Letters to Mia Freedman - from the 'other side' of the vaccination debate

As always, you are demonstrating how intelligent, reasonable and well-read those who question vaccination can be. Keep the letters coming - hopefully, we can convince Mia Freedman that thereare actually two sides to the vaccination issue. In addition to sending your letters to the Herald Sun and Courier Mail (and I've since found that this article was published in today's Northern Territory News as well as the Sunday Tasmanian and the Taranaki News), please cc me at meryl@avn.org.au and you can also try mia@mamamia.com.au (I was told this was Mia Freedman's email address but I'm not 100% sure of that one). Oh My! I don’t know where to start after reading Mia Freedman’s column “Delusions can be Contagious” Sunday Mail U magazine18th March 2012.

It seems after reading it that the author seems happy NOT knowing a lot about a LOT of things and happy to keep it that way. NOT to investigate, NOT to enquire, NOT to ask questions, NOT to have a different opinion from mainstream and NOT to think outside the square. In other words-she is happy to believe everything you are told and everything you read in newspapers!! (If we followed advice from our accountant we would be BROKE!!) To be irrational and to think that there is only ONE WAY for everyone to live and think is LUDICROUS! Yes I agree, having access to Google doesn’t make you an expert, but neither does having a degree or qualifications from a University,- nor does being a Multi-billionaire (aka Bill and Melinda Gates) give you ultimate authority on a subject. Having gone through a University Medical faculty and obtaining a degree myself - I was taught a lot about one methodology. Gee my eyes were opened when I 'researched' (– before Google and YouTube were around I might add-) another way of thinking, another methodology of health and an alternative way of raising healthy children without the “science” of vaccination. Science itself is dynamic and constantly changing. Laws of science are not facts and are subject to revision. Science necessitates the use of the scientific method with observation, hypothesis, experimentation and prediction. There is NO conclusive “scientific “evidence that vaccination is the best and only way to protect babies and children from disease contrary to what was said in the article. Wouldn’t a long term study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children and their health be somewhere to start? NO such study has been done. The “herd immunity” argument would require “more space” and more than a “wheelie bin full of rescue remedy” to discuss here. For the author to be “baffled” by people challenging the so called “facts that have been established scientifically, independently and repeatedly over years, even decades “is worrying. Isn’t it our constitutional right as Australians to have freedom in the right to control our own health, and freedom of speech and be able to challenge any ideology? Isn’t that a free society? Would my rights as a parent to choose whether to vaccinate or not- or how to bring my children up, be taken away? Tradition in medicine is often dead wrong and one should not rely on arrogance and false authority. Ignorance of the past will lead to mistakes of the future. (The world was once believed to be flat and don’t start me on out-dated medical procedures such as bleeding.) Your article is more an attack on critical thought and freedom of choice than on anti-vaccination or the AVN, and if we do as you suggest and leave all the research and decisions to the “experts” we will have a “contagious” dumbing down of the masses. I guess we are almost there! JH Gatton

Mia Freedman's piece of journalism  on vaccination in Sundays Sun was most offensive. She spoke with little knowledge of the subject and yet put herself forward as an expert. Does she have the knowledge required to tell parents what they should decide re their children's immunisation ? And how offensive to mention a workmate who chose not to vaccinate his baby  stating that he " left school at 16". Well really, does that make him incapable of making decisions? She should research her subjects before writing so arrogantly about them. And perhaps choose to look at the 'other' side and interview some parents with vaccine damaged children. sincerely, MJ, Kilmore.

