I don’t plan to say much about the program, because my friends Martin Pribble, Godless Business and Chrys Stevenson, as well as many others to whom they link, have done a splendid job. You should particularly read Chrys’s blog, because she called me young.

And much of what I would have said could be expressed as well in just two images.

This picture, of Gregory Storer and Michael Barnett kissing in front of the Muslim protesters was taken by Pete Darwin.

The first ‘Global’ Atheist Convention dealt with the obvious questions: who are we, and why would would we congregate? What do we believe, if not superstitious god-gibberish?

This convention dealt with one question above all others: what to we want to do? Secularism, youth activism, fixing the treatment of women and children, meditation, accepting death and the universe from nothing. Oh, and much, much more. This convention was not about the existence of gods.

It was about life. The good life, in spite of religion. In fact, AtheistCon may as well have been about kissing, regardless of religious butthurt.

When history reflects on my generation, I hope this kiss is not forgotten.

Meanwhile, in the same city, largely ignored by those not involved, stood a crumbling facade. Propped up brutishly and casting an unpleasant shadow, there was plainly nothing behind it but dreams of a renewal. Should the renewal come, it would not remotely resemble the facade’s former home. The best to ever be hoped for: a veneer of what once was. Right now: a mess.

I took a photo of it:

You thought I meant Reason for Faith, right?

The survey is here. If you get the Nutters’ Newsletter, you might like to fill it out. Stupidly, Meryl has also published a link to the current results.

And I think this question really sums up the AVN’s supporters:

Eight days a week

That’s right folks! 43% of AVN Newsletter readers would like to receive it on a day of the week that does not exist.

You can’t trust it; it’s written in Comic Sans MS.

Of course, inductive reasoning would allow us to at least concede that the stereotype is a great time-saver in most cases.

IMAGINE THE JOY OF CHILDREN

On the whole, Stop the AVN pored over the judgment, and consulted the lawyers within its ranks. We worked hard to understand precisely what had happened and what the upshot might be.

On the whole, the AVN said HURR I IS WINNAR.

Here’s a great example by Judy Wilyman, who calls herself a ‘PhD Researcher’ (she means student). The University of Wollongong’s dimmest bulb had this to say:

The AVN is not a healthcare provider as the HCCC finally accepted after a 2 year court case. This is a surprising event because the AVN has clearly represented itself as a consumer group requesting choice in vaccination for almost 20 years. As such, consumers present a range of ethical, political, cultural and scientific reasons (and opinions) why it is necessary to have choice in vaccination and this has been posted on the AVN website.

Perhaps you could inform me why a government body (HCCC) feels it has to suppress the input of consumers by upholding a complaint made by a lobby group against it for 2 years. It is my understanding that the purpose of the HCCC was to investigate consumers concerns about health issues. As someone who has presented valid scientific arguments to the AVN I am intrigued at your assertions that none of the science on the AVN website is valid.

Could you please explain why the HCCC is acting against its remit in this instance? Are you suggesting that consumers have no right to an input into policy decisions (involving a medical procedure) that directly affects the health and well being of the population? Is this topic (that involves injecting substances into the human body) a taboo topic for debate in public forums? It would seem from recent experiences that this is the case. I hope you can explain for me why the HCCC took this action when the AVN is clearly not a healthcare provider.

Clearly Judy did not even bother to read the judgment in AVN v HCCC:

[10] Vaccination is a matter about health. The provision of information about vaccination is a health education service. It is common ground, and I accept, that the plaintiff is a “health service provider” within the meaning of s 4 of the Act since it provides “health education services”.

[30] It submitted that it is sufficient for the purposes of s 7(2) that complaints were made against the plaintiff, which admits that it is a health service provider. [...]

Judy, Judy, Judy. Of the many fails Meryl achieved with her supreme court challenge, one of the most wonderful is that it is now cast in legal stone: The AVN is a health service provider. Even the AVN accepted it.

With skills like this, it will be very interesting to see what becomes of Judy’s career as a ‘PhD researcher’.

