Jane Hansen has reported having nightmares about events from her journalism past that haunt her to this day. The things that haunt us in this life are often those things where we know that we could have done better, we know if we had followed what we truly know, the consequences of our actions might not have been what they had become. We can rationalise the circumstances, suggest that we had to do our job, what choice did we have? But there is always a choice, always.
And we have to ask Jane Hansen, what choices do journalists make when they choose one side of a story? It is a choice it seems to exclude balance. It is a choice to manipulate the news and what the public know when they only report what they want to report, rather than to offer their audience a choice as to discern the truth. It is a wielding of power with the arrogance of knowing that what they write will ‘make a difference’, but the only ‘difference’ is to entrench their own narrow world-view.
There is a style of journalism that is particularly offensive, generally referred to as the ‘tabloid press’, the writer has always considered that the Sunday Telegraph was of that ilk – a combination of news stories and sensationalism that provides easy reading, little considered argument and a guarantee of supporting a particularly parochial and limited view of humanity and society.
The ‘tabloid press’ finds its television expression in shows such as ‘A Current Affair’ and ‘Today Tonight’. Perhaps it should have come as no surprise that Jane Hansen, of the Sunday Telegraph found her feet in her career on no other than ‘A Current Affair’. Jane Hansen reports having been haunted by her time at ‘A Current Affair’ and has publicly reflected that she knew at least once that the story that she was going to cover was ‘not good’.
What does it mean to know that something you are going to do is wrong and do it anyway? In my books that would mean I was acting unethically or unconscionably. Perhaps a more damning reflection for Ms Hansen is that if we do not act in our own world to address what is wrong, what does not sit right with us, we contribute to a world that is less:
‘The world is a dangerous place not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing’.
The world will not change if we do not stand up in our own lives and say no to what goes against our conscience and no matter how many stories we tell about others to suggest we ‘do the right thing’ in our lives, that we are ‘good people’, the falsehood of our own behaviour will haunt us.
In 1997 Jane Hansen hit the media spotlight after a particularly sordid story on ACA where an electronic repair man was framed by the show and exposed for not fixing some equipment he claimed to have fixed – the advertising for the show ran all weekend, and sadly the subject committed suicide. This story has apparently haunted Hansen. On the ABC’s Australian Story, Hansen comments that:
‘It still really upsets me. It’s been 10 years. I think what gutted me the most was that two children were without a father and a wife was without a husband. I didn’t feel as though I had a right to talk about how I felt about the story because I wasn’t the victim. In everyone’s mind, I was the perpetrator.’
There is something troubling about this self-reflection – of course Jane Hansen could not predict the extreme consequences of her conduct – but that is not the point – how often do those involved in violent crime not foresee the outcome of their behaviour where aggravated assault becomes murder?
As Stuart Littlemore commented on Media Watch at the time (August 1997)
‘One sordid little entrapment too many and another unremarkable example of “A Current Affair’s” mindless succession of bullying righteousness, yields a result they will say they never foresaw. A little man, caught by a cheap deception far worse than anything he was accused of doing, despairs of ever living down the shame and takes his own life.’
Littlemore was unrelenting in his disdain, ‘These unspeakable bastards did however deceive Mr Mendoza and then set him up …’ . Littlemore in fact called it for what it was – indeed this ‘cheap deception’ was ‘far worse than anything’ their victim ‘was accused of doing.’
What I find troubling is that Ms Hansen knows that she had a role in this, yet years later, there is no real responsibility taken, she is still asserting it was her job, that she did not have a choice:
‘I was just doing my job and I know that’s the Nuremberg defence but I wasn’t in the position to say, “Shove it, I don’t think it’s a good story.” Which is how I felt anyway. I didn’t think it was a good story. It was my job and I wasn’t in a position to be a prima donna.’ (Australian Story)
After all, in her view, it was her producers who manufactured the story. However, Jane Hansen chose to go along with it, she did not speak up and question what was being done, indeed for that show It was simply yet another ‘unremarkable example’, a ‘mindless succession of bullying righteousness’ and Jane Hansen chose that form of journalism, and it seems she still chooses it.
Is it being a ‘prima donna’ to say something is not right? Personally I do not think so, a reference to being a ‘prima donna’ suggests you are complaining about the insubstantial – are your personal ethics and what is true insubstantial, Jane Hansen?
When she says ‘she was just doing her job’ and she was not in a position to challenge the story, this is simply not true – we all have the potential to change how things are done and how we approach things. If we allow Jane Hansen this excuse the media will never change – sadly, it also illustrates the choice that Jane Hansen had already made – a decision in 1997 that her job was more important than people, and it seems she will use whatever means possible to make a story – a characteristic she appears to have made much of in her approach towards Universal Medicine and others.
Hansen was dished the same harsh treatment by the media that she dishes out, but although she reports being devastated by the events and suffered the media attacks for what occurred she appears to not have learnt that perhaps this approach is one sided – more balance is required.
What we can observe in her background is a resolute toughness, whether it was surviving workplace misogyny and bullying1, a tour in Iraq or the media spotlight, Jane Hansen appears to have built a pretty tough shell. Oddly Jane Hansen appears to write stories that are about needed social reform – workplace bullying, promotion of health by vaccination – but it must be considered against the fact that in her own life, when things mattered she chose to keep her head down and remain silent. We make the world by how we are in it – to standby and allow abuse is to ensure it is never abated.
She comments about workplace bullying that she endured:
‘I’d seen it all before. No-one went to HR if they valued their job. Those that did were given a payout, a gag order and a pock-marked reputation stamped never to return.
So I stuck it out, the simmering injustice eating into sleep, affecting health and happiness. I wasn’t alone of course, and that helped take it less personally.’2
I am sympathetic to the situation, it is all-true – I have witnessed such a complaints procedure first hand; it is as Jane Hansen reports ‘a payout, a gag order and a pock-marked reputation’. But does that make us stand by and do nothing?
Jane Hansen was featured on Australian Story in 2007 about the loss of her prematurely born child. This is a tragic story and one of course that commands compassion and respect. What is puzzling is that she states in the programme that:
‘The stuff that I used to be ambitious about, you know, none of that matters any more. I don’t have that searing ambition that I used to have. It doesn’t matter any more.’
Her husband reflects that Jane became ‘more compassionate’ and Jane herself asserts a greater empathy for others that has arisen from tragedy. But would this life-changing moment signify fundamental change in how she works? Would it mean that she would take action to arrest harm if it would get in the way of a good story? Possibly not.
In spite of all of her seemingly compelling self-reflection, it appears that searing ambition must have returned – since Jane Hansen’s approach to Universal Medicine suggests a journalist hungry for a story, any story, no matter how false it is, or the methods required to get her angle.
Defending herself years later – when writing in defence of Mel Greig and Michael Christian, whose radio antics had precipitated the suicide of an English nurse when they had made a hoax call to a London Hospital pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles, humiliating the nurse so utterly who had been taken in by the pair that she took her own life as a consequence. Hansen’s own experience made her sympathetic to the radio pair, and whilst defending what most would consider indefensible, she wrote:
‘I can now write that for years I did not sleep, I woke with nightmares, I stifled panic attacks in media conferences when all my colleagues were there, perhaps casting a judgmental eye. I threw myself into the most dangerous pursuits in journalism – coups, wars, you name it – to regain some of the credibility I had lost. A few years later, I finally sought help for the post-traumatic stress disorder I had developed.
I simply couldn’t breathe.
In the boiler room that was A Current Affair back then, I couldn’t even tell the boss, or seek support, because exposing a soft underbelly in that joint would have done nothing but invite derision for such a “weakness”.’ 3
Is it better to be derided for being ‘weak’ or stand up for what is true? I was not faced with Ms Hansen’s dilemma, but I know many who have done so, packing up their desks and moving on – Integrity intact so that they do not have 10 years of sleepless nights.
What is so corrupt about the ACA style of journalism is that in essence it is a ‘stitch up’. There is never going to be a fair report, it will always be the story that the journalist decides is the ‘spin’ or ‘angle’ that will serve their purpose in writing a story. Jane Hansen has become a slick and seasoned operator with this approach.
