannual diabetes care plan meeting this week, but it was done with me in my home and the GP and diabetes educator in their offices at the medical centre, because that's what phones are for. They are not for taking photos in hospitals to try to prove that the current pandemic is a hoax.

I saw someone unkindly suggest that Ms Dorey might change her mind if she caught a dose of this "bloody cold" but I would prefer that she came to her senses before that, even if such return to sanity is unliklely.

Ms Dorey was very unhappy with a newspaper story about this and tried denying that she had suggested that her followers do anything. This is consistent with her asking her followers to contact my family and then asking a court to place a restraining order on me for saying that they should not do that. If she stopped being a hypocrite she might have no personality left.

Speaking of which ... (23/5/2020)
At about the same time as the registered mail campaign was getting off the ground, Meryl Dorey of the AVN was trying to drum up support for her own harassment letter writing project. Hers was specifically aimed at the flu vaccine and wasn't intended to harass inform politicians but instead to increase the death rate from flu in aged care and retirement homes. At one time anti-vaccination liars spent their time just trying to kill young children. When the HPV vaccine became available they turned their attentions to young women and it now seems that they want more old people to die as well. I suppose this is consistent and non-discriminatory. Why should kids have all the fun and the funerals when the load can be spread across all age groups?

I still get asked why I have such contempt for these vile creatures. Why is it not obvious?

You can read this disgusting appeal to depravity here. I could say "Enjoy" but instead I'll say "Puke".

But this isn't a joke! (27/6/2020)
As soon as we recover from the COVID-19 crisis, another threat to public health is set to emerge. The perpetually broke and always asking for survival money Australian Vaccination-[lie, lie, lie] Network has managed to find enough money behind the lounge cushions and in the car's ashtray to buy and paint a bus which will be touring the country spreading lies about vaccines. It doesn't look like a cheap second-hand bus and the signwriting wouldn't have come cheap.

Here's another look at the horror.

The sign on the side says "The People's Truth", but like almost all web sites which have "truth" in the domain name, there will be precious little truth dispensed by the bus. The AVN claim that a very large number of parents with vaccine-damaged children have responded to a survey saying they want to meet the bus and sign it, but as any claim from the AVN needs to be taken with a bulk ore carrier of salt I'm assuming that it's a lie. (I tried to register my interest but I was blocked from responding. How strange. Not.)

Part of the Procession of Perfidy will be to arrange screenings of the "documentaries" Vaxxed and Vaxxed II. No doubt there will be a nominal fee for being exposed to these excrescences, even though they can bee seen for free here and here.

I look forward to the bus arriving in a town near me. A few years ago someone suggested vandalising the Masonic Temple in my town in case I was a Mason (I'm not), so maybe I could return the favour by pasting copies of the Health Care Complaints Commission's public warning about the AVN on the bus. After signing my name of course.

The real beauty of this – my friend who goes by the name of Reasonable Hank (and who is coincidentally named Peter) is not me and neither is the Ken mentioned. I have met them both. The fact that we are conflated in the decayed "minds" of anti-vaccination liars is a testament to their investigative powers.

The great outchucking! (25/7/2020)
When I go to rallies at Bulahdelah I like to camp for free at the Golf Club but this year all free camping in the area was banned by the local Council because of the COVID19 scare, so I had to pay to stay at the Big4 park, part of a chain of similarly-named caravan and camping parks across the country. It was a bit expensive for a tent site, but the facilities were excellent. You might wonder why my travel arrangements should be of interest here, but the Big4 park at Caloundra in Queensland hit the news during the week.

The Vaxxed II Pox Bus turned up a unannounced at Caloundra, apparently sneaking in while the management were looking elsewhere. As soon as it was noticed the occupants were ordered to leave the park immediately if not sooner.

Reaction has been as would be expected. Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination-(this week's lies) Network immediately summoned the flying monkeys

The park's Facebook page was besieged by screeching anti-vaxxers and suggestions were made that bad reviews should be lodged at TripAdvisor and other reference sites. Legal advice was sought and delivered (before the bus left the park apparently, so we can take this with a bushel of salt – liars gotta lie). Comments about the park's management and their ancestry were made and anyone sane who dared to join the conversation to point out that a private organisation has every right to refuse entry to their property to anyone was abused, told they didn't care about dead and injured children, called "fucking arseholes" and some even more offensive terms, and generally shown all the politeness that anti-vaccination liars demand from the rest of us.

