Letter to the Editor - Witch-hunt of vaccine safety watchdog

The following letter has been sent to newspapers and magazines across Australia. If you see this letter (or a version of it since the media generally edits anything we write in) in your local paper, could you please write and let me know? Also, if you feel that the coverage of this issue has been grossly unfair, write your own letter to your local newspaper and cc me at meryl@avn.org.au.

The Australian Vaccination Network has been vilified in the media in recent weeks. While it is the media's job to expose wrongdoing when it has been found, it is not their job to act as judge, jury and executioner.

Newspapers and radio stations have been reporting ridiculous lies stating that the AVN believes in reptilian aliens and mind-control chips. They got this misinformation from Mr Ken McLeod, an active member of a group that has set out to either shut our small, volunteer-run organisation down or shut us up in any way they can. That is their agenda. What is the media's excuse?

And while this beat-up has been taking place, 136 of 139 pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing facilities in Australia have failed their TGA audits – yet this hasn’t merited so much as a mention in the press. It seems that drug companies have a privileged position in our society while vaccine safety watchdogs are shut down quicker than you can say ‘Pan Pharmaceuticals!’

The AVN was formed in 1994 due to a lack of information in the community on the downsides of vaccination. We were started by a group of parents whose children had reacted to this medical procedure and the health practitioners who had helped us.

Daily, we provide support and information to parents in Australia and overseas who are seeking medically-based, fully-referenced data on vaccines. Daily, we help parents report their children’s serious and sometimes fatal reactions to the Australian government because their doctors have refused to do so.

Vaccines are not compulsory. It was previously not illegal to criticise vaccines.

The AVN are vaccine whistleblowers and, like all organisations that are perceived to threaten an entrenched status quo, we are now being victimised by a group that openly states their object is to stop us in any way they can. Their tactics include death threats, threats of violence, calling our supporters to threaten them, filing complaints with every government body they can think of and generally inciting fear, hatred and violence towards us in the community – all with the support and cooperation of the government and the media.

That this organisation has used these tactics is shameful and should be taken seriously by the authorities.

That the media and government bodies such as the HCCC have cooperated with them - even sending people who request more information about the current 'investigations' to their website - is criminal.

It is time the Australian people learned the truth about the coordinated attacks on the Australian Vaccination Network by those who want, above all, to stop anyone questioning the safety or effectiveness of vaccines.

I invite everyone who is interested in knowing more about the facts behind these attacks to read the documents that can be found at http://scr.bi/cpfdTe and on our website, www.avn.org.au.

Meryl Dorey

Australian Vaccination Network