Judy Wilyman MSc (Population Health) presented a paper at a major conference – the world congress on Cancer Science and Therapy Congress in the USA in October 2013 on the HPV vaccine. At the time, Jane Hansen was writing a series of articles on vaccination and had taken on the anti-vaccination lobby in her mission to encourage vaccination. In this regard I am right behind Jane Hansen. No question. I am pro-vaccination all the way and I know that Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine rigorously promote vaccination. However, what I do question is a journalist deciding what ‘science’ is going to be reported. Jane Wilyman questioned Jane Hansen as to why the journalist would not present the scientific evidence that had been presented by her at the Congress, making the observation that “Australians should be concerned that journalists are now deciding which ‘science’ they will allow the public to see and debate.” 4
Jane Hansen responded:
‘Yes, I’ve read this. I’m going to go with the scientists and medicos who have studied this long and hard before I go with an ‘academic’ with no medical background who is a known anti-vaccine advocate. My guess is you have no background in science or medicine either, so please don’t bore me again with your conspiracy agendas.’
In effect, Hansen was selecting the ‘science’ that she deemed was acceptable and excluded any evidence that might be contrary to her own opinions on vaccination to be presented. This in itself is anathema to scientific discourse, let alone investigative journalism. To this dismissive response, Jane Wileyman made the acute observations: that Jane Hansen’s approach could be considered ‘incompetent reporting’ falling far short of an ‘objective discussion of the arguments’ and that dismissing the scientific material offered as no more than a ‘conspiracy’ theory prevented consideration of the possible bias in science being used in developing government policies. Presenting only the science that is considered personally acceptable is, it seems, tantamount to disseminating propaganda, not presenting news.
In this regard, Jane Hansen decided what was news – her spin was not even to report any considered debate on the subject. Jane Hansen would have been well aware that she could still make her ‘spin’ on the story, even if she had chosen to present another viewpoint. But excluding any debate at all is the power she could wield. To only present one side of the story appears to be Jane Hansen’s calling card – or so it appears from various examples of her reports. For example “Sorry Flower Children, but rainbows and unicorns won’t stop polio”, Sunday Telegraph, April 14, 2013, made very derisory assessments and generalisations of those who choose not to immunise. Just to be clear, I agree with Hansen’s views on immunisation – pro-immunisation all the way. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine also take a pro-immunisation stance. However, I also consider that balanced reporting is a necessity in a free society. So her summation of the issue, as essentially a bunch of mindless hippies more concerned about their diet and self-improvement than sensible healthcare, falls far short of this requirement, as does her later fabrications for her article, “Byron backlash as parents immunise” that is discussed below. Others have observed that immunisation is a far more complex issue than Ms Hansen’s sledgehammer approach suggests 5.
It appears, from what I have observed, that Jane Hansen has made a practice of excluding an alternative viewpoint if she has already determined what the angle of her story will be.
In her recent foray into pseudo-investigative journalism, she reported Lance Martin and Matthew Sutherland’s malignant and twisted reminiscences of their failed relationships. Lance Martin is given centre stage to sell his version of a story – claiming that his marriage failed because of Universal Medicine, that an outrageous amount was spent on courses (‘$60,000 to $70,000…in the three years before they broke up’), and that his wife’s (and we presume his) life was ‘taken over’ in every aspect (‘eating, sex, activities, friends, literature’). None of these claims had any substance. If Anna Douglass had been contacted she would have set the record straight – that Lance Martin has made up stories to serve his agenda to bring Universal Medicine down and that he had to believe his own lies about the problems in the marriage to serve Lance Martin’s rationalisation for his marriage breakdown, all so he does not have to look at his own problems.
If she had bothered she would have discovered that what Lance Martin presented was fabrication. However, the excuse given is that Anna Douglass did not need to be approached, since the story was about the College of Universal Medicine, not the marriage. It was not ‘central’ to the story. It has to be asked, what does this say about journalism? Is it permissible to abandon any commitment to factual accuracy by deeming a particular part of a story as less important? We think not. If the story of the marriage was not central to the story, we have to ask, why did Hansen report the lies about the marriage at all and allow Martin free reign to continue his abuse of his wife without Hansen seeking evidence to the contrary? His claims about the break-up of the marriage, the money spent, and the impact on the couple’s personal life may not have been central to the story, but Lance Martin’s credibility was. It may have been pertinent for Jane Hansen to hear from Anna personally:
‘‘Lance is fuelled with jealously and revenge towards Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for what he feels is the cause of our marriage breakdown, this of course is absolutely false. Lance is a very controlling and manipulative man and the choice to leave my marriage was due to his behaviour towards me. The smoke and mirrors that both Lance Martin and Matthew Sutherland use in their stories to gain public sympathy is an obvious tactic to smear and denigrate Sarah Baldwin and myself as women and to give us no voice.
What you may not know and I feel is important to stress to you, is that Lance has been behind all the media attacks to date and has been an active cyber-bully for over 2 years now, targeting innocent people because of their association with Universal Medicine. Interesting to note, there was no media interest in Universal Medicine, and not one complaint ever lodged with any Government departments until my marriage broke down. Lance has been consistent and relentless at getting any sort of attention and smearing Universal Medicine, he will go to extraordinary lengths, and will distort the truth to achieve this.’
Matthew Sutherland is given sole and centre stage for his soliloquy. There is no doubt of the slant that Jane Hansen took, the men’s lies are inferred to be fact and there was not a trace of questioning their account – Jane Hansen did not bother to approach the ex-partner’s to discern fabrication from fact. She made no investigation – none whatsoever.
In her response to Sutherland’s ex-partner’s complaint to the Sunday Telegraph that her side of the story had not been sought, nor had her permission to use a picture of herself and her children, Hansen has claimed that she had emailed and ‘offered to interview her for Ms Baldwin to tell her side of the story’. Since Ms Baldwin did not receive any such invitation we are assuming that this assertion is a lie to add to the folder of lies Hansen has promulgated around the situation. What is more, Sarah Baldwin received no response from the paper when she complained about the article directly with them. It was not until the APC made the approach that it responded saying Hansen had offered to interview Ms Baldwin. There was no such offer before the article went to print and none after to bring any factual accuracy to the matter.
Even if an interview had been granted it is likely it would have been with the same accusatory style that Hansen has made an art of. It would only have served Hansen’s preconceived agenda. Hansen in response to complaints that she presented only one side of the story has suggested that her request for an interview with Serge Benhayon exonerates her from the manifest bias that she presented in her stories. A simple observation is that this would only be the case if an interview were a genuine, bona fides inquiry into exploring and exposing the truth. What Jane Hansen regularly offers is a little less than that.
In response to being questioned about her lack of integrity and obvious bias she and her paper have responded by stating that Serge Benhayon had been quoted as suggesting that his critics were cyber-bullies and had been offered an interview. It has to be noted that this response has no application to the article that featured Matthew Sutherland – there was no balancing material, there was no ‘offer of interview’. Nor was the ‘offer’ of an interview on an entirely different story a genuine one.
We also have to say that Hansen’s lame reference to Lance Martin, Esther Rockett and Matthew Sutherland as ‘critics’ belies the over two year cyber-bullying campaign conducted by the group online with the most disgusting, vile and abusive commentary and language. Hansen was well aware of this invective, as she had been presented with the facts by Serge Benhayon. She even wrote to a woman she knew stating that ‘I have read the blogs and both sides.’ Yet the fact of this vile and abusive conduct was mysteriously missing from her reporting. Hansen has a habit of choosing sides in a debate, and this was no different. Investigative journalism took another blow against its credibility with yet another story from Hansen where she had already chosen what side she was on, never mind what the facts showed.
If we examine what kind of interview was offered to Serge Benhayon we will see what an empty offer that is. Here is this stunning ‘offer’:
Hello Mr Benhanyon
I am currently compiling a story on Universal Medicine and the College of UM and have some questions I would like to put to you.
First of all, can you tell me what the charity’s aim is with regards to the College?
Is the aim to build a school to teach you (sic) esoteric teachings?
I see your courses cost anywhere from $100 to $1800 so these will be taught at the College?
Will you be making money out of that?
About UM..
What is esoteric breast massage and why is it needed?
You have claimed it can help treat women’s health problems such as endometriosis, what science do you base that on?
You have conducted ovarian readings on women…can you explain what an ovarian reading is?
I understand there are now esoteric uterine massages, can you explain how that works?
UM has been described as a cult, what is your response to that?
Its been said you earn up to $5 million a year through these teachings..is this true?