I happen to like camping as my travel accommodation, and despite the expense I'll try to stay at Big4 parks as often as I can in the future. Anyone who tells anti-vaccination liars to copulate elsewhere gets my full support.

Meryl's Mishmash of Madness (8/8/2020)
If you ever wonder why I have such absolute contempt for anti-vaccination liars, consider this piece of advice from the spokesthing for the Australian Vaccination-[can't stop lying] Network. Remember that this is the woman who wasted a year of my life trying to get a court to silence my freedom of speech. I would never suggest that Ms Dorey be silenced but I reserve the right to ridicule her words and actions at any and every opportunity.

When some people posted this image to Facebook they blanked out Ms Dorey's name. They did this because she (a strong proponent of freedom of speech) once went on a campaign of having people's Facebook accounts suspended (and even cancelled) for quoting names. The next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary will have a picture of Ms Dorey next to the headword "hypocrite". I do not block names here – you say it, you own it.

The Bus of Pestilence approaches (3/10/2020)
Now that COVID-19 restrictions on travel between states are being relaxed, plans are afoot to bring the Vaxxed II bus on a tour of my state, New South Wales. Locations have been announced where the bus will appear across the state, although unfortunately none of the places are near enough to me for me to either turn up and make a nuisance of myself or to campaign to keep the bus away. (The Council in the Local Government Area adjoining my local Council area has already announced that the bus is not welcome and will be refused entry to any Council owned or operated facilities,)

Of course a campaign like this needs lots of people to work on it to make it successful, and Meryl Dorey, occasional President of the Australian Vaccination-(we can't stop lying) Network is calling for volunteers. They have to be volunteers, of course, because there is no money left over after buying and painting the bus to pay people to sit there all day and tell lies. I was offered the opportunity to volunteer, but the locations listed so far are a very long way from where I live.

In accordance with the request at the bottom of the message, I am forwarding this to you all privatly (sic). Don't spread the word around unless it's to people you know or who might be interested. If you live in or near Grafton, Coffs Harbour or Port Macquarie you can privatly (sic) share it with your local Councils.

Problems for the Pox, Pestilence and Plague Bus (31/10/2020)
The Vaxxed II bus finally started its New South Wales tour, giving parents the opportunity to publicly demonstrate their contempt for their children by pointing to them and saying they are damaged and a disappointment. Most of us would not do that to our kids, but most of us aren't anti-vaccination liars. Horror stories of vaccine damage are being collected and videos made of the folks claiming to have been affected.

The best part, however, has been the reaction of local government bodies. Newcastle City Council refused to allow the bus to be parked on any council property, and when it managed to find a spot near a beach Council rangers made it move every hour (and even issued some fines for illegal parking). It finally ended up on a privately owned block of land which was nowhere near where anybody might go, so the damage was minimised. Blue Mountains Council reiterated it's ban on the use of council facilities, but we will have to wait until early December to see if the bus turns up at Katoomba. As this seems to be the closest it might get to my place, I might just have to drive down the mountain and make a nuisance of myself if the need arises.

Sydney City Council passed a unanimous resolution saying that the bus could stay well away, and this prompted the following open letter from Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination-[Truth? What's truth?] Network. As is tradition, I have applied the Yellow Marker of Lying to the parts of it which depart somewhat from the truth.

This letter has been sent to all members of the Sydney City Council.

Open letter to Sydney City Councillors

RE: Decision to ban the Vaxxed Bus

On Monday the 26th of October the Sydney City Council unanimously passed a motion that purported to ban a bus tour by the "Anti-Vaccination-Risks Network". The motion was brought forward by Councillor Linda Scott. The team at the Australian Vaccination-risks Network were very surprised by this action. Our organisation was not contacted in any way by the Sydney City council and we were shocked that such a large professional council were so inept that they didn't even have the correct name of our organisation on the motion listed in the agenda.