• The AVN provides information that is solely anti-vaccination
• Its site contains information that is incorrect and misleading
• They quote selectively from research to suggest that vaccination may be dangerous
• The information provided by the AVN should not be read as medical advice
• The decision about whether or not to vaccinate should be made in consultation with a health care provider

Above all, the warning itself was a smackdown:

The Commission recognises that it is important for there to be debate on the issue of vaccination. However, the AVN provides information that is inaccurate and misleading.

The AVN’s failure to include a notice on its website of the nature recommended by the Commission may result in members of the public making improperly informed decisions about whether or not to vaccinate, and therefore poses a risk to public health and safety.

Because the page was so awesome, many bloggers and journalists linked to it when writing about the AVN. These links in turn signalled to search engines that the page was an important one for AVN-related searches. The upshot? Searching for the AVN, or ‘Australian Vaccination Network’ and a number of other related terms brought the Public Warning right up next to the AVN’s page.

A new warning

Of course, AVN v HCCC has meant the removal of that page. The Supreme Court of NSW held that the HCCC didn’t technically have the jurisdiction to issue the warning about the AVN based on the specific complaints. However, the content of the warning was fine: there was no suggestion that the findings of the HCCC were anything but accurate.

So Stop The AVN has issued its own public warning about the Australian Vaccination Network. The page neatly sums up the content of the  former Warning and the circumstances surrounding its genesis, removal and influence.

Bloggers, we need your help!

If you have links in your posts pointing to the old Public Warning: we would love it if you would point them to the new address.

Old URL: http://www.hccc.nsw.gov.au/Decisions/Public-Statements-and-Warnings/Public-warning-against-Australian-Vaccination-Network–AVN-/default.aspx

New URL: http://www.stopavn.com/public-warning-australian-vaccination-network-avn

If you write about the Australian Vaccination Network please include a link to the URL above. It helps us most if you include the words ‘Australian Vaccination Network’ in the text you link.

If you have a blogroll or list of links on your site, please add a link to the warning page!

• AVN v HCCC: It’s the vibe
• BREAKING: AVN wins in AVN v HCCC
• Why the AVN won against the HCCC

My last post covered the reasons for the Australian Vaccination Network’s victory, on the technical question of the jurisdiction of the NSW Healthcare Complaints Commission in investigation two complaints against them. Following these complaints, the HCCC issued a public warning against the AVN:

The Commission’s investigation established that the AVN website:

• provides information that is solely anti-vaccination
• contains information that is incorrect and misleading
• quotes selectively from research to suggest that vaccination may be dangerous.

Now, the judgment in AVN v HCCC seems to revoke that warning, officially at least. The AVN can certainly celebrate a small victory, irrelevant to the truth of its claims or the danger it poses. It’s a disappointment.

However that is not the full story.

The AVN fails to influence OLGR

The AVN had a second (and much more important) goal in AVN v HCCC. The HCCC’s public warning was used as one factor in the decision by the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing (don’t ask) to revoke the charitable fundraising authority of the AVN.

The AVN was hoping that this decision could also be overturned by the case. They failed.

As my mate Jason puts it:

AVN argued that the HCCC order and warning brought them into line-of-fire of a new hazard - that of having their charitable status revoked. The judgement explicitly says that this is not the case. So the AVN, while they’ve won on paper, have actually lost the part that the organisation would value the most.

You really should read the rest of Jason’s excellent post.

This is the first of a couple of posts following up on my posts on the final day of argument in AVN v HCCC and the delivery of the decision. The judgment is very clearly written, and I encourage you to read it in full. However, there are a few very interesting points to be drawn out.

Why the AVN won

As I have discussed before, the matter of the HCCC’s jurisdiction in this case came down to the interpretation of section 7 of the Health Care Complaints Act 1993, and particularly the following excerpt:

(1) A complaint may be made under this Act concerning:

[...]

(b) a health service which affects the clinical management or care of an individual client.

(2) A complaint may be made against a health service provider.

At issue was whether it was necessary for the AVN to fall under 7 (1) (b). While everyone agreed the AVN was a health service provider, the judge found that 7 (2) alone was not sufficient to establish that the HCCC had jurisdiction to investigate the two complaints that lead to the public warning.

Justice Adamson decided, based on the act as a whole, that it would be necessary to fulfil the specific wording used in 7 (1) (b).

It followed then, that it needed to be established that the AVN affected the clinical management or