Can you clarify the Leonado Da Vinci reincarnation you purport to be? How do you know?
It is alleged UM preys on vulnerable women with female health problems..is there any truth to that?
I am running this story on Sunday, so my deadline is Friday mid morning on the 20th of June
kind regards
Jane Hansen
What is apparent here is that Jane Hansen had an agenda – her leading questions were far from the pretence of an open ‘interview’ where the matters of concern would be discussed with fairness and balance, let alone reported as such. Serge Benhayon noted:
‘It would seem …that you need a response to tick a legal box and at the same time have a response you can manipulate into whatever your already made up story needs.
If you are going to pillory me, as have the other scurrilous journalists before you, lies they chose to tell the public, why do you need me to comment? Token, legal, appear to be fair, show some decency and not give away too much the not-so-hidden agenda?’
It was indeed a ‘legal requirement as much as it is a professional requirement’, was Jane Hansen’s response. Indeed, in response to the complaint made by Serge Benhayon to the APC, the repeated defence was: “we offered you an interview and the offer of an interview is still open”.
All that is considered important is that an interview was offered, not that the very nature of the interview was never going to be ‘fair’ or ‘balanced’ which is the tenet of the ethics of journalism. The ‘interview’ (more aptly referred to as ‘interrogation’) would have no different focus or purpose now. The preconceived ideas, charged questions where the answers were already written before they were asked (or could be manipulated with some careful editing), were all de rigueur for Jane Hansen. Indeed, the offer of an interview was simply a ruse to get something to suit a false story that was already written – it would serve to get something on record so it could be quoted out of context or misrepresented.
Ms Hansen’s questions were contaminated with pre-suppositions so that there was no opportunity for true investigation. If an interrogator seeks a specific response then this is achieved by loading questions with information that require the assumption of particular facts being correct. The questions quoted above were all of this ilk. Such questions are difficult to refute, since they draw attention to what is being denied. Each and every question posed by Ms Hansen was loaded with pre-suppositions and could not in any way be seen as supporting a requirement for fair and balanced reporting. Fair and balanced reporting calls upon a capacity to inquire without a pre-conceived agenda, Jane Hansen clearly had no intention of true inquiry and it is obvious an interview was simply intended to tick a box.
This approach appears to be a common one for Jane Hansen – in the case of the anti-vaccine groups that she had taken on in a campaign to advocate for vaccination – she approached one of the group in the same vein as she had Serge Benhayon – there is the mention of a ‘deadline’ of the weekend report, and then a series of loaded questions to satisfy a ‘right of reply’, but no more :
‘We are running a story this weekend about the experiences of the (REDACTED) X family and other bereaved parents and their treatment at the hands of members of the AVN, or regular bloggers on your site. I am putting these questions to you for your right of reply.’
The questions that followed were it appears, typical of Hansen’s style of propaganda styled as journalism. The recipient of the ‘interrogation’ chose not to answer the loaded and biased questions presented by Hansen, preferring to provide responses in public on a website. The responses expose Hansen’s questions:
Q – Did you ring (REDACTED), the father of the boy who died of chicken pox, and tell him your views on vaccination?
Q – Was this necessary?
Since I’ve never heard of him, I can honestly say that I never called him. And if anyone wants my views on vaccination, they are available in almost 20 years of magazines, newsletters and website posts. Oh, and for your second question, was this necessary, great use of the loaded question fallacy, Jane. You are obviously a pro at this slander thing.
Q – He feels you, or someone from the AVN told him that he was doing society a disservice by discussing vaccination, is this true?
Sometimes when I’m sleeping, I feel as though the media and the government have somehow found a conscience. But then I wake up and I realise how silly that feeling is. How can someone possibly claim to feel that they were contacted by another person. Either they were or they weren’t. If they were, they should be able to say who the person was and what they said. If they can’t provide this evidence, then why are you even asking me these questions? Is it a slow news week, Jane?
Q – Did you threaten to take out an AVO against Y because she attended you talks on vaccination?
Considering the fact that I have no idea who Y is nor do I remember anyone by that name attending any of my seminars … I can answer by stating that I have not taken out an AVO against her nor have I threatened to do so since I don’t know her nor, to the best of my knowledge, have I ever had contact with her. I’m curious though. Why are you asking this question? Have you taken out an AVO against Y? How’d that go for you, Jane?
Is what Jane Hansen engages in meeting the requirements of the code of ethics provided by the APC? Is the offer of an interrogation the foundation for a ‘fair’ or ‘balanced’ report?
Jane Hansen appears to fall for her own spin suggesting that she had asked Serge Benhayon ‘to put [his] case forward’ and that she had ‘given… ample opportunity’ for this. What sort of opportunity is afforded by the offer described above? In a simple assessment, the answer is NONE.
When Hansen was challenged with her meagre and unethical approach by Serge Benhayon, she took offense at what she referred to as ‘insults to my journalistic integrity.’ Obviously Hansen believes she has some.
Hansen used the lies she was presented with by Lance Martin, Esther Rockett and Matthew Sutherland as the foundation of her sensationalist and false story with no enquiry as to the truth. We remind Hansen that:
‘Concocted lies do not convert to truths.’ Serge Benhayon
Your concocted lies do not convert to truths, even if you manage to get an interview that you can manipulate to make them appear like they are true. Hansen was unmoved by suggestions that she consider a different approach. After the articles were published someone who knew Hansen pointed to the Universal Medicine Facts site – they thought that Hansen could not have been aware of the material we have presented. Hansen’s response was that she had read the blogs. So a pattern emerged – she read the cogent evidence that exposed her sources and she chose to ignore it.
It appears no one is immune from Jane Hansen’s media spotlight if she can make use of it. A young mother, Liane, had been approached by Jane Hansen in a public place to be part of an article on babies for the Sunday Telegraph. Liane and her daughter subsequently appeared in a ‘100 babies in 100 days’ feature by Jane Hansen in 2013.
In 2014, Liane was approached for a follow up on the original story and interviewed by another journalist (Claire Harvey) about the first year of her daughter’s life. Soon after, Jane Hansen called wanting more details about what had been said about vaccination. Liane discussed her view that immunisation was something that should be a free choice, however what appeared in the paper the very next day with the headline “Byron backlash as parents immunise…” was twisted to serve the angle of the story and to support Jane Hansen’s pro-immunisation stance. Not only was a photo of Liane’s family used without consent for this story, her words were twisted to suggest that she was a vanguard of parents who had been ‘converted’ from not immunising their children to immunisation, even her daughter’s immunisation status was fabricated to serve Hansen’s agenda (to suggest Liane had changed from anti-immunisation to immunising their family).
Although I am sympathetic to Jane Hansen’s story line – myself and Universal Medicine support Hansen’s message of the importance of immunisation – but however important the message, it does not remove the requirement for ethical journalism. Liane made clear the shortcomings of Jane Hansen’s approach in a letter to the editor, pointing out the photo was used without consent and further noting amongst other things that:
‘I appeared in your story regarding immunisation under the heading “Byron backlash as parents immunise..” I feel entirely misrepresented in what I had expressed to reporter Jane Hansen regarding my views on immunisation.
… under the picture of myself, my partner and my then newborn (a year ago) daughter, was the caption that she was now “fully immunised”. NOT TRUE …. My daughter remains COMPLETELY UN-IMMUNISED …. Saying that she is now fully immunised, apart from being a complete lie, is misleading as to my current stance on immunisation. I feel like I have been used as a pawn here to advocate immunisation…
… the referral to a ‘backlash’ in the Byron community, which, sadly, I have been used as a front person for. This is NOT the case … Again, poor reporting/compiling and complete misrepresentation. One person (myself) reconsidering her immunisation choices is hardly a ‘backlash’. It is a gross injustice to refer to it as such.’
Liane never heard back from the editor, she comments, ‘It would appear that the responsibility to portray the truth in media that I had addressed him on fell on deaf ears and does not meet with their agenda.’
When Jane was questioned upon her conduct by the woman concerned, she conveniently passed the buck and claimed there had been a ‘stuff- up’. How is that for not taking responsibility for your actions?
It appears that Jane Hansen never takes responsibility – the death of an unfortunate victim of tabloid journalism is placed at the feet of a system that Jane Hansen claims she could not change and pretends she has no choice. It appears to me that the ‘Nuremburg’ defence was not accepted in Nuremburg and it is not acceptable here. Is it possible that to hold the view that you have to go along with things for self-preservation and that there is no other way is merely a way of justifying to yourself something you did that you knew was wrong, you knew was less than what was called for? But once you take this path, your future path of self delusion is assured.
