Australian Vaccination-risks Network

The Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network was formed in 1994 as the Vaccination Awareness Network by Meryl Dorey, a medically unqualified American who moved to Australia with her Australian husband, saying she got involved after her eldest son was allegedly adversely affected by DPT and MMR vaccines administered when he was a child. The group applied for tax-deductible charity status through the Australian Taxation Office and finally obtained it in 2002; it lost that status in 2007 by allowing it to lapse, and obtained it again in 2009. In 2010 the group's tax-exempt status was revoked by the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing after an audit of the organisation finding that AVN fundraising appeals had not been conducted in good faith for charitable purposes, had been improperly administered and were not in the public interest. The AVN is headquartered in Bangalow, New South Wales. In February 2010 Dorey announced that she was resigning, but held the position of President until 1 January 2013, when she was replaced by Greg Beattie. Dorey remains with the AVN as "Public Officer and spokesperson". In addition to its website and associated blog AVN published a quarterly magazine called Informed Voice, later renamed Living Wisdom and offered as a digital publication. Living Wisdom ceased publication in January 2013. The AVN's paid-for memberships formerly included a quarterly insert called Inside Edition which contained "12 pages of current news from around the world regarding vaccination". Beliefs The group is strongly against any form of compulsory vaccination, but Dorey disputes that the group is an anti-vaccine organisation. "We don't believe we have the right to tell people whether or not to vaccinate", says Dorey who adds, "but neither does the government." She claims that the group is just trying to fill "the information void" created by a pro-vaccine government and medical community that ignores negative information. Independent commentators generally reject these claims and point to numerous errors and distortions in AVN's statements about vaccines. In 2009, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation described the AVN as the "stronghold of the anti-vaccination movement" in Australia. The NSW Northern Rivers region, where the AVN is located, in 2007 had a childhood vaccination rate of only 70% compared to the national average of over 90%. The North Coast Assistant Public Health Director warned "Pockets of unvaccinated people in the region was the cause for the rise and fall in whooping cough cases... because we do not have herd immunity to the illness on the Northern Rivers". The Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network believes that vaccines contain a variety of toxic ingredients that have no place in the human body. In response to medical and scientific research that shows few side effects to most vaccines, Dorey argues that doctors are very hesitant to report adverse reactions and thus the data is highly skewed. These claims are false: while minor side effects such as soreness, swelling, and fever are not uncommon, no large scale scientific study has found evidence of more serious reactions and the purported link to autism is refuted. Former president Meryl Dorey claimed that most doctors are not fully informed about vaccination research and that the medical community as a whole relies on "selective evidence" to back its argument. She says there is a "very, very strong effort" by the government and mainstream medical community to suppress any information that may cause parents to question the safety of vaccines. The AVN has also questioned the effectiveness of vaccines. While admitting that infection rates dropped dramatically in the twentieth century, they argue that the change is due in large part to improved hygiene and living conditions. Dorey has also stated that the "vast majority" of people who contract disease have previously been vaccinated. AVN's arguments are well-known and long debunked anti-vaccine tropes. Dorey has written that "passing through a measles infection is sometimes required, for whatever reason, to strengthen some part of a person's vital force", and that diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox are benign conditions that do not kill children in industrialized countries. and described her own children's case of the disease as a "storm in a teacup" that was easily handled with natural remedies. It resulted in about 96,000 deaths in 2013. Before immunization in the United States between three and four million cases occurred each year, and the fatality rate is approximately 0.2% of those infected. Most of those who are infected and who die are less than five years old. Infectious disease specialist Peter McIntyre has accused the group of manipulating research and statistics in order to make its case. "It's been a real characteristic of the anti-vaccine movement ... [to claim] to be looking very extensively at the scientific evidence," says McIntyre, "[but their conclusions are] really a complete misinterpretation." Paediatrician Chris Ingall says that the AVN's efforts are "negative, destructive and [have] no scientific basis." Dorey argues that scientific studies cannot be trusted because they are usually funded, she claims, by biomedicine and pharmaceutical companies that develop and manufacture vaccine products, and that doctors have "financial incentives" to push vaccines. According to The Panic Virus, by Seth Mnookin; then AVN President Meryl Dorey signed a petition claiming "that the "AIDS industry and the media" had tricked the public into believing that the HIV virus causes AIDS". When during a government inquiry in 2015, Greens senator Di Natale asked AVN why they still referred to themselves as the "Australian Vaccination Network", a name they have been legally instructed to cease using, AVN member Brett Smith accused Di Natale of being part of a Murdoch media conspiracy. Journalist Bernard Keane noted this is the first time anyone had suggested a conspiratorial link between The Greens and a media organisation that has been highly critical of the party. In April 2007, Meryl Dorey compared a NSW Health policy change requiring immunisation for its workers to Nazi concentration camps saying "these are the sorts of [immunisation] tactics you would expect in concentration camps, not the sort of tactics you would expect in the Australian health-care system." The policy was also opposed by some civil libertarian and health-care groups, ==Activism==

The Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network has regularly opposed the pro-vaccine positions adopted by the Australian government, instead defending controversial and discredited research. AVN also distributes literature, sponsors seminars, and collects adverse reaction reports. In a 1996 editorial, AVN spoke out against a proposal to add vaccination centres to some shopping centres. Writing on behalf of AVN, Susan Lindberg called the idea "downright dangerous," asking "what if a baby has a fit or major reaction?" She also added that parents are under enough pressure to vaccinate already. In response to a 2002 proposal to extend free vaccination programs, Former AVN president Meryl Dorey argued that the Australian government should first do independent tests of the new vaccines. She said that she had doubts about the accuracy of the existing studies that were "funded ... by the pharmaceutical companies." A member of the government's immunisation advisory group countered that they always assess all available scientific data. In August 2004, AVN spoke out against combination vaccines being considered by health authorities. The organisation claimed that there were too many untested variables and that it was irresponsible to keep combining vaccines without knowing the effects. In 2006, Meryl Dorey continued the attack on combined vaccines, claiming it was un-natural, as "It is a fact that [humans] will only ever contract one disease at a time." According to the British Medical Journal combined vaccines have actually shown reduced side effects, In 2011 social scientist Brian Martin wrote an essay "Debating vaccination" in Living Wisdom, on "attacks" and "suppression" AVN members faced. In a media release the University of Wollongong stated vaccination "should be freely debated" and that the 20,000-word paper was "intended to assist readers - especially members of the AVN itself", in ways to respond to criticism and better understand scientific controversy. Martin is a former member of the AVN. Adverse reaction reports In December 1996, AVN presented Federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge with reports on 150 cases of children claimed to have been injured by vaccines that dated back to 1991; Dorey claimed that the collection of previously unreported reactions represented the largest single collection ever presented to the Australian Government. Dorey states that many of the parents involved had previously tried to have their cases looked at, but had been told by health authorities their cases couldn't proceed because the parents lacked necessary documentation. In July 2010, the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission criticised the AVN's adverse event reporting system as being "anecdotal and misleading". In May 2000, Meryl Dorey spoke out against cuts in child care payments for 9000 families who failed to get their children vaccinated. She called the legislation a type of "civil conscription" and said the program was likely in violation of the Constitution. Wooldridge responded that the claim was "nonsense" because the requirement was "simply a condition on government financial assistance" and that families had the choice to accept it or not. In July 2007, AVN spoke out against the government's practice of giving pediatricians bonus incentives for immunising their patients. Dorey argued that the practice was unethical and led to doctors making decisions based on their pocket book rather than their conscience. She would later liken the payment to a bribe noting that doctors aren't paid extra for prescribing antibiotics, for example. Dorey further argued that the government began the practice in order to meet World Health Organization mandates on vaccination percentages and thus was more interested in playing a numbers game rather than doing what was right for the nation's children. Less than a month later, ten of the twelve scientists associated with the study retracted their conclusions. In February 2010, The Lancet formally retracted Wakefield's original 1998 article following an independent investigation that concluded Wakefield had been "dishonest, violated basic research ethics rules and showed a 'callous disregard' for the suffering of children involved in his research". On 24 May 2010, immediately following the striking-off of Mr. Wakefield by the British General Medical Council for "gross misconduct" and "bringing the medical profession into disrepute", the AVN continued to support him, issuing the following statement: "Dr Wakefield knows that he has the love and respect of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of parents around the world. Whether or not the GMC which is stacked with corrupt influences strikes him off is of no consequence. He will continue his work and autistic families everywhere will benefit as a result." In a statement following the ruling, Wakefield said "I never made the claim at the time, nor do I still