The AVN urges you to investigate before you vaccinate
We believe it is a parent's right to choose what's best for their child...some would say that this is one of the most basic rules of any civilised society. Yet governments all over the world have abridged or denied the right to free choice when it comes to vaccinations, vaccines and immunisations. The Australian Vaccination Network is working to help parents take back that right to free and informed choice by allowing them to see the less publicised side of this important issue before making a decision.
Andrew Wakfield - Fraud or victim of pharmaceutical and medical protectionism?
Dr Andrew Wakefield, the first man brave enough to publish an article in a peer-reviewed journal, the Lancet, regarding the possibility of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism has today been called a fraud in just about every major and most of the minor newspapers around the world. It is claimed that he was taking money from lawyers at the time this article was published to help prepare a compensation claim on behalf of the parents of children with regressive autism and that therefore, his information was tainted by this money. Once again, the media is marching to the tune of their advertisers and goose-stepping across the truth without any regard for what actually happened. Wakefield had informed the Lancet about these funds and his 'study' was not a study at all but simply a case series listing the 12 children he had examined and in whom he had discovered a new form of gastrointestinal damage which he called Illeal Lymphoid Hyperplasia. All 12 of these families give Wakefield their absolute support and in fact, the complaint against him was lodged, not by someone he had treated and who opposed him, but by a journalist at a newspaper whose owner is on the board of a major vaccine manufacturer.
Wakefield did not say that people should stop vaccinating. He is not anti-vaccine. Instead, he said that the proper research into the safety of the combined MMR vaccine had not been performed (a statement which was recently verified by Dr Thomas Jefferson from the well-respected Cochrane Collaboration). Wakefield suggested that until this research had been done and the safety of the MMR vaccine proven scientifically, parents should consider giving their children the measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations separately - surely not an anti-vaccination statement. The reaction of governments around the world to this suggestion was the withdrawal of the individual Measles Mumps and Rubella vaccinations, effectively taking away parental choice, and scandalous, unverified and defamatory accusations against Dr Wakefield.
Wakefield's results have been verified and re-verified many times in the years since his first study was published. The media and the medical community try to ignore this fact by instead concentrating on the man himself and disregarding the millions of families affected by regressive autism following vaccination.
Below are just a few of the articles published recently which confirm Wakefield's findings. Please share this information and support the whistleblowers who suffer as a result of their strong belief that truth and ethics will eventually win out over lies and vested interests. We also recommend that you view the recent television interview with JB Handley from Generation Rescue on the real facts regarding Wakefield's case series and about the undone science comparing the rates of autism in the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated. Until this study is done, parents will continue to believe what they have found through their own research and seen with their own eyes - that children are regressing into autism within a short time after receiving vaccinations and that the medical community and the governments of the world care more about money then about their children's health.
Clinical Presentation and Histologic Findings at Ileocolonoscopy in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Chronic Gastrointestinal Symptoms Arthur Krigsman, Marvin Boris, Alan Goldblatt and Carol Stott Autism Insights 2010:2 1-11 http://tinyurl.com/2d6qzp5
Gastrointestinal Pathology in Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Venezuelan Experience by Lenny G. Gonzalez, MD http://tinyurl.com/yestkhu
Panenteric IBD-like disease in a patient with regressive autism shown for the first time by wireless capsulenteroscopy: Another piece in the jig-saw of the gut-brain syndrome? Balzola F, et al. American Journal of Gastroenterology. 2005. 100(4):979-981.
Endoscopic and Histological Characteristics of the Digestive Mucosa in Autistic Children with gastro-Intestinal Symptoms. Gonzalez L, et al. ArchVenez Pueric Pediatr, 2005;69:19-25.
Debating Vaccination: Understanding the attack on the Australian Vaccination Network - Dec 6th 2010
The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), a citizen group advocating parental choice in whether children should be vaccinated, has come under an extraordinary attack by advocates of vaccination. Controversies over vaccination involve both disagreements about scientific matters, such as the effectiveness of vaccination to prevent disease, and clashes of values, including compulsion versus free choice.To help understand the attack on the AVN, I give an overview of the nature of scientific controversies, including the roles of evidence, vested interests, solutions, paradigms and methods of debate. I analyse a formal complaint against the AVN to highlight the assumptions underlying the anti- AVN position. I describe some of the methods used to attack the AVN: unsupported claims, formal complaints, and harassment. Finally, I discuss tactics for opposing the attack.