Jane Hansen it seems will use any means possible to make a story. What she believes is ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ is a far cry from what any decent person would assess it to be.
I give the final word to another who observed that, representatives of the media of whom Jane Hansen is a prime example, have ‘a moral compass which is not only broken – it was been sent overseas for repairs where it was lost years ago. At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. At the base of the Mariana Trench. Where no light will ever find it.’ .
STOP THE AVN (SAVN) IS A HATE GROUP and was set up to destroy citizen group Australian Vaccination risks network. SAVN have had a history of trolling , issuing death threats and mocking vaccine injured families. Their attacks include
False Claims
Government Complaints
Media Complicity
Phone Calls
Pornography
Threats
Verbal Abuse
Meryl Dorey was recently interviewed by Crazz files about being the target of Stop the AVN hate campaigns .
Stop the AVN is a splinter hate group created by the international organisation the Skeptics . Tim Bolan has studied them extensively and writes
‘The “skeptic“ organization TRAINS their people in these kinds of tactics. Those “workshops” they hold are, plainly and simply said, “Hatred Training Camps” any way you look at them.’
In 2012, extremely threatening phone calls were made to the home of Australian Vaccination Risks Network president Meryl Dorey from the home phone number of Daniel Raffaele, the founder of SAVN.
Ariel Bogle also applauds the censorship of freedom and writes “The group also tries to stop Australian tours by prominent anti-vaccination groups and spokespeople’
Is glorifying a hate group balanced journalism from the tax payer funded ABC? The ABC takes complaints about its editorial performance very seriously and it’s mandated in its charter.
For those concerned about lack of journalist Integrity please contact the ABC and demand that the tax-payer funded ABC cover both sides of the vaccination issue –
The ABC clearly didn’t do their job of unbiased journalism and investigate why families don’t vaccinate? Did they bother to cover stories of vaccine injury or death such as these?
° Media personalities and parent information sites are being used by big pharma to make you buy their products, including vaccines?
° Media companies are using NATIVE advertising on you?
Vaccination has been made into a controversial topic by the Australian media. Parents are constantly bombarded online with various articles and group chats. These are instantly appealing for parents who usually have a lot of questions. They also give the often isolated parent a way to feel connected. This style of blogs, chats and articles is typically portrayed as safe, mainline medically approved and well-balanced.
MONEY TALKS
What many people fail to see is the agenda behind this media and the large amounts of money to be made. Mia Freedman, is one such example. She founded the very successful media company Mamamia. Her wealth is public knowledge.
NSW Health sponsors Mamamia to promote vaccination
Advertisers, such as NSW health, believe that if they pay Mia Freedman they can have a ‘momservation’ with the average Australian mum, especially about vaccination. The technique used here is NATIVE advertising.
NATIVE ADVERTISING
NATIVE advertising is a type of disguised advertising, usually online, that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears.
Mamamia’s paid support to push vaccine sales crosses even more lines of basic human decency. It does this by publicly humiliating anyone that threatens the sales figures of their advertised products.
The Mamamia article provoked the usual nasty comments from their readers such as, ‘People who choose not to vaccinate their children are f/&*g idiots.’ This, and other comments on the site, shows that Mamamia readers have been successfully indoctrinated by mainstream media and native advertising. Overall, the media backlash had the effect of completely censoring the other side of the vaccination debate.
HATE SPEECH HAS BEEN PROMOTED BY THE MEDIA
The most worrying part of this trend is that it has led to the acceptance of hate speech against Australian parents and defenseless, and sometimes very damaged, young children.
However, vaccine herd immunity isn’t backed up with real science. Lifelong immunity can only be achieved by getting diseases, such as measles or chicken pox. Any vaccine immunity wanes over time, thus the need for boosters.
“They were not told that adults, too, need whooping cough boosters because immunity wanes after a decade, meaning that around 90 per cent of adults no longer have adequate protection against this deadly disease.”
Interestingly, most of the people in the media commenting on the Cartright’s vaccination decision wouldn’t be up-to-date with their own vaccinations. Theoretically, they are as ‘dangerous’ as any unvaccinated child.
There is also a concern that if we mandate medical procedures, like vaccination, then we go down the road to fascism. This is why the Nuremberg code was put into place after World War ll. The Nuremberg Code is a set of ethical guidelines regarding human experimentation. There are no independent scientific studies clearing vaccine adjuvants, such as aluminum, mercury (thimerasol), and others, to be indisputably safe for use in the human body. This equals human experimentation.
See the book, ‘Vaccines and Autoimmunity.’ Dr Yehuda Shoenfeld, and others. “In light of the discovery of Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants, or ASIA, Vaccines and Autoimmunity explores the role of adjuvants – specifically aluminum in different vaccines – and how they can induce diverse autoimmune clinical manifestations in genetically prone individuals. Edited by leaders in the field, Vaccines and Autoimmunity is an invaluable resource for advanced students and researchers working in pathogenic and epidemiological studies.” https://g.co/kgs/LzHF4k
There has been over $3.7 billion dollars paid out in vaccine injury/death claims by the United States National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
“…a vaccine can cause a serious problem, such as a severe allergic reaction. In these instances, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) may provide financial compensation to individuals who file a petition and are found to have been injured by a VICP-covered vaccine…” https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html
Australia has no vaccine injury compensation scheme. This suits the government and pharmaceutical companies, not the people. They do not want people aware of vaccine damage. They do not want to pay compensation.
The US Supreme Court has also explicitly stated that vaccines are ‘unavoidably unsafe.’
VACCINES WERE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECLINE IN INFECTIOUS DISEASE DEATHS
“Infectious diseases in Australia were controlled by 1950. Only diptheria vaccine was in use at this time and this was in voluntary vaccination campaigns… Measles, whooping cough and influenza were removed from the national notifiable disease list in 1950 because the deaths and serious illness to these diseases had been significantly reduced for the majority of children.” From Judy Wilyman PhD. https://vaccinationdecisions.net/vaccines-were-not-responsible-for-the-decline-in-risk-from-infectious-diseases/
It is important to have access to government statistics to check if statements made in the media are accurate. The graphs in the following article are based on official government statistics for infectious disease deaths. Importantly, the huge decline in infectious disease deaths that occurred BEFORE vaccines were introduced, or widespread, actually occurred in other developed countries, too. https://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/graphs/
BOTH OUR STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS WORK CLOSELY WITH THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
This discussion would be incomplete without an explanation of how our government health departments work together with pharmaceutical companies. People typically have no idea how this works and how it is occurring worldwide. To put it simply, all our government boards and committees, that set our vaccination policies and schedules, contain members that have financial ties to the vaccine industry.
According to international market reports, the global vaccine market is predicted to rise from US$5.7 billion in 2002, to more than US$77.5 billion in 2024, a more than 13 fold increase.[1]
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has indicated we are experiencing a vaccine boom.[3] An article published in New Scientist in late 2011 says: “No longer the unprofitable runt of the pharmaceutical family, vaccines are fast becoming the industry’s breadwinner…While the rest of the pharmaceutical sector struggles to keep afloat as expiring patents send profits plummeting, the vaccine industry has become remarkably buoyant”.[4]
In 2009, Associated Press reported: “Vaccines now are viewed as a crucial path to growth, as drug companies look for ways to offset a slowing of prescription-medicine sales amid intensifying generic competition and government pressure to restrain prices under the federal health-care overhaul”.[5]
Source for the above 3 paragraphs, and all references, found under, ‘VACCINES ARE BIG BUSINESS, WORTH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON AN INTERNATIONAL BASIS’ Elizabeth Harthttps://over-vaccination.net/
SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Profits are unlimited. Doctors benefit. Lobbyists and politicians collude. Scientists are bought. Media outlets, such as Mamamia, work hard to ‘educate’ us all with native advertising and biased news reports Their end goal is for us to accept this violation of the most basic of all human rights – the right against human medical experimentation. In the end, we all have no protection against this massive worldwide industry of medicine for profit, rather than health.
Catherine Hughes has been appointed to the SKAI Advisory Group, which will provide advice on the scientific direction and governance of the SKAI Collaboration, a three year project funded by Australian taxpayers via the federal Department of Health.