make the claim that MMR is a cause of autism." Actions against the Australian Measles Control Campaign Prior to the commencement of the 1998 Australian Measles Control Campaign, the AVN initiated a campaign against it, for example accusing the Federal Government of using bullying tactics, overstating the effectiveness of the vaccine and understating the potential side effects. In July AVN said that they were instigating a Federal Court injunction against the campaign, to try to force it to change the information booklet and to simplify the forms required to obtain an exemption. The AVN's statements prompted the Federal Minister for Health to describe the group as "deceitful crackpots", At a Perth anti-vaccination seminar on 1 June 2010, Dorey was critical of the government's introduction of the measles vaccine to Australia in 1970, saying "We introduced a vaccine for a disease which was killing almost nobody and one has to ask, why?" Mortality data shows that during the decade 1966 to 1975, there were 146 certified deaths from measles in Australia while in the decade 1996 to 2005, there were zero deaths directly attributed to measles, and one death due to the measles complication SSPE. The decline in mortality is attributed to Australia's high measles vaccination rates achieving the elimination of endemic measles transmission in Australia. Campaign against the meningococcal vaccine The AVN campaigned against the introduction of a meningococcal vaccine to Australia in 2002. Meryl Dorey accused the government of wasting 41 million on the vaccination program, claimed that the vaccine had shown a large number of adverse reactions in the United Kingdom and had never been tested for effectiveness. However the vice-president of the AMA, Trevor Mudge, refuted her claims, pointing out that meningococcal disease is extremely dangerous and that "Vaccination really is the only strategy for this condition that is likely to work". He said the vaccine had been extensively tested and contrary to Dorey's claims had been found to be safe and highly effective in the UK. During an online debate covering meningococcal vaccination in 2005, Australian infectious disease specialist Peter McIntyre The rate of invasive meningococcal disease in Australia fell by more than 60% between 2002 (when vaccination commenced) and 2009, after doubling during the previous decade. Mortality data from the UK shows that meningococcal deaths decreased from 67 to 5 in the two years following implementation of the vaccine. The NSW HCCC criticised the AVN for selectively using information to support its position, when there is no evidence to support their claims, and that the evidence suggests that the most effective meningococcal strategy is to widely vaccinate. the AVN launched a campaign against the pertussis vaccine, using the death of the child in the campaign materials, claiming that the she did not die from pertussis. The AVN's public campaign against the pertussis vaccine began with an article in the May 2009 issue of Living Wisdom written by Meryl Dorey, which questioned the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine and the dangers of whooping cough itself. Critics pointed out that Dorey's article contained numerous errors of fact and omission. While the article correctly stated that Sweden had previously withdrawn pertussis vaccination in 1979 due to research showing it was ineffective, she failed to reveal that the vaccine then used in Sweden was different to the effective vaccine used in other countries such as Australia, nor did she reveal that Sweden reintroduced pertussis vaccination in 1996 and this had resulted in huge incidence reduction, with cases falling by 80–90% within 3 years. In the article, Dorey claims that "Whooping Cough is not a vaccine-preventable disease". Critics point out that evidence has shown that the acellular vaccine is 84% efficacious, and prevents 99.8% of infant hospital admissions after a completing a full course of three doses of the vaccine. Their campaign against the vaccine continued during two Channel 7 Sunday Night television programs, where Dorey made the claim that "no-one ever dies of Whooping Cough". AVN members continued to harass the McCafferys through to July 2010 by sending emails, letters and AVN brochures to the family. Former AVN president Meryl Dorey wrote another blog disputing the McCafferys' version of events, the treatments and effects Dana suffered and the diagnosis of pertussis. Dana's mother attempted to get the government intervene, to stop the harassment. In March 2016 Wilyman continued to repeat that such child deaths are "anecdotal" Campaign against the swine flu vaccine In September 2009, AVN campaigned against the swine flu vaccine, calling it "madness" to use a vaccine which they claimed was "laden with toxic mercury." Dorey further argued that more testing was needed on the vaccine before it was offered to the public and that it could prove to be more dangerous than the flu itself. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the swine flu should be treated no differently from the seasonal flu and that the government was wasting money by spending over a hundred million dollars on the vaccine. Anti-vaccination seminars and public talks In May 2010 the AVN announced that they would be hosting a seminar in Perth, Western Australia, to be held at the Uniting Church In The City (UCIC) on 14 May. However following a campaign by members of the Church, the medical community and members of the Stop the AVN group, the Church announced that they would not allow the AVN to use their premises for the seminar, as they were "concerned that there may be a public perception that the UCIC does not support childhood vaccinations due to the AVN seminar being held at UCIC's rooms". The AVN rescheduled and relocated the event for 1 June at the State Library of WA. The decision by the Library to allow the AVN to use their premises was widely criticised by the medical community and politicians, with the president of the Australian Medical Association saying he "was worried the use of the venue could give the group credibility" and the Shadow Arts Minister, John Hyde, saying "Why should a group that endangers the lives of WA children be allowed to speak and promote their cause at a taxpayer-funded venue dedicated to learning?" In Dec 2011, organisers of the Woodford Folk Festival were criticised for inviting Meryl Dorey to speak. The Queensland Health Minister Geoff Wilson advised attendees "not to take [Dorey's] nonsense too seriously". The Australian Medical Association described the group's views as "dangerous", and said organisers "had a responsibility to add speakers who could provide the medically approved side of the argument" so the audience were aware of "the risk of the information being presented [by Dorey]". Community pressure intensified resulting in Andreas Suhrbier, head of the immunovirology laboratory at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, to appear and field questions from the audience. Objection to "No Jab No Pay/Play" AVN have promoted the Church of Conscious Living, described in the Sydney Morning Herald as a "fake", and in the Daily Telegraph as a "sham" church set up to provide spurious religious exemptions from vaccination. The NSW Health Minister said she was "alarmed that a 'religion' would be created to thwart an important public health initiative." In April 2015 the "no jab, no pay" policy was introduced and the Abbott Federal Government made it more difficult for people to object to vaccination on religious grounds, and required that religions register their objection to vaccination. The policy officially came into effect in January 2016 and reportedly "sparked a rush on vaccines as parents fear missing out" on Family Tax Benefit Part A supplement and childcare subsidies. AVsN president Tasha David and former president Meryl Dorey both appeared on an "expert panel" at a February 2016 anti vaccine event in Mullumbimby (which has the lowest vaccination rates in Australia) at which other ways of evading no jab no play/pay rules were discussed, including falsely claiming "hypersensitivity" to gelatin or yeast, in order to obtain medical exemption. It was reported in The Daily Telegraph that Tasha David and Meryl Dorey were at the event to "prove that Australia was a testing ground for the rest of the world". In March 2016 the AVN announced its intention to legally challenge the Federal 'no jab no pay' laws, with the return of spokesperson Meryl Dorey stating "[w]hat the government is doing is unconstitutional, immoral and illegal, and they need to be shown the error of their ways". In one announcement AVN falsely stated that Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance also opposed the 'No Jab No Pay' legislation. Both organisations promptly rejected AVN's claim and clarified they supported the legislation. By December AVN had raised AUD$152,000 toward the legal challenge, then on Christmas Day announced it was dropping the legal action, citing a "poor chance of success". COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 In 2020, the group suggested SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, "is just the common cold", and people have been "fooled" by a "fear campaign on the silly sheep media". Dorey questioned the COVID-19 pandemic saying: "Are you being lied to?" Requesting that followers "take your phones and pop into the local hospital" and "Let us know how crowded it is - or is not. Is coronavirus really overwhelming our nation or is our nation overwhelming us with lies and killing our economy and us?" ==Complaints, investigations and criticisms==

The AVN has been the subject of several complaints to (and investigations by) Government departments and medical authorities. Medical professionals, scientists and other proponents of vaccination are highly critical of the AVN. NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) In August 2009, Ken McLeod filed a complaint against AVN with the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission. In response to the complaint, the AVN submitted a 27-page document which argued that they are not actively providing health care service and therefore are not under the jurisdiction of the Health Care Complaints Commission. Dorey called the complaint vexatious and a nuisance tactic. Tom Sidwell, a Monash University Immunology student, conducted a review of the sources and information provided in the AVN's HCCC reply. He submitted to the HCCC that all of the sources quoted by Dorey in the reply were either not from peer-reviewed journals as Dorey had claimed, or did not actually support the conclusions she was attributing to them. In an article published in the Journal of the Australian Skeptics, Sidwell wrote: :"The collection of references is, on the whole, laughable. At best she hasn't read the papers she cites and includes them out of ignorance, and at worst she is being deliberately deceptive." HCCC ruling The HCCC concluded their investigation into the AVN in July 2010. The Commission determined that "the health education service provided by the Australian Vaccination Network on its website provides misleading and inaccurate information on the subject of vaccination". The NSW HCCC's ruling was further supported by the Chief Medical Officer of Victoria, who agreed that the AVN "should make it clear what their views are and if it's an extreme view about a certain topic it should be clear that it is their view and that they're not speaking on behalf of