A very successful seminar tour of WA

I’m just leaving Cervantes after the last seminar in my 7-seminar series. 7 talks – 4 the same and 3 completely different – in 15 days. It doesn’t sound that hard but I have to tell you, I’m tired!

Geraldton was the perfect place to finish up this West Australian tour though. Nestled into the Coral Coast with a shire that extends way back into the hinterland area to the East (and it is so confusing thinking East for inland and West for the sea), it is a fairly big town with the feeling of a village. Everyone smiles here – everyone is kind. It is really a warm place and I don’t just mean the climate.

Thursday’s talk was no different. We only had a smallish turnout, but everyone was so interested and they didn’t just take in the information from the talk – they shared lots of stories with me of things that are going on in the local hospital and the Geraldton community today.

One woman in the audience is a nurse here and she said that the Hep B vaccine, which is supposed to be given 72 hours of birth, is often given within 10 minutes because it is often more convenient for the staff to administer it with the Vitamin K shot then to come back a few days later and give it separately. Now what difference that makes to the child, I’m not really sure. But it is interesting that the schedule is taken so lightly by practitioners who obviously consider vaccines to be perfectly safe so it wouldn’t matter if a shot were given sooner rather than late

Another woman told me that she had gotten between two cats that were having a fight (never a good idea) and had been pretty badly scratched up. She went to the hospital and was offered a tetanus vaccine. She was told that she had the choice of a tetanus and diphtheria shot (ADT) or a tetanus and whooping cough shot (there is no such thing). I told her that there is no shot that has just tetanus and whooping cough in it – there is only Boosterix which has tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough together but she insisted that those were the two options she was offered. Whether she misunderstood what she had been offered or the staff member had no idea what was in the vaccine, I’m not sure. But if she had been misinformed, it would not have been the first (or hundredth) time someone had told me a similar story.

In fact, another woman – a midwife – told me that one of her clients was in her 22nd week of pregnancy and during her routine blood test, it was discovered that her rubella antibody levels were low so her doctor just gave her a rubella vaccine on the spot. First of all, rubells is only a risk for women in their first trimester of pregnancy (the first 12 weeks) so there was no need to panic about rubella levels for someone who was already 22 weeks pregnant. Second, this vaccine has never been tested for safety during pregnancy and except in the case of an emergency, it should not be used at that time. Last, there IS no rubella vaccine in Australia – there hasn’t been for ten years or more since the monovalent rublla vaccine, Meruvax, was withdrawn and rubella is now only available as part of the combined MMR shot. This woman was vaccinated without being given any of this information and was told outright that she was getting a monovalent vaccine when in fact, she received a three-in-one shot!

One woman came to represent another who couldn’t be there. This person received the AH1N1 vaccine 2 years ago. Within days, she was hospitalised with total paralysis and was on a ventilator. She tried to ask the staff if this could be related to the flu vaccine and they all insisted that there was no link. She was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre – a form of paralysis that is listed in the flu package insert (as well as the inserts of many other vaccines ) as being causally linked. This link has been known since 1976 when the flu vaccine was first brought into disrepute. During a  swine flu vaccination campaign in the US, hundreds of people got Guillain-Barre paralysis with more than 25 of them dying from. For staff today to be either so ignorant of this link or, even worse, to lie about it and cover it up, is unforgivable.

This woman spent 6 months in hospital receiving rehabilitation therapy to learn to walk again and to this day, cannot walk without the aid of a cane. She has received no compensation and her case has never been reported.

This is why the information that the AVN gives out is so important – and why so many in the medical community and the government want to make sure that we are silenced. It is not in their best interests for people to be fully informed about the true state of affairs relating to vaccinations. A compliant, ignorant population is what many doctors crave. One that won’t ask too many inconvenient questions and will just follow orders.

We are here to ensure that parents who are seeking for information to balance that given by their doctors on this issue are able to find it. If we were not there – where would parents go?

Oh, on that note – I can let you know that the QEII Centre where this event was held – one of the nicest venues we have ever rented for a talk – was put under pressure by the usual suspects who wanted them to cancel our talk. Thankfully, they believe strongly in the right of people to participate in an open and democratic debate and oppose censorship as well as stating that providing a venue for a seminar does not mean endorsing the subject matter – they are simply providing a venue.

I am very grateful to the Board and management of the QEII and can say that if anyone ever needs a great facility for a meeting or event in Geraldton, they will find one there.

In addition – a simply thank you for Tony and Dineke of the Cervantes Lodge would not nearly be enough to express my gratitude. They not only put me up in a beautiful apartment right off the beach, but they organised venues, advertising and publicity for both the Geraldton and Jurien Bay events.

In the meantime, here’s to friendly places, smiling faces and successful journeys for all.