The SKAI Advisory Group provides advice on the scientific direction and governance of the project. The members of this group are:
Professor Terry Nolan, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne
Ms Karen Booth, President, Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association (APNA)
Dr Greg Rowles, General practitioner
Dr Elizabeth Marles, Royal Australasian College of General Practitioners
Catherine Hughes, Light for Riley
According to the NCIRS website linked above, the SKAI Collaboration will, in consultation with parents and health professionals, develop a package of resources designed to support conversations about childhood vaccination.
Hughes’ qualifications to provide scientific and governance advice have not been disclosed, nor whether the position was advertised, and, if so, what the selection criteria were.
Catherine Hughes speaking at the 2017 Australian Skeptics Convention
Formal qualifications aside, Hughes’ connection with such disreputable groups, and her public derision of parents who hold concerns about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, raises obvious questions about her suitability for appointment on character grounds alone.
Derisive banner used in Catherine Hughes’ “anti-vaxer” presentation
A vaccine promotion star isborn made
It was widely reported back in March 2015, that the Western Australian health department had fast-tracked an antenatal Whooping Cough vaccine program, allegedly in response to the death of Hughes’ son Riley.
However, adocument obtained through Freedom of Information, and provided to the author, clearly shows that the pregnancy program was instigated by WA Health doctor Paul Effler – not in response to Riley Hughes’ death on 17 March 2015 – but rather, on 13 March 2015, which was on or around the day Riley Hughes was first admitted to hospital.
The program was officially approved by Acting Director-GeneralBryant Stokeson 18 March 2015, the day after Riley Hughes died.
What then was the real rationale for fast-tracking the pregnancy Pertussis vaccine program, if not the death of Riley Hughes?
This important question must be answered by the Western Australian health department. As taxpayers, we have the right to know.
Light for Riley campaign generated unprecedented hatred and division
None of us could have been prepared for the onslaught of hatred that flowed from the Light for Riley campaign. For example, how could anyone forget Claire Harvey’s hit opinion piece in which she accused the unvaccinated of killing Riley Hughes.
By failing to publicly denounce that vile opinion piece, both Catherine and Greg Hughes (father of Riley) tacitly endorsed Harvey’s unfounded accusations and use of Riley’s death to attack parents who hold concerns about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
Arguably, Harvey’s despicable opinion piece was actually incited by Greg Hughes himself. A public post by Greg Hughes, two days before Riley’s death, set the climate for the vicious campaign which was to follow.
A (now private) post on Greg Hughes’ Facebook timeline showing his connection to Stop the Australian Vaccination Network
Australia is in dire need of an independent vaccine watchdog
Regardless of one’s views on the integrity of Catherine and Greg Hughes – my personal opinion being that they are nothing more than ‘useful idiots‘ who are being used by higher powers – our vaccine program desperately needs an independent body to watch over key decision-makers, at both the state and federal levels.
TheConsumers Health Forum, a nominee of which sits on key vaccine committees, has failed to ‘keep the bastards honest’. We are stuck in an endless cycle of orchestrated vaccine campaigns. This needs to change, because vaccines are now being mandated for receipt of childcare subsidies and enrolment in childcare services in some states.
I propose that a nominee of the Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network (AVN) or another vaccine choice organisation be appointed to all vaccination advisory bodies in an observer (not voting) role.
After all, what do our public health officials have to hide?
I made a prediction, a few years back, that it would be 5-10 years before Pharma’s Vaccine House of Cards toppled over. That was in 2014 when Pharma/Murdoch corrupted governments all over Australia started down the mandatory vaccination pathway. Pharma front groups like the Australian Skeptics with the able assistance of Murdoch media stooges Jane Hanson became the emboldened attack dogs aided and abetted by Pharma Twitter doctors like John Cunningham, Rachael Dunlop, Brad McKay, & last but not least, Dave Gardasil Hawkes.
In the US, Pharma whores like Richard Pan, & online pharmaceutical trolls like Dorit Reiss, Paul Offit, & minions like Eve Switzer lead the attack on the mothers and families of vaccine killed/injured children. Paid by Pharma to disrupt an important online narrative. Think about the souls of these types of people. Smart enough to see the flaws in the vaccination fairy tale but paid to disinform unsuspecting people about the dangers and many risks of vaccinating their children. Their children.
Dorit Reiss at a Pfizer meeting
Things were looking grim until a closet ‘antivaxxer’ was elected President of the United States beating a Pharma stooge & possibly one of the most corrupt and deranged politicians in living memory, Shillbillary Clinton. Good Lord, the world dodged a bullet with it’s defeat.
Trump made a lot of noises about vaccine safety commissions (headed by the heroic RFK jnr) and cracking down on Mad, Bad Pharma but at this point ’tis all hot air. Am I still hopeful? You bet. Eventually science was gonna catch up with Jenner’s immunology lobotomy. And it did.
No go from President Trump for Robert F Kennedy to head a Vaccine Safety commission
Online trolls and serial doxers, like Reasonable Hank/Peter Tiernan (or Tierney if that floats ya boat?) couldn’t believe their luck. For years he has been publishing the personal details of nurses, midwives, doctors, naturopaths, the families of vaccine injured/killed, etc online. Now he had Murdoch/Pharma and government approval. Well done Australia! Another good reason as to why you are referred to as the North Korea of western democracies. Oh, and Pete, that $10,000 Charity Boxing Match offer still stands. You, Big Sniffy, Peter Tiernan, Rupert Murdoch tag team v Me? C’mon do it for the kids with cancer if you can’t do it for Merck?
Defending the indefensible ain’t all smooth sailing though and not all politicians and governments are as corrupt as our sweet little penal colony so 2018 was not all Merck had hoped it would be.
So, what were the highlights/lowlights in 2018.
James Lyons Weiler continued his awesome work demonstrating aluminium doses in vaccines were way too high when weight adjusted. Aluminium will be their undoing. Well, one of them at least.
When talking of one’s undoing how could one go past the atrocious Gardasil. Everyone associated with this vaccine and it’s recommendation should be in prison. You think I’m being harsh? What penalties would you like considered if your daughter, son, or sister was killed or disabled by this completely unnecessary vaccine?
One of the world’s most respected medical scientists Peter C Gøtzsche fell out with the Cochrane Foundation (he was a cofounder) over his brave and factual assessment of Gardasil’s HPV trials. This is about as damning as it gets. Any medical professional administering a HPV vaccine after reading or hearing about this should be sued for malpractice.
Definitely not a highlight but the rest of the world got a good look at the psychopathy of pharmaceutical companies, in this case Sanofi. Also highlighted the fact that the one size fits all vaccination model can, and will, kill children. For anyone still gullible enough to believe that governments, Pharma, Bill Gates, & Rupert Murdoch give a toss about your kids this whole saga is required reading.
Take your pick. We should probably find out how many of our vaccines are made in China? Or if the vaccines manufactured in our own countries are any better anyways?
ICAN vs. HHS: Key Legal Win Recasts Vaccine Debate.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. represented ICAN and founder Del Bigtree in its successful lawsuit against HHS. Can’t think of many working harder than these two heroes in this fight against Bad Government, Bad Pharma, Shite Media, and the moronic General Public. When this war is won statues will be made in honour of these two. Keep up the great work gents. In the meantime how about a little love?
“FINANCIAL GUARD VISIT THE LABORATORY OF DRS GATTI AND MONTANARI, MEDICINE IS OBSTRUCTED AS USUAL”.
When you apply 2018 scientific technique (and equipment) to 200 year old Jenner quackery bad things happen. You actually get to see what’s in that vaccine you are lining up to inject into your child. Dr Judy Mikovits tried to warn us and look what happened to her. Look closer.
Proving glyphosate is carcinogenic. Well who’d a seen that coming? Guess what’s in all your vaccines? Things that make ya go hmmmm? Oh, and Skeptics love Monsanto too, they are only trying to end world hunger. Remember?
The Deposition of Dr Plotkin, The Vaccine King.
Oh, so aborted baby organs are harvested to manufacture vaccines? Oh, and you do test vaccines on mentally retarded children, prisoners, and orphans. So I guess these aren’t conspiracy theories anymore?
