The HCCC - don't confuse them with logic #2 - Did the AVN mislead the ABC?
In what must be a very unusual move, the HCCC has tacked a second complaint on to this original case. This complaint was submitted by Toni and David McCaffery, parents of 4-week-old Dana, who died from whooping cough in March of 2009. Even more unusually, I am unable to view the actual complaint and instead, need to try and reply based only upon what the HCCC has chosen to share with me.
It is interesting that this second complaint was received by the HCCC on the 16th of December 2009 – more than 2 months after my original response to McLeod’s complaint which was submitted on the 9th of September, 2009.
I believe that this action taken by the HCCC constitutes a denial of my right to natural justice.
In their complaint, one of the few items which the HCCC chose to share with me was an accusation that both myself and the AVN used misleading statistics to argue against pertussis (whooping cough) vaccination.
I believe this accusation was regarding a complaint that the McCaffery's filed against me with the ABC after an interview I did with Katya Quigley, from ABC Radio. Interestingly, the McCaffery's state that they have obtained a copy of this radio program but I have been unable to - either from the ABC itself who have told me that this information is not available nor from Media Monitors who have also told me it is not available. If anyone reading this happens to have a copy of this day's show they are willing to send me a copy of, I would be really grateful.
Apparently, during this interview, Katya referred to the whooping cough rate in Australia in 2001 when I had specifically indicated that the time period we were discussing was 1991. Please see my original correspondence with Katya’s producer, Janine Fitzpatrick, sent on morning of this program:
From: Meryl Dorey Date: 4 September 2009 8:49:40 AM AEST To: fitzpatrick.janine@abc.net.au Subject: Information on whooping cough incidence / vaccination rates
Dear Janine,
I just wanted you to have this information prior to my interview this morning because I will be referring to it in my talk. As I told Katya (not sure if I'm spelling that properly so apologies if it's wrong), I want to keep this on a scientific level - and avoid emotional issues and personal accusations.
A summary of the following information is that in 1991, Australia had a whooping cough vaccination rate of 71.6% and 318 cases reported nationwide. Last year (2008), for the first time, our whooping cough vaccination rate was in excess of 95% - the stage at which we have been told the disease will disappear. Instead, we had 14,522 cases last year - the highest on record - and this year is already over 19,000 without any decline in vaccination.
So blaming the unvaccinated for these deaths and for the record outbreak is ignoring the fact that more people are vaccinating then ever before and we have seen an increase in incidence of 40 times sine 1991.
Thanks so much, Meryl
The McCaffery’s filed a complaint with the ABC after this program aired. I was unable to see the actual complaint and I didn’t even know about this until my local newspaper, the Northern Star, published an article stating that a local couple, Toni and David McCaffery, had filed this complaint and the ABC had found that the information I had provided to the radio station was misleading and incorrect.
Below is the actual graph that I had provided to the ABC:
I contacted the ABC Corporate Affairs department and corresponded with Denise Musto who assured me that the finding was not against myself but against the presenter, Katya Quigley. Please read her correspondence below:
From: ABC Corporate_Affairs11 <CORPORATE_AFFAIRS11.ABC@abc.net.au> Date: 5 February 2010 4:26:39 PM AEDT To: "'meryl@avn.org.au'" <meryl@avn.org.au> Subject: RE: ABC Investigation of vaccination information
Dear Ms Dorey
I refer to your emails of 28 and 29 January to ABC presenter Katya Quigley. In line with ABC complaints procedures, your correspondence has been forwarded to Audience and Consumer Affairs.
As previously advised in a number of my emails to you, the findings of the Audience and Consumer Affairs review did not relate to your contribution to the program or to how the AVN presents statistics. Consistent with ABC complaints procedures, our review related to whether the statements about the statistics made by an ABC presenter complied with the ABC’s editorial standards for accuracy in factual content. Our finding was that the ABC presenter’s statement did not meet the standard, which requires that “Every reasonable effort must be made to ensure that factual content is accurate and in context”.
In respect to your question as to the confidentiality of our findings, please note that general summaries of all upheld complaints are publicly reported on the ABC’s website, consistent with our accountability and transparency requirements. As previously advised, this investigation is reported at:
http://www.abc.net.au/contact/upheld/s2739849.htm.
In addition, following investigation of a complaint about a broadcast or story, Audience and Consumer Affairs respond to the complainant substantively. Whilst this response is not made available publicly by the ABC, as you will no doubt appreciate, we have no control over how a complainant may choose to make such information available to other parties.
Yours comments in respect to this matter have been noted. However, as previously advised, we are satisfied that the finding of our investigation was appropriate and in keeping with the requirements of the ABC’s Code of Practice and Editorial Policies. We would ask that you cease contacting ABC staff members directly in respect to this investigation, which has been finalised. There are no options for review available to you, and we will not engage in any further correspondence on this matter. If you would like to raise concerns in respect to other matters, these are best submitted using our online form at:http://www.abc.net.au/contact/contactabc.htm.
Yours sincerely Denise Musto Audience & Consumer Affairs
Despite knowing this, the McCaffery’s continue to this day to accuse me of providing incorrect information to the ABC – a statement which they should have been informed is not correct since they were sent a copy of the ABC’s findings in this case.
Below is a review of the information I had provided to the ABC by Dr Gary Goldman, a peer-reviewer for such journals as the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Vaccine, The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), Expert Review of Vaccines (ERV) and Expert Review of Dermatology (ERD). He serves on the Editorial Board of Research and Reviews in Bioscience. He has worked under contract for the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, in an epidemiological study project funded by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, Atlanta, GA). :
The authors of this assessment [the ABC’s assessment of the statistics presented to Katya Quigley) state, "the two statistics are drawn from different data sets and relate to different groups of children."
First, the data sets both present percent of children fully immunized against Pertussis. The fact that both tables represent different age groups is actually appropriate in this case because in 1989-1990 (the true figure referred to in the discussion) children aged 0 to 6 years received pertussis vaccination according to a vaccination schedule that differed from that of 2008; whereby, pertussis vaccination occurred in children by the time they were 2 years old.
The tables indicate an increase in the percentage of children receiving pertussis vaccination, from 71% in 1989-1990 to 95.1% in 2008. The children's ages are by necessity, and are appropriately, different due to vaccination schedule differences associated with each of these two different dates. Therefore, it is without basis that the authors state, "the comparative manner in which they were presented was misleading."
Conversely, had children of the same age been represented in both tables, say children immunized at 2 years old, by 1989-1990, the percentage of children fully vaccinated for pertussis would have been negligible (approaching 0%) since the vaccination schedule had changed toward providing pertussis vaccine to children up through age six. Therefore, the comparative manner in which Meryl Dorey presented the data actually took into account the differences in the vaccination schedule and reported the relationship of the change in percentage as accurately as permitted by the table data.
Sincerely, Gary S. Goldman, Ph.D. Editor-in-Chief, Medical Veritas
As you can see, I was not guilty of using misleading statistics and the McCafferys – having been provided with the final outcome by the ABC – may, in fact, be the ones using misleading information. To this day, they continue to claim on radio, in writing and on their various internet pages, that I have provided misleading information to the ABC when they should know that this is not the case – it was the ABC interviewer, Katya Quigley, who made an error on air and the ABC found against her – not against myself or my information.
The HCCC was provided with this information on two occasions and yet, they never corrected their misleading and incorrect conclusion that I had provided incorrect information to the ABC.
Tomorrow: The AVN has a website and a Facebook page that give the impression of presenting information about vaccination but does not include information that is pro-vaccination.