Had the council contacted us they would have been made aware that the purpose of the bus tour is to document the stories of those families whose lives have been impacted by vaccine injury or death. The motion that was voted on did not mention the nature of the bus tour that is being undertaken, nor did the seven-minute discussion of the motion.

Sydney City Council prides itself on being an inclusive city. It is now obvious that the honour of inclusivity is only for those residents who don't talk about vaccine injury. It is a disgrace that councillors who claim to want equality and freedom put limits on those values when it comes to those who have been injured by a medical procedure.

We wonder what research and simple due diligence Councillor Scott undertook prior to introducing the motion if she was unaware of even the most basic facts? Councillor Scott's claims that the AVN is a conspiracy theorist network could be viewed as defamatory, malicious and potentially libellous. There is no basis in law to block the free movement of any person, simply on the grounds of personal belief and the reasons provided for these beliefs are unsubstantiated. This motion is clearly a bullying tactic aimed to censor the voices of the most marginalised members of society.

We would like to reiterate what the bus tour is about. We are here to listen to families and hear their stories and let their voices be heard. This is what that the council and government at all levels should be doing. The documentary that this bus represents is equal in this content and intent. It saddens us that we even have to do the work of supporting these families. If only Ms Scott and her colleagues could step up and provide the much-needed support to their constituents and community. It is a sad inditement on our society that this bus is even necessary. We will keep doing this much needed work until families are given the support and acknowledgment that they deserve.

Councillor Scott's privilege is that she can discuss her perspective, unchallenged and then use her position in Council as a means to shut down discussion of injuries sustained from vaccines, which is clearly discriminatory. We would like to point out that Councillors are not protected from liability.

The AVN was denied the right to representation at the council meeting. To rectify this, we would like to invite the Sydney City Council to hold a public debate on the issue of vaccination. The Council seems to truly feel that the scientific evidence proving vaccination safety and efficacy is overwhelming. We would welcome the opportunity for them to present their case in a public forum. Our representatives are more than happy to present the scientific information that we feel is very important for the public to be made aware of.

As the council has acknowledged, the vaccine choice movement is growing rapidly. We cannot imagine why such a debate would be declined in light of the views held by the Sydney City Council. A debate should be seen as the perfect opportunity to prove the Council's claims once and for all, in the name of pure scientific enquiry and in the real public interest. Failure to accept this opportunity will be seen as an inability to meet this challenge.

One of Ms Dorey's perennial tactics is to offer to debate people over the safety and efficacy of vaccines. When anyone is foolish or misinformed enough to attempt to do this they soon find out that she is not interested in any debate at all and will just stand there and tell lies. An example of this happened at the Woodford Folk Festival in 2011, where she came to a "debate" with a PowerPoint slideshow indicating that she had no intention of responding to what an expert had to say or even listening to it. I had warned the other speaker beforehand, but he still expected that the normal rules of civilised debate would apply.

Predictably, Ms Dorey had a public whinge and meltdown about the horror of all this. If you have a spare 23 minutes and 40 seconds you might like to waste it listening to her raving about a "Hill to die on". I'm all in favour of anti-vaccination liars dying out. I just wish they'd get on with it. This is not a death threat!

The slider has been marked yellow for obvious reasons.

My friend Paul Gallagher had a lot more to say about this that I have time for, so you should go here and read his thoughts. It will be time much better spent than listening to Ms Dorey complaining about her disagreement with reality and truth.

Oh, noes!!! AVN does a flight to fantasy. (16/1/2021)
Free speech champion, Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination-[lies, lies, lies] Network, has announced that following some crackdowns by various social media sites, the AV-[fu]N is leaving Facebook and heading for the cesspits occupied by other examples of human filth. Of course, Ms Dorey's total commitment to free speech has seen her block me from Facebook pages, remove me from mailing lists, block me on Twitter and spend a year trying to get a court to remove my freedom of speech but if you took away her hypocrisy there would be a massive hole in her personality.

You can read the whole announcement by clicking on the picture over there on the right, but I thought I would quote a couple of pieces of it.