I love J.B Handley and you should too. When we look back on the vaccination of one day old babies for HepB we will hang our heads in shame. And we did it to our own. Criminal. Like Gardasil, anyone involved in the decision to pseudo mandate this vaccine for one day old babies should be locked up. Enemy of the People.
Yet another study highlighting the criminality of adding aluminium to a vaccine product then expecting us to inject it in our children. Wanna learn the hard way? Keep listening to your government and Rupert Murdoch. Of course they have your best interests at heart.
“So buckle up for the grand finale, folks. Be brave, patient, and truthful and help hit fast forward on the death gasps of a hugely corrupt pharmaceutical industry by following, learning, sharing, and discussing the fraudulent science of undeservedly revered medical profession as actual factual science continues to emerge. The tide is turning, make sure you are all there with us to give it a good push along.” Dr Wise
Special thanks to my secret gang of freedom fighters who helped me compile this list. You know who you all are, a call out from me will get you permanently banned from Twitter and FaceBook, so you shall remain nameless. For now. I love you all.
Stop the AVN all-stars who featured in the ‘Get the Facts’ campaign
Many of you will have already seen the collection of videos published on the federal Department of Health’s website as part of ‘Get the Facts’educationpropaganda campaign.
Eight of these, some of which are advertisements, feature members of mandatory vaccination lobby group, Stop the Australian Vaccination Network.
Trigger warning – those videos contain false and misleading claims, so watch them at your own peril.
Although you will all be familiar with the Hughes and McCafferys, some of you may not be familiar with the other two Stop the AVN all-stars.
Cecily Johnson
Cecily Johnson crashes AVN events attended by grieving parents
Like her fellow Stop the AVN mandatory vaccination activists, Cecily has a staggering sense of entitlement combined with a callous disregard for parents who have lost children to vaccination. She has a long history of trolling the AVN, going as far as crashing AVN events attended by grieving parents whose children have died from vaccination.
Immunisation advocate Cecily Johnson takes a photo of her daughter Laine and her death certificate to anti-vaccination meetings to fight their message that “immunisation harms” after Laine lost her life to complications from measles.
Laine should have turned 30 last week, but she passed away in 1995 from subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, an infection related to the measles that left her blind and unable to walk or talk.
Seven years after she contracted measles as a 10-month-old baby, Laine told her mother she felt “dumb” – it was the first sign of a complication caused by the measles virus that afflicts two in every thousand.
Laine had not been vaccinated against measles as the first jab is only given at 12 months of age.
Mrs Johnson says she’s worried parents who attend anti-vaccination meetings aren’t given the facts about the deadly effects of not vaccinating their children.
At meetings, she questions their claim that no children have died from measles and then “I pull out a picture of my daughter in a coffin to shock them”, she says.
To our knowledge, Cecily has not revealed publicly whether or not her daughter was vaccinated against Measles despite having had the disease. This is important, because it has been reported thatMMR vaccination can cause SSPE.
Renay Newman
Renay Newman is a long-term member of Stop the AVN
Renay Newman is not just a grieving parent, whose son is alleged to have died from Chickenpox. Like her fellow Stop the AVN mandatory vaccination activists, she is also a so-called anti-anti-vaccination activist, who isclose to nasty Stop the AVN zealot Ken McLeod.
Talent fees funded by taxpayers
Freedom of Information (FOI) decision documents provided to the AVN by a member of the public show that the Hughes and McCafferys were paid talent fees by a company contracted by the federal Department of Health to produce the ‘Get the Facts’ videos. The government contracts website shows that this company received $608,652.00 for phase one of the campaign.
Document 1is a decision by the FOI section of the Department of Health refusing access to the documents requested. Notably, the Hughes and McCafferys did not consent to the release of the documents.
Extract of page 5 of FOI decision
What are they hiding? They must have been paid quite handsomely otherwise why would they seek to prevent the release of the documents? Ka-Ching!
The decision-maker appears to have defended them by asserting (on page 5) that the “families did not request payment for their story”, as if that is somehow relevant.
(on an unrelated note, Catherine Hughes was also recently granted over $20,000 by theAMP Foundation)
Document 2is a decision affirming the original decision to deny access to the documents in response to a request for an internal review.
Although payments made to Cecily Johnson and Renay Newman were not included in the Freedom of Information request, we have no reason to believe that they weren’t also paid talent fees.
The obvious question arises as to why members of a mandatory vaccination lobby group (some withlinks to vaccine manufacturers), and who were responsible for convincing politicians about the alleged imperative for coercive vaccination laws using multiple falsehoods, have been paid by the department responsible for advising government on vaccination.
This represents nothing short of corruption, for which there should be an immediate inquiry.
The management team of Stop the AVN goes to great lengths to portray the group as being grass-roots, however, the AVN recently reported thatDr. Stephen Lambert from Queensland Health is on the management team of Stop the AVN, raising the possibility that other health department officers, including from the federal Department of Health, are also members of the group. However, as the identities of most other members of Stop the AVN’s management team are tightly guarded, it is unclear the extent to which other health department officers are involved with this group, and any influence they may have wielded over vaccination policy.
On 13 July 2013, a special report into chiropractors was published on the ABC show Catalyst. This program has been widely and negatively commented upon as a piece of dishonest journalism. However it was not until I actually sat down and went through what was said that realised how bad the performance of the doctors was.
Upon my review I have concluded that 5 of the 6 doctors were in clear breach of “Good Medical Practice” and should face investigation by AHPRA the Australian Health Practitioners Authority:
The most obvious breaches are in section 4.2 4.2 Respect for medical colleagues and other healthcare professionals
Good patient care is enhanced when there is mutual respect and clear communication between all healthcare professionals involved in the care of the patient. Good medical practice involves:
2.1 Communicating clearly, effectively, respectfully and promptly with other doctors and healthcare professionals caring for the patient.
2.2 Acknowledging and respecting the contribution of all healthcare professionals involved in the care of the patient.
2.3 Behaving professionally and courteously to colleagues and other practitioners including when using social media.
For the sake of simplicity, I will focus here on John Dwyer and John Cunningham. They are both well known, outspoken and aggressive critics of chiropractic.They are both members of the Friends of Science in Medicine (FOSM), a group regarded by many as a front organisation for Pharmaceutical Industry interests. I’m yet to formally confirm this for myself, but I am sure the documents will at some stage be sent to me through my now extensive network.
Dwyer is the president of FOSM. FOSM is closely allied to the Australian Skeptics and a rather unsavoury group called Stop the Anti vaccination Network (SAVN) has been associated with systematic “outing” and attacks through AHPRA on anyone who they dislike. They openly boast of this on their website and have been tied to threats made to Meryl Dorey – the founder of the Australian Vaccination Network.
One piece of evidence for this is a text/twitter message from a Lord Ken McLeod revealing Meryl Dorey’s address and hinting that she should be burned to death.
SAVN have proudly claimed Mr John Cunningham as one of their own.
Dr John Cunningham one of the leaders of Stop the Australian( Anti) Vaccination Network.
He has been awarded an OAM, and in my eyes that is a reason for real Australians to feel deep shame. A follow up piece will document all the aggressive actions he has been involved in. However, for the moment the simple fact of his associations is enough. Many senior doctors in high places are also members- including the head of the Australian Medical Board Associate Prof Stephen Adelstein.
So, let’s have a look at the transcript. I will deal with Emeritus Professor John Dwyer first, then Cunningham. The others will keep for another day.
Emeritus Professor John Dwyer says “Much of modern chiropractic, unfortunately, has descended into the realm of quackery”. He has no qualification in chiropractic, and there is no evidence he has ever studied it closely. His careful phrase “much of it has descended into quackery” neatly avoids defining a group so precisely that he can be sued. This is a classic pseudoskeptic technique.”
It is also in breach of section 4.2 of Good Medical Practice, the code of conduct for doctors.
It’s the move into paediatrics, and the enormous number of chiropractors who are trying to set up paediatric clinics and claiming that they can cure a range of paediatric conditions, that is really troublesome.
According to whom is it troublesome, and on what grounds?
Emeritus Professor John Dwyer says “I think it is. Dissatisfaction with a quickie turnover turnstile medicine approach is a factor that drives people into the misguided hands of people who are doing the patient no good at all.”
That they are doing patients “no good at all “is an unprovable statement- typical of the academic authoritarian. He is hoping to cover his lack of facts with the sheer force of his personality and his title.