for example the medical profession". In February 2012, the court ruled that the AVN is a health care provider, and therefore the HCCC does have jurisdiction over their activities. However, it ruled that the original complaints to the HCCC about the AVN were invalid because the complaints did not include evidence that anyone had actually acted on the incorrect advice provided by the AVN. The court did not make a judgement about the validity of the complaints, nor the information contained within them. Following the passage of the Health Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 by the Parliament of New South Wales, giving the HCCC powers to initiate investigations, and explore medical advice provided more generally than under the previous act, the NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell announced that the Health Minister has advised NSW Parliament the Health Care Complaints Commission is launching an investigation into the Australian Vaccination Network. The HCCC concluded a second investigation into AVN in 2014 and published a new warning statement. NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing (OLGR) investigation Following complaints that the AVN had been illegally fundraising without authority between 2 July 2007 and 2 June 2009, and a previous warning relating to the AVN being in breach of its fundraising authority conditions (as it did not have a "mechanism to properly and effectively deal with complaints relating to fundraising"), the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing (OLGR) announced in February 2010 that they would conduct a full audit of the groups fundraising activities. OLGR Ruling On 4 August 2010, the OLGR announced that their audit of the AVN had "detected a number of breaches of charity fund-raising laws", including: • Fundraising without authority; • Unauthorised expenditure; • Failure to keep proper records of income and expenditure; • Possible breaches of the Charitable Trust Act, 1993, which would be referred to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General. The AVN was given 28 days to respond to the findings. President Meryl Dorey declined to comment on the issue. Supreme Court appeal As part of their appeal to the NSW Supreme Court in relation to the HCCC complaint, the AVN asked the court to invalidate the OLGR's revocation of their fundraising authority, asking them to grant certiorari. In February 2012, the Court rejected AVN's argument, dismissed this particular complaint, and the fundraising prohibition remained. This order was challenged by the group. The challenge was dismissed, and on 25 November 2013 the New South Wales Office of Fair Trading order was upheld by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. In February 2014 the group changed its name to the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network. and asking "do you really 'need' control over your own body?" It drew criticism from the CEO of Domestic Violence Victoria, the Federal shadow Minister for Health Catherine King MP, Catherine King MP said that "equating doctors with rapists shows how completely unhinged the AVN has become". in 2011 it tweeted "court orders rape of a child" in relation to a court ordering a five-year-old girl to be vaccinated. In 2011, the Australian Vaccination Network's advice against vaccination, and their refusal to display the HCCC safety warning on their website, was included in Australian Doctor magazine's Top 50 Medical Scandals of the past 50 years. The Australian Skeptics awarded their Bent Spoon Award, "presented annually to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle", to Meryl Dorey and the AVN in 2009, stating that the award had been earned through their "scaremongering and misinformation about childhood vaccination". In response, Dorey stated that winning the award meant she was "on the right track". In September 2010, the AVN was accused of numerous copyright breaches relating to their sale of information packs containing photocopies of selected parts of old medical journal articles, newspaper reports and cartoons. After receiving complaints from authors and copyright holders, the AVN withdrew the packs from sale on their website. Several authors stated that they had not given permission for the AVN to reproduce the material and would seek payment for their past use. They also criticised the AVN's use of the articles as they were "old and not based on current information". Political criticisms Federal Parliament Following the AVN's public objections to the Australian Government's 1998 Australian Measles Control Campaign, the then Federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge issued a media release which was highly critical of the group, writing: :"I am deeply concerned that media organisations risk giving credibility to the crackpot views of the AVN by publishing, without question, their untrue and deceitful claims. Ultimately, young children who are particularly vulnerable to measles could suffer if their parents were influenced by the anti-science, irrational views of the AVN." Senator Di Natale condemned the organisation, stating in a press release: :"The AVN have gone so far as to promote measles as a healthy gift from mother nature and not the deadly disease it really is. As a doctor, I saw first-hand the tragedy these easily preventable diseases can cause. :Today the Senate has joined with the public health community to send a clear and strong message to those who are peddling lies about vaccines - they should pack up and go home." NSW Parliament In a response to a parliamentary question about the AVN's statements regarding the MMR vaccine, in September 2012 the NSW Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research said: : "The Australian