The AVN Committee has made the decision not to remain on Facebook where we are already shadow-banned and suppressed for sharing factual, referenced information on the harms and ineffectiveness inherent in our one-size-fits-all vaccination program. We cannot support a platform that is so blatant about silencing us and so many others.

But later

We will, however, no longer be responding to any messages sent to the FaceBook page nor will we be replying to comments except for the rare FaceBook Lives we put up and of course, Under the Wire every Saturday morning at 10 AM AEST

So they are leaving, except when they are not leaving. To misquote Paul Simon "I am leaving, I am leaving but the liar still remains".

Maybe I should quote that first paragraph again, but this time apply The Yellow Marker of Lying.

Ms Dorey and her ilk just can't help themselves. There is a theory that they have to include lies in everything they say just to meet the daily quota.

And some good news! (23/1/2021)
In just the three months between September and December 2020 the wide-ranging influence of the anti-vaccination liar movement was highlighted. In fact, if they were even more influential Australia might increase its lead over all the other countries as the place with the highest level of childhood vaccinations in the world.

I expect that the next newsletter from the Australian Vaccination-[gotta lie] Network will recognise this achievement and congratulate the health authorities on the success of the vaccination programs. And if they do, air traffic controllers everywhere will be glad that the COVID19 epidemic has severely reduced the number of planes that would have to avoid the flying pigs. They will, of course, point out that vaccination and immunisation aren't the same thing, because the first is useless and dangerous and can't cause the second. But lying and misrepresenting science is what they do for a living.

Censorship!!! Cry me a river. (6/2/2021)
The latest newsletter from the Australian Vaccination-[bullshit and lies] Network contains a plea to watch a video that is being censored and banned everywhere. Watch it before it's too late. Oh, and don't forget to watch it in a manner which makes money for the AV-[b&l]N. Or you can watch the excrescence here and not have to pay anyone anything. It's free and cheap at half the price.

I really like the way that a lawyer (indicated by the "Esq" postnominal) is a "General Council". The rest of the world would probably say "General Counsel", but I have often pointed out that any publication from anti-vaccination liars must contain at least one inaccuracy just in case the number of lies doesn't get to the quota required.

Those polite, courteous and friendly anti-vaccination liars (27/2/2021)
My online journalist friend Jane Hansen put together a TV special about the anti-vaccination movement in Australia. With the imminent arrival of COVID-19 vaccines the torrent of lies and misinformation has assumed tsunami proportions so it was a suitable time to expose the liars for the liars they are. Here is the trailer for the show. (You can see the full program here.)

It would have been obvious to any thinking person that the liar community would not take this well, and it resulted in an immediate call from Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination[Lie of the Week) Network to release the flying monkeys to attack and harass Ms Hansen. Jane temporarily closed her Facebook page, but that didn't stop the comments on the TV station's web site and Facebook page or on venues and forums controlled by anti-vaxxers.

It's a pity tossing a bucket of water on Ms Dorey doesn't make her melt into a puddle of scum.
Not a death threat!

There was a video released as a rebuttal. The content was predictable.

But I've saved the best for last. Here is a comment addressed directly to Jane Hansen.

Never forget that Meryl Dorey thought that my asking her to leave my family alone was sufficiently threatening to waste more than a year of a court's and my time, but she finds this sort of thing acceptable. After all, the end (lots of corpses from preventable diseases) justifies the means (lying and harassment).

There is a saying "beneath contempt". These creatures are so far beneath contempt that a new definition of "nadir" is required. They are lower than that. And if they feel offended by what I have to say about them, then I can only respond with an image that Meryl Dorey offered to the court as evidence of my threatening behaviour.

Or put more crudely and forcibly -

Who says the news is always bad? (4/3/2021)

I was so distressed by this news from the Australian Vaccination-[Liars'R'Us] Network that I had to make a quick trip to the pharmacist for a Ventolin puffer in case laughter triggered an asthma attack. I haven't laughed so much since I heard that Mr William P O'Neill had done the world a favour by dying. (Meryl Dorey once allowed Mr O'Neill to tell lies about me on a forum she controlled and one of her best friends promulgated a piece of his fiction, so there is a connection.)