So, let’s look at this statement:
NARRATION
This Sydney-based chiropractor claims to correct the length of a child’s leg with a clicking device called an activator.
Man
First we adjust this. No complaints there, and you get an instant lengthening. See?
The issue here is just plain bad wording- what is corrected is the pelvic tilt, (not actual leg length- which would be absurd) and fully resolving it is a bigger issue- really needing ongoing care.
Emeritus Professor John Dwyer says“ I mean, what can you ask more? Just a few clicks and the child’s chronic problem is fixed. Deliberate misrepresentation- even given the poor wording an instant one off cure was not suggested buy the chiropractor. In fact, most conventional chiropractors recognise that regular and initially frequent treatments are needed to stabilise the situation.
The cost of carrying that pelvic tilt long term is very high. These postural deformities can be seen frequently in passing pedestrians. The uneven hip loading is really the only valid explanation for the extraordinary need for hip and knee replacements in our society. They are needed far less often in Asian nations as anyone who has been to Bali or Thailand and had their eyes open. I argue here that here that this statement constitutes Academic misconduct and another section 4.2 breach.
Emeritus Professor John Dwyer “Well, it’s totally unscientific. Obviously when you’re positioning a child on a bench like that, you could do anything with your legs, and then he moves the legs until they’re equal, and the random clicking away, from the buttocks to the upper spine, with the instant results, this is what is so objectionable. “
If the “Emeritus Professor John Dwyer” has any real doubts- why does he not talk to a few experienced chiropractors and sit in on them for a few sessions, and attend some of their education. He is surely not too old to learn. This does need to be dealt with by way of a notification (section 4.2) and the appropriate penalty here would be 100 hours of chiropractic education and a public apology.
We expect our academics to have open minds, he is not exempt from this requirement.
Emeritus Professor John Dwyer “It was interesting, that the adjustor is then used on the neck, where there are no anatomical structures that, if you altered them in any way, would fix leg shortening.”
Again, if he knew what he was talking about, instead of spouting his authoritarian rubbish, he would not say this. The reason is- in terms as simple as I can manage, that tight neck muscles cause distortion of proprioceptive input into the brainstem and this input is reflected as a sensory mismatch in the neural integrators- which then sends incorrect postural muscle tone instructions (It appears through the pontomedullary reticular formation, leading to a postural deformity of tight arm and extended leg muscles on the one side ( a “soft neurological syndrome” that resembles the decorticate rigidity seen in some strokes). Now I am still learning the fine details of this- so please accept my apology for any imperfections in my presentation.
Professor Dwyer is not a Friend of Science – he is its enemy.
Next Comment
Emeritus Professor John Dwyer “If he does really believe that he’s just cured a musculoskeletal problem that child had – a shortened leg – then that is really sad. That’s really dangerous, because, as Chekhov said, the quacks that the most dangerous are the ones that really believe it. The chiro did not say that he believed he cured it-that is Dwyer’s projection. “
His language of “a shortened leg” is a professional shorthand and does not reflect what the chiropractors know they are working on. The chiropractors need to tidy this language issue up.
However, Dwyer has (no doubt knowingly) taken and distorted 2 observations then thrown in the insult of “quack”. These manoeuvres are classic of academic authoritarianism– learning to rule by misdirecting people’s attention. I’m sorry, but that is a second rate cup and thimble trick. I’m sure that even James Randi could do better.
Again- academic misconduct and section 4.2 “Good Medical Practice”
Now Dwyer wants to have his cake and eat it. He complains that chiropractic is unscientific, it is not. He claims it has no evidence, I doubt he is young enough to read all the evidence in his remaining autumn years. Then he attacks the presence of chiropractic in the universities as a course. Now it is the assertion of the universities that they help develop people’s academic skills, so if his assertion about limited science is correct, then getting them into the universities is a good thing.
Emeritus Professor John Dwyer “I don’t believe that there is sufficient science to warrant university education. I think they should get out of the chiropractic business. There simply isn’t enough fundamental science in chiropractic to warrant a five-year course. And, I think, the universities, by supplying these courses, give credibility. Those people would be much better off spending their time enrolling in a physiotherapy course and learning a whole lot of practical evidence-based skills. There’s no place for chiropractic in a really strong, academically-based university.”
So here is an alternative view:
1) Dwyer knows nothing about the evidence is there. Apparently, evidence does not exist unless he has seen it.
2) If chiropractic is weak on evidence base- how better to improve that than have it taught at university? Why is he so intent on kneecapping a profession that has survived a long while despite the overt aggression and malice of the Medical profession. Ref (The Medical War against Chiropractors JC Smith) The book is well referenced and well laid out- I will require any would be critics to read it thoroughly before debating me.
So we have some clear evidence of the appalling behaviour of Emeritus Professor John Dwyer here.
Let’s look at Mr John Cunningham’s performance on the same program:
Mr John Cunningham “There’s no nerves that control hearing that have anything to do with the neck. They all come from the base of the skull, which simply cannot be influenced by any sort of spinal manipulation. I would have concern over someone’s appreciation of anatomy if they were to claim that the middle ear and Eustachian tube is affected in any way by a nerve that comes from the spine.”
False- proprioceptors from the spine feed into the acoustic nucleus and the output of the acoustic nucleus is altered by altered proprioceptive input. When one has a “subluxation” (also known within Australian General Practice as a malalignment or a fixated segment (Murtagh J: General Practice 6th edition Ch 62 pp 684 and 714).
All our senses and our motor output work through the summation of the incoming inputs to create a hypothesis of the nature of the outside world. This is not controversial to anyone up to date with current neurology published within the mainstream medical world.
Basic sources:
Descartes Error: Antonio Damasio Neurologist
Self Comes to Mind: Damasaio again.
How Do you Feel? A.D. Craig. A.D. Craig is a neuranatomoist… etc whose work has involved tracing the fine details of the interceptive pathways from the spinal cord through the brainstem, through the thalamic nuclei, to the interceptive cortex and to ultimate summation in the right anterior insula.
Clearly Mr Cunningham is not aware of this work. I have been very ill the last few years as my chiropractors and I struggled to repair the damage done by years of lack of chiropractic care, so I do have an axe to grind. However, I managed to read and assimilate all this despite severe brain fog, and dysautonomia, all of which are now resolved.
Mr Cunningham is professionally concerned with bolting damaged spines back together, not with understanding the subtleties of the networked functioning of the nervous system.He is also in breach of section 4.2 of Good Medical Practice. If he wished to make a statement on the matter, the least any responsible practitioner would have done would be to consult someone suitable in the chiropractic profession- and maybe even sit in on a few sessions with said chiropractor. We don’t need to be fighting like this all the time- it is not in the patient’s best interests. This is not the way in which mature practitioners should act.
Dr John Cunningham in breach of section 4.2 of Good Medical Practice.
Finally, both Cunningham and Dwyer are continually criticising chiropractic and the notion of the subluxation.Dwyer is speaking outside his area of expertise, but the situation with Cunningham is far more serious:
Cunningham is a spinal surgeon and is expected to be up to date with developments in his field. If he were he would know that a series of studies of Whiplash patients have proven beyond reasonable doubt the existence of these subluxations, and some of the mechanisms by which they cause pathology in humans.
Now what is happening here– is Mr Cunningham actually unaware of these studies, or is he aware of them but pretending he is not because such an admission would be politically inconvenient given his opposition to chiropractic?
If the second answer is correct that is disgraceful behaviour. If the first answer is correct that is worse- he cannot keep on top of his own field. The truth is he is too busy doing a PhD out of his field and using it to attack the fine academic work of Dr Judy Wilyman, in a display that I can only call caddish. That is why he can’t keep up. That is one of the key reasons for reporting him.
The critical studies were mostly done around 2006-2010, but some were earlier. The studies have been done by a collective of neurosurgeons, radiologists, and chiropractors on both sides of the Atlantic, including Dr Ralph Demadian, the inventor of the upright MRI.
Now this is an example of fine work, a positive, respectful mutually supportive relationship between colleagues of different professions. This is an example of what happens when the spirit of Section 4.2 of “Good Medical Practice” is adhered to.
I am sure that AHPRA will be able to override the Medical Board on this one.
Now that is enough for now. I’m reporting both of them to the Medical Board, and there had better be a full enquiry and not an attempt to push this to one side. The formal charge against Cunningham is infamous professional conduct.