Vaccination Network has not provided accurate information to parents about the risks and benefits of immunisation. Any link between the measles vaccine and autism has been conclusively discredited by numerous studies and reviews by credible experts, including the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Paediatrics and the UK Medical Research Council." During the NSW parliamentary debate on the Health Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, the ALP's Andrew McDonald (Shadow Health Minister at the time) warned that the AVN's name and website were "designed to mislead unsuspecting community members to believe that a balanced view about immunisation is being presented" and that "When provoked, Australian Vaccination Network's fellow travellers can and do behave reprehensibly," while a Liberal state parliamentarian, Matt Kean, described the AVN as "a group of flat-earthers and wing-nuts who believe that vaccination is unnecessary. Indeed, the group has claimed that vaccination is harmful to individuals, which is contrary to all the scientific evidence." In further debate, members of parliament described the AVN as "placing children at risk", "negligent", "misleading" and "disreputable". The late NSW Greens MLC John Kaye lobbied against what he called AVN's "voodoo claims and conspiracy theories". Describing AVN as "disgraceful", he said: "Spreading misinformation about childhood immunisation could be deadly". In the NSW Legislative Council, Peter Phelps described the AVN as "insane", while Trevor Khan called the AVN a "danger to public health" for "touting unscientific propaganda". Anthony John Roberts, the state's Minister for Fair Trading, said that "It is incredibly irresponsible for an avowedly anti-vaccination group to advertise itself as a balanced source of information on vaccination. Such action is not only misleading to the public but also dangerous to those who believe they are referring to evidence-based medical advice..." The Government, the medical community and the Australian Medical Association led by Associate Professor Brian Owler are in agreement that the name Australian Vaccination Network "is unacceptable". Queensland Parliament In December 2011 the Queensland Minister for Health, Geoffrey Wilson, issued a media statement criticising the AVN with the following comment, "For the small number of people who might be entertained by what Ms Dorey has to say, Woodford Folk Festival has a place for everyone. Just don't take her nonsense too seriously." To this, Wilson added, "The fact is vaccinations have saved millions of lives. Their invention was a miracle of scientific achievement." Other criticisms During 2002 while speaking in the New South Wales Legislative Council about low vaccination rates in the NSW Northern Rivers region, Liberal politician Brian Pezzutti criticised Meryl Dorey: :"only 60 per cent of children in the Byron Bay area in the 12 to 15 month age group - the very young and most vulnerable - are immunised. That is mainly because of the activities of a woman called Meryl Dorey, who lives in Byron Bay and who has decided not to immunise her children and who regularly claims that immunisation is not necessary. She campaigns against immunisation." Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith, who had previously run a national ad in The Australian asking parents to ignore AVN's claims, has been highly critical of the organisation, stating: : "They are actually anti-vaccination, and they should put on every bit of their material that they are anti-vaccination in great big words. They have every right for that belief but they should communicate it clearly so people are not misled." and : "I think they're choosing not to vaccinate because they don't understand risk management - they are told that there is a risk with vaccination - now everything in life has a risk. There's a minute risk but it's been proved all over the world that the advantages far outweigh the risk." In a 2016 press release responding to questions from AVN's Meryl Dorey, the Australian Sex Party publicly stated: :"The safety and efficacy of vaccination is not an area of scientific controversy. The claim that governments and scientists are all conspiring to mislead us ... is absurd and irresponsible... The claims of the anti-vaccination movement have been thoroughly debunked. Choosing not to vaccinate your children amounts to medical neglect; this is a serious ethical issue... We at the Australian Sex Party would like to encourage parents who are questioning what's right for their children, to follow the advice of the scientific and medical communities, rather than charlatans and conspiracy theorists". Stop the Australian Vaccination Network group In May 2009, immediately after the filming of the second Sunday Night television program covering the Pertussis death of Dana McCaffery, the Stop the AVN group was formed by Daniel Raffaele to "challenge the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN)". Members of the group began investigating the information provided by the AVN, and submitted complaints to the HCCC and OLGR. Founder of the 'Stop the AVN' group, Daniel Raffaele, who initiated the campaign to stop the ad commented, "Basically when it comes to information the AVN provides misinformation." The Panel's determination was issued on 3 December 2012. On 16 May 2013, the delegate of the Secretary to the Department of Health and Ageing decided to order the AVN to carry out actions as the AVN had not fully complied with the Panel's determination. Dorey and Leon Pittard (of Fair Dinkum Radio) have been the subject of an additional complaint, which was also found to be justified. Dorey has presented a Freeman on the land defence in relation to that complaint. ==See also==