Hi Mia, I am writing to you today after I was drawn to your article about vaccination.  But recently we have had, again, a bad experience with your trusty science & I thought you should know how nature and patience and mothering the way it should be, actually works.  Our not quite 2 year old has recently had a nasty growth form on his precious little scalp. We went to the skin 'specialist' who rec we use a very expensive cream OR drug him up, to over 4 times 'what you would normally give him when you go on a plane or long car trip' and your husband & my 2 nurses can hold him down to scrape it off.  There will be lots of screaming and blood but it should do the trick!'!  We just smiled, happy that it wasn't cancer and only a growth that can be 'dealt with'.  But we have never & will never ourselves 'drug up' our boys.  Would you?  So then as always, I researched this magic cream he prescribed, 'that may or may not actually do the job'.  And so discovered that it was not only extremely dangerous for children & broken skin, it wasn't used for the under 2 yr olds either.   So, as usual, I went off to see my herbalist/homeopath, I had an appt already booked for myself luckily, otherwise we may have had to pray for a cancellation!  People come from all over Australia to see her, but we are always given free assistance over the phone as her office is professionally staffed also .  And so, we are having great success with her treatment, and in only 2 weeks the growth has died right back and will soon fall off, just as she had explained it would.  I just hope that you, truly research your topics properly, as you would have learnt at Uni or during your extensive career.  Maybe you research more about what toaster or car to buy rather than your children's health as sadly, many parents seem to busy themselves with these days.  It's a tragic shame and with your blog I am fearful of your advice going out to the masses without you first speaking to informed specialists in the natural therapies field. You  may be surprised what you will learn! Ps my husband and I work extremely hard to keep our children well.  Both of our boys, an 8 yr old and our nearly 2 year old angels have NEVER had to take antibiotics, or ever spent a night in hospital, and I am very proud that we can keep them happy and well to reach their full potential in a very sick world. MR Cronulla

Dear Editor, Mia Freedman (18Mar2012, U on Sunday) correctly said she knows "...less about science than scientists [and] less about medicine than doctors...".  The rest of her column went on to prove just how ignorant she is.  This poor standard of journalism is extremely worrying, showing blatant disregard for facts, lack of understanding of topic, and an inability to research recent events. The column displays a total lack of understanding of the scientific process.  Links between vaccination and autism have been found and published by some researchers, but the body of evidence does not currently support the hypothesis of a causal link among the wider medical community. The claim that "...the best and only way to protect babies...from diseases that can kill them [is vaccination]" is ill-informed and ignorant.  There are dozens if not hundreds of infections that babies can get that are not routinely or cannot be vaccinated against.   The best protections against infectious disease for every person are a) sanitation, b)not exposing them to contagions and c) good nutrition.  Millions of people die every year because they have no toilets and cannot wash their hands. To my knowledge no vaccine currently exists for malaria, so Bill and Melinda must be spending their money on something else--I hope it is on clean water and sanitation.  Or at least diseases for which safe and effective vaccines actually exist. Unfortunately the verdict is not "unanimous", and every year hundreds or even thousands of people, mostly children, are damaged or killed by vaccines.  A simple search of newspaper articles will provide a number of examples of injury or death due to vaccines (e.g. http://www.watoday.com.au/national/childs-death-linked-to-flu-vaccine-20100426-tm6t.html, see also http://www.watoday.com.au/national/childs-death-linked-to-flu-vaccine-20100426-tm6t.html; this swine flu incident in Apr 2010 involved over 60 children).  If you want more rigorous material, a search of medical journals will provide dozens of peer-reviewed papers that report on adverse reactions and question the effectiveness of various vaccines.  Or even the government's own adverse reactions register.  Vaccination is a medical procedure, and EVERY medical procedure has benefits and risks that must be weighed up before an INFORMED CHOICE is made to go ahead. Encouraging people to make informed choices about their family's health appears to be one of the central goals of the AVN.   Their media statement of 27 Feb states that they "...wish to be nothing more than a portal for information on the relative benefits, risks and efficacy of vaccination."  This is one reason why the NSW Supreme Court in February found that the HCCC had no jurisdiction to make or publish any findings against the AVN.  The HCCC should not have published such findings on their web page, and have since taken those findings down from their web page. Mia Freedman was at worst scurrilous in publishing information that she knew to be either out of date or untrue.  At best she needs a lesson in how to use Google correctly so that pages within the past two weeks are used first, and in how to write without undue and blatant bias. Faithfully, MG

