The Herald Sun does not care about balance or fairness

On Wednesday this week, I put in a call to the Herald Sun in Victoria, attempting to speak with the editor about the libellous article written by Susie O'Brien, All Aussie Kids Should be Vaccinated which had run in Monday's edition. This article called the AVN a bogus group and asked the Minister for Health to shut us down "once and for all". It also called for compulsory vaccination to be brought in and for unvaccinated children to not be allowed in schools, preschools or in any public place where they might infect the vaccinated.

The editor was not available but I spoke with a Carly Crawford who is an online editor about my feelings on this piece. I also mentioned that so far, over 50 letters had been submitted (there are now well over 100) to the paper opposing this article and asking for more balance on the issue of vaccination.

Carly was very open to what I was saying and asked me to write an opinion piece of approximately 700 words that she would put up on the web and, if she could get the Editor to agree, could also run in the newspaper. She said she would just have to speak with Susie O'Brien and the Editor but to get the piece to her that day.

I worked on what I feel is a very moderate opinion piece and submitted it before 5 PM the same day. I called Carly that afternoon to ask her if she had received approval and when it would run. She said she would get back to me the next day. The next day (Thursday), I called her 3 times and she seemed very evasive and even a bit nervous to me, saying that she had a deadline but would call me back (the first 2 times I called) and then, that she would email me before the close of business that day. I came right out and asked her if there was any resistance to running this article and she said no, not at all.

Of course, I did not hear back from her yesterday. This morning, however,  I received the following short email:

Meryl, Thanks for your contribution. I’ll keep on the list for the next time this issue becomes prominent. Regards, Carly

The next time this issue becomes prominent? When is it NOT prominent? Also, this had nothing to do with the news - this was a right of reply for an article that slandered not only the AVN, but every single parent in Australia who has decided not to vaccinate their children or to vaccinate them selectively. It denigrates the thousands of families dealing with children who are either permanently injured because of vaccines or were killed by them, saying that they do not exist or - even worse - that they don't matter.

At this point, I have no option but to file an official complaint against the paper with the Australian Press Council and the MEAA, but should we have to file complaints in order to get some balance on such an important health issue that affects every single Australian family? Shouldn't a newspaper which states on its editorial page that, "The Herald Sun is dedicated to accurate, fair and fearless publication of news and commentary." actually do what it says it will? Why do we have to fight so hard for any sort of balance or justice for our kids?

All the best,

Meryl

Begin forwarded message:

From: Meryl Dorey <meryl@avn.org.au> Subject: Opinion piece - Australian Vaccination Network Date: 1 February 2012 4:41:44 PM AEDT To: crawfordc@heraldsun.com.au

Dear Carly,

Thanks very much for your time on the phone earlier today. Per your instructions, I am attaching a 700 word opinion piece in reply to Ms O'Brien's article. Please let me know if this will be suitable and, if you need to make any substantive changes which will alter the meaning prior to publishing (other than grammar, spelling, etc), I would appreciate your running that past me first.

I would be really grateful if you can tell me when this will be up on the internet and if possible, to send me a link as well.

One last question - will you let me know if this will run in the paper too?

Kind regards, Meryl Dorey

In Monday’s Herald Sun, Susie O’Brien’s opinion piece stated that childhood vaccination should be mandatory. She claims this would protect Australia’s children from outbreaks of diseases.

In her opinion, those who choose not to vaccinate are “ignorant conspiracy theorists endangering all of the [fully vaccinated] children”, and that their children “should not be mixing freely with the rest of us [presumably, the vaccinated].”

The organisation I represent, the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), has existed since 1994. We are a volunteer-run, parent and health professional driven non-profit group which has three main roles

1- To provide medically-sourced information to parents and health professionals to balance the information provided by the government and the majority of (but not all) doctors.

2- To ensure that vaccinations are never made compulsory. According to the Irish High Court and the US Supreme Court, vaccines are ‘unavoidably unsafe’ products, so forcing parents to use vaccines that may kill or permanently injure their children would be immoral.

3- To protect families against discrimination because of their vaccination status.

Ms Obrien calls our organisation a “bogus group” and asks Health Minister Plibersek to “close down the AVN once and for all”.

I wonder what sort of country Ms O’Brien thinks Australia is? I would not want to live in a nation where the government has the power to close down organisations that oppose current government policies nor one where a government would consider such a step!

Perhaps Ms O’Brien is unaware of the fact that Australia is currently in the fifth year of a record-breaking whooping cough epidemic despite record-high vaccination compliance? We have gone from 71% to 95% fully vaccinated against whooping cough and in that same time period, the incidence has gone from under 400 cases a year to almost 40,000.

This is a global epidemic and two possible explanations have been provided:

(1) the vaccine has caused the whooping cough bacteria to mutate, meaning it is no longer effective; and

(2) the vaccine only lasts for 3 years, meaning that the vaccinated are just as likely to be getting and spreading whooping cough.

The Herald Sun even had an article on this in February 2010 – Whooping cough vaccine may need to change, say researchers.

Despite this, Ms O’Brien chose to ignore the scientific evidence and vilify those who have made informed choices on vaccination which differ from her own. Not only does she blame them for the outbreak which so obviously has not been prevented by high levels of vaccination – but she urges the government to exclude these innocent and, for the most part, healthy children from schools and public places because of her fear that, though fully vaccinated herself, she will not be protected from disease.

Every day, new studies are published in peer-reviewed medical journals which question both the safety and effectiveness of currently-licensed vaccines. Our government regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) takes no responsibility for the drugs and vaccines they license since they are not funded to test any of them. In fact, the TGA is fully funded by licensing fees – receiving no government money at all (a policy in place since 1998 called ‘cost recovery’).

The AVN, in its role as a vaccine-safety watchdog, has urged the government to remove cost recovery from the TGA and fund independent studies of all currently-licensed and prospective vaccines for both safety and effectiveness. To make these products compulsory without independent testing is madness!

We have also been asking – for more than 15 years – for the government to do the one study which would demonstrate whether the benefits of vaccination truly do outweigh the risks: a study comparing the overall health of the fully vaccinated vs the fully unvaccinated. This has never been done either in Australia or anywhere else in the world. It might cost a few million dollars, but in 2010, we threw away over $60 million worth of unwanted flu vaccines. How much testing would that have paid for?

We feel that our stance and our requests are both reasonable and logical and wonder why the Australian government – which spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on purchasing and promoting vaccines - has never thought to do such a study.