Other people threaten the government too (26/6/2021)
This popped up to the top of the septic tank. The Australian Vaccination-(we tell lies) Network is leading the push to sue the government for vaccinating people. The threat is written in a much less spittle-flecked fashion than the one above but is no less crazy and no more likely to have any effect. And these people keep saying that they are not opposed to vaccines.

Click on the image to see the full statement.

I'm not about to give them any search engine clicks so the link goes to a PDF file on this site. There is a non-working link in the file which says "Click here to read more" and it goes to a page on the AVN's web site where you can see the sort of comments that the idiocy attracts. So click here to read more.

Vileness update (26/6/2021)
And if you are ever tempted to think that Meryl Dorey from the AVN has any principles that would be recognised by someone with basic human understanding, here she is wanting members of Australia's indigenous population to die. She simply doesn't care who she offends or endangers with her anti-vaccination lies and rhetoric. The fact that she uses a picture of Donald Trump as her Twitter avatar should tell you all you need to know.

I inform the authorities (26/6/2021)
In June 2020, when the COVID-19 scare was raging, anti-vaccination liars decided that it was an appropriate time to tour around in a bus promoting their lies. The bus didn't get too close to my place (a neighboring Council banned them from parking it anywhere in their area) so I didn't have to go and be a nuisance.

Now that COVID is back in the news because of a low uptake of vaccination, some scare stories about one of the vaccines and idiots refusing to wear masks or keep their distance from other people, the bus is back on tour. The closest the thing is planned to be near me is the city of Orange (about 100km from my place), so I thought I would notify Orange City Council. I was restrained in my comments, as usual, but if the bus manages to get there so will I.

Impending threat to public safety

On July 22 a bus is scheduled to appear in Orange which has the sole purpose of spreading lies about the almost non-existent dangers of vaccination in order to deter people from doing the right thing. It is a project of the Australian Vaccination-risks Network, an organisation devoted to the elimination of vaccination against any disease. The spokeswoman for the AVN is Meryl Dorey who has gone on record as denying the existence of AIDS as well as any other diseases. She is of course currently denying any threat from COVID-19 and opposes the use of masks as well as spreading the usual lies about how dangerous the vaccines are.

The name "Vaxxed" on the bus comes from an execrable movie that was released in 2016. It was produced by discredited doctor Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree, famous for wearing a yellow star to imply that vaccine opponents are analogous to Jews in Germany in the 1940s.

The times and location of the bus will only be announced shortly before people can turn up. This is the normal practice so that venue and locations can't be warned in advance. On the last tour of the bus they did such things as lie to a school about the purpose of the bus and get themselves thrown out of a caravan park.

I request that the Council does everything it its power to stop this threat to public safety from doing its business anywhere in Orange.

A history of my interactions with the AVN can be found at https://ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/avn.htm

In 2011 and then again in 2014 the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission issued public warnings against the AVN – https://ratbags.com/rsoles/ni/history/14/0405avn_warning.pdf

A promotion of the bus tour coming to Orange can be found at https://myemail.constantcontact.com/The-Vaxxed-Bus-Down-Under-Tour-of-Regional-NSW---Schedule-Changes.html?soid=1101800214009&aid=V9YgbMqIp7U

Update to the Plague Bus Tour of Death (10/7/2021)
A couple of weeks ago I reported that I had warned a nearby local council about an impending visit by the Vaxxed bus, coming to town to spread lies about vaccines. Well, despite declaring that COVID is a hoax (like all other diseases), the organisers have cancelled the physical tour because of COVID travel restrictions and it will now be done "virtually", whatever that means. The nice thing is that without the tour it will be simply preaching to the choir as they say in Clichéland and people who are not already committed anti-vaxxers won't get to be lied to. Or exposed to clowns religiously avoiding wearing masks like the sane people do.

Creatures from the sewer (13/11/2021)
If you had artist Bruno Camara's imagination, you could come up with this resident of a sewer.

You don't really need imagination, however, because you just need to look at almost any anti-vaccination liar. Here are a couple of examples from Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination-[lie, lie, lie] Network.