As a parting thought:
Max Planck, the inventor of quantum physics once said:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”
Well – we are in the midst of a mass extinction event. Let’s hope that the academic authoritarian meme is the next to go.
Christine Bayne, who, back in 2010, implored her Twitter followers to “put a bullet” in AVN founder Meryl Dorey’s brain has taken out the Australian Skeptics top award at Skepticon.
Christine Bayne’s 2010 tweets using Twitter handle @fuzztwin
In an attempt to avoid responsibility for those tweets, Christine Bayne made her tweets private for that Twitter account shortly after she posted them in 2010. Her main Twitter handle currently is @DilutedThinking but there are others.
It is always a great source of amusement when the deceptively named Australian Skeptics hands out awards to its own for seriously questionable, if not, downright illegal activity, and let’s be honest; it’s not as if one would list this award on one’s CV.
The award seems to be reserved for the most repugnant of a repugnant lot.
Previous winners of Skeptic of the Year include anti-complementary medicine campaigner, Ken Harvey (2016), serial cyberstalker Reasonable Hank aka Peter Tierney (2014), Friends of Science in Medicine (2012) and Stop the Australian Vaccination Network (2010).
Dr. John Cunningham, a long time member of hate group, Stop the Australian Vaccination Network, was, quite ironically, awarded the 2017 Thornett Award for the Promotion of Reason.
Trust Me I’m a Doctor and Voice of Reason – Dr. John Cunningham
Previous winners of the Thornett Award include none other than Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy (2016), Catherine and Greg Hughes (Light for Riley) (2015), and Toni and David McCaffery (2009).
Readers may recall that, earlier this year, the Murdoch media reported that Cunningham had attempted to coerce Village Cinemas in Melbourne into breaching its contract with the AVN, using financial inducements, after cinema management had refused to buckle under the weight of heavy mobbing and bullying from Cunningham and other fanatical sceptics. Nice promotion of reason doc.
Trust Me I’m a Doctor and a Voice of Reason and I Have Loads of Cash So Do As You’re Told – Dr. John Cunningham
The AVN had made the booking with Village Cinemas as part of the hugely successful Vaxxed tour of the eastern seaboard of Australia, which included a screening and Q and A session at The Australian National University (ANU), no less.
Polly Tommey outside a lecture theatre at Australian National University
Cunningham has a longstanding obsession with freedom of choice/vaccine safety advocates. In addition to relentlessly bullying and attacking AVN founder Meryl Dorey and Dr. Judy Wilyman for years, he has also targeted current AVN President (and widowed mother of eight), Tasha David.
In 2015, he publicly questioned the paternity of Tasha’s eight children not once but twice in two separate articles, claiming that the older six children had a different father from the youngest two. He did this for the sole purpose of trying to discredit Tasha’s lived experience of raising six vaccinated children who suffer from a range of developmental and immune disorders, and two completely unvaccinated children who are extremely healthy and disorder free. For the record, Tasha’s healthy unvaccinated children and severely vaccine injured children have the same father.
Just one example of John Cunningham questioning the paternity of Tasha David’s children
Cunningham’s defamatory claims are made worse by the fact that Tasha’s husband died suddenly in late 2010, and Tasha and their children were the ones who found him. Cunningham knew this before making his callous and false statements but he chose to disregard the emotional impact that these hurtful mistruths would have on Tasha and her family just so he could try and undermine Tasha’s family’s vaccine injury experiences.
In our opinion, Cunningham is not a fit and proper person to be a member of a profession which the general public holds in such high regard, yet the government have rewarded his tactics with an Order of Australia Medal for promoting immunisation.
Alas, an Australian Skeptics event wouldn’t be complete without some serious hating on, and mockery of vaccine safety activists. In fine sceptic tradition, Catherine Hughes of Light for Riley fame gave a presentation denigrating “anti-vaxers” and “conspiracy theorists” on Day 2 of Skepticon. Her presentation was called “The harsh reality of the anti-vaccination movement”, in which she even employed the cliché, tinfoil hat meme so loved by the sceptics.
Powerpoint slide banner used in Catherine Hughes’ “anti-vaxer” presentation
Such love from a person purporting to be merely promoting awareness of so-called vaccine-preventable disease.
Light for Riley followers could be forgiven for believing that Catherine Hughes is only a newcomer to the dirty business of vaccine activism. After all, she’s only been at this since March 2015, right?
Wrong.
She’s actually a veteran anti-choice groupie. On 27 March 2015, she made the following post to Stop the Australian Vaccination Network (SAVN) Facebook page, admitting to her longstanding commitment to the silencing of vaccination sceptics (the real sceptics).
Catherine Hughes’ post to Stop the Australian Vaccination Facebook page on 27 March 2015
Finally, in a major sceptic fail, Jane Hansen’s article about the so-called baby formula tampering scandal, has provided free, unprecedented, and worldwide publicity to Brandy Vaughan’s organisation, LearnTheRisk.Org. Brandy went Live on Facebook to thank Jane for her help.
According to Fairfax journalist Kylar Loussikian, Dr Judy Wilyman has, “… no specific expertise in vaccination science.” The Sydney Morning Herald, 23.09.2018.
For your information, Kylar, Dr Judy Wilyman has, among other qualifications, a Master of Science degree in Population Health. This included a research project analysing the Australian Government’s Policy on Whooping Cough. Dr Wilyman has also completed a PhD on Australian Vaccination Policy, available on the University of Wollongong website.
Kylar Loussikian seems to have no specific expertise in investigative journalism, or any morals or ethics for that matter. His only qualification is a Commerce/Arts Degree from the University of NSW.
Expertise usually arises from a personal interest that stimulates one to study the background of a topic or issue, like a PhD.Standard degrees tend to qualify you to regurgitate the accepted position. It is shocking that journalists like Kylar are being presented with media awards, considering his articles that denigrate the academic research of professionals like Dr Wilyman.
Kylar also does not mention the important point that Australian doctors who agree with Dr Wilyman are at risk of losing their medical licenses. This threat has effectively gagged doctors from speaking out about vaccine issues.
Greg Hunt, Australian Federal Health Minister, said, “If it is accurate that there are registered doctors that are advocating an anti-vaccination position, then they will have the full force of the authorities come down on them.”
This was clearly demonstrated with the investigation of Dr John Piesse, not long after Greg Hunt made the above statement.
Kylar’s journalism is a thinly veiled piece of corporate pharmaceutical industry marketing. Its purpose is to destroy critics of their products. This has worked very effectively up until now. Independent voices on vaccines have been suffocated due to the powerful industry forces that control our government and media. See Elizabeth Hart’s presentation at The 2018 Sydney Vaccination Conference outlining all the industry conflicts of interest involved in Australia’s vaccination policy development.
Kylar’s past pieces against Dr Wilyman have also been constantly publicly praised by what have been described as ‘industry lobby groups’. Reasonable Hank, also known as Peter Tierney, is a well known member of both the Australian Skeptics and the Stop the AVN group. Reasonable Hank has been very vocal in his support of Kylar’s past articles and TV news interviews against Dr Wilyman. See tweets below.
Another article by Professor Martin shows how Kylar’s incorrect journalism has been used by others to publicly defame Dr Wilyman’s research.
The powerful JP Morgan group also has a vested interest in the owner of the Sydney Morning Herald, Fairfax Media. JP Morgan group is the second biggest shareholder in Fairfax.
JP Morgan is closely aligned with pharmaceutical companies, particularly GlaxoSmithKline. The group is also openly invested in the global vaccine market.
If you connect the dots, controlling interests like JP Morgan have a major say at Fairfax Media’s Sydney Morning Herald, and ofcourse this would include influence over their journalists.
On 26 July 2018, Fairfax Media and Nine Entertainment Co announced they had agreed on terms for a merger between the two companies to become Australia’s largest media company. Shareholders in Nine Entertainment Co. will own 51.1 percent of the combined entity and Fairfax shareholders will own 48.9 percent.
The public would be better informed if they listened only to independent media sources. New players on the Australian media scene such as The Australian National Review are not connected with the pharmaceutical industry in any way.
Written by Jill Dunn
Expertise usually arises from a personal interest that stimulates one to study the background of a topic or issue, like a PhD.Standard degrees tend to qualify you to regurgitate the accepted position. It is shocking that journalists like Kylar are 
Septic Skeptics 