In response to Mia Freedman's article in the Herald sun on 18 March 2012. "Become an expert is just a mouse click away" Perhaps you should read a vaccine information insert or two. You would quickly come to see that it is not a safe and effective way to protect your children from anything. Or perhaps you could read a study or two and I mean the full study not just the conclusion or abstract (which quite often does not reflect the actual data in the study at all). And yes I do have a scientific background and I can understand the results and can interpret them for myself. The internet has made it easier to get hold of very good information and all the epidemiological studies, clinical tests, and other studies that have been done. Your entire rant was uneducated and ill informed, yet you say you have a valid point because you did NO research. That doesn't even make sense. There may be no link to vaccination and Autism but what about severe febrile convulsions? Or paralysis (also known as Guillian-Barre syndrome)? Or heart attack? Or severe allergic reaction? Don't trust everything your doctor tells you. They do not have time to read everything that relates to every medication that they can prescribe in Australia... how do you expect them to have in-depth knowledge? BL

Dear Editor, In her editorial today (Sunday 18th March) Mia Freedman comes across as just the dumb blonde that she really is. I used to enjoy her light bubbly entertaining columns, which I classified as entertainment.  She has now gone way beyond her intellectual limit, commenting on such a serious topic, in such an inflammatory manner. It is so apparent that she has no idea what she is talking about and to any educated person, only comes across as foolish and ignorant. It is grossly irresponsible of your paper to use her influence in this way and I would expect that you give the AVN the opportunity to respond to her unfounded and ill-informed accusations. In annoyance, JD

Dear Sir, While I do not find it astounding, I have to comment on Mia's article about vaccination. Mia obviously knows very little about the subject and quotes many times that she does know very little. Authoritatively quoting things like "Herd Immunity" and "Because no link between vaccination and autism has ever been found. None.", demonstrates a profound ignorance. Herd immunity is a "Theory" and in relation to vaccines will never come close to being proven. Mia says, "while they are not 100 per cent perfect" and that leaves a whopping variable especially with the myriad of vacs foisted on the community today. So why allow this hit piece on the AVN? One obvious answer is propaganda. The same people who control big pharma control, or strongly influence your newspaper. And apparently desire to control the entire planet. Far from being a pseudo "civilian" (a curios term) Mia might well be a middle ranking Storm Trooper of the Empire in the Information Division. Sincerely, GP

"Become an expert is just a mouse click away" Scientists far smarter than Mia Freedman, told lay-people to take VOIXX. Scientists far smarter than Mia Freedman, have maimed and killed millions (including a King of England) Scientists far smarter than Mia Freedman, still cannot agree on circumcision. Scientists far smarter than Mia Freedman, continue today debating vaccination. Mia is blatantly one-sided. Fancy saying that on one hand is science, but no other hand. How ignorant. Civilians have always had a choice in accepting or not-accepting vaccination. Non-civilians are basically ordered into taking these poisonous and toxic drugs by their commanding officers. Mia makes it sound as though the vaccination industry is on par with a military exercise. It is not. Will Mia apologise to the AVN for not stating that the HCCC was ordered by the NSW Supreme Court to remove their warning against the AVN as they ruled the HCCC findings were null and void. The AVN was exonerated. Two and a half years later, and thousands of tax-payer's dollars spent by the HCCC mostly in legal bills, proved what the AVN had said from day one. And Mia Freedman ignored that fact. An apology would be the least expected. Why not a financial payment to the AVN, for slurring their name? Mia Freedman has so many ill-conceived statements in her article that I am surprised the newspaper saw fit to print it. The internet has been a god-send for so many people, professionals and non-professionals alike. Using Mia's twisted logic, I do not employ a professional lawn-mowing service to do my lawns, nor do I allow a medical service pump my family full of drugs when I now know a lot more about natural healing and keeping one's health rather than relying on drugs to treat symptoms of failing health. Mia Freedman may be happy taking no responsibility for her own health, but millions of people disagree with Mia and actively take care of their own health, rather than delegating to others. Many years ago, less choice (and information) was available. Do not hide from the internet. Use it to your own advantage, learn, and do not let this type of social-commentator influence your health. AM