From the short-lived and now dead social network Parler. Note the use of Donald Trump's face as an avatar. (At a recent anti-mask protest in Melbourne people were displaying "Trump 2020" flags as if this had anything to do with restrictions to control the COVID pandemic. In Melbourne. In Australia. In 2021.)

And possibly the most offensive and disgusting thing to come out of the anti-vaccination liar cesspit is an attempt to equate measures to control an epidemic with a campaign of genocide.

I've been following the activities of these awful people for many years but even now I can be surprised at the depths of their depravity. They ignore the rules of civilised society and they don't care who they might offend in their relentless campaign to increase the number of deaths from preventable diseases. Dorey once tried to get a court to order me to stop saying things about her that she didn't like, but nothing I ever said about her exposed her venality better than her own actions in equating vaccination to rape and the Holocaust.

A well managed sewer would reject the body of an anti-vaccination liar because it would overload the sewage treatment works like a sudden influx of a million tonnes of shit.

Fun with old friends #2 (15/1/2022)
It would come as no surprise to anyone familiar with this site to hear that Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination-[more dead children] Network has been found to be being less than truthful. You could even say she was lying, although there is some doubt about this because there is a school of thought that says that to be a liar you have to know that what you are saying is not true. My opinion is that she not only knows that what she says is not true but she is what philosopher Gary Hardcastle called a "bullshitter" in that she doesn't care if it is true or not.

Her latest was to claim that 20% of children between 5 and 11 in one state have contemplated suicide, caused by the unnecessary disruption to family life caused by the COVID scare. She of course denies the severity (and even existence) of the disease and is totally opposed to any campaign of vaccination to defeat it.

Someone bothered to check the facts of her claim and to nobody's surprise it was found that she was citing the wrong statistics from the wrong age group. Unfortunately I can't provide a link to the article telling this story or even quote it because of this warning:

All information, text and images included on the AAP Websites is for personal use only and may not be re-written, copied, re-sold or re-distributed, framed, linked, shared onto social media or otherwise used whether for compensation of any kind or not, unless you have the prior written permission of AAP.

One could wonder why they bother writing something if they don't want anyone to read it or talk about it, but I will respect their request for invisibility and totally avoid telling you where you can go to read it.

And speaking of batshit crazy … (22/02/2022)
Our old friend and master of hyperbole, Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination-[mendacity] Network, decided to compare the reaction of the Canadian government to morons blockading the border with the US with terrorist organisation ISIS murdering people. As she has refused to apologise for equating vaccination to rape I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at her latest dive into the cesspit, but I guess I just don't have the imagination to dream up such appalling similes

The protests in Australia generated more bullshit than the effluent sluices on a live cattle export ship, with nonsense increasing on a daily basis. The capital city Canberra has a population of about 400,000 but crowds of protestors were supposedly a million strong. Except that the next day there were two million people in the park. (And yes, Ms Dorey was there with the Vaxxed plague bus. Never miss an opportunity to spread the lies.) Complaints were made that the police closed the toilets and this was the cause of diarrhea and conjunctivitis, not being crowded into a park with a lot of people who deny the existence of germs. There was an outbreak of coughing, sneezing and sore throats probably caused by chemtrails and nothing to do with a horde of unmasked and unwashed people gathering in the middle of a COVID epidemic (mandated mask wearing and vaccinations were the things being protested against). People reported red and sore skin and feelings of being burnt, obviously caused by authorities aiming EMF and sound waves at the crowd and nothing to do with standing in the sun all day without using sunblock (which causes cancer, you know) in a town 567 metres above sea level.

Do you think I'm joking about sunblock causing cancer? I have been informed that as Australia has both the highest usage of sunblock and the highest rate of skin cancers in the world the connection is obvious. To sane people it's the risk of cancer that has us all doing the slip, slop, slap when we go outside but to quackonauts it's the other way around, with Big Pharma getting us to cover ourselves with stuff that makes them rich from chemotherapy drugs. Or something.

One nice thing did come out of the three-times-Woodstock sized protest. Each year there is a motoring festival held in Canberra called Summernats. The protest was almost immediately dubbed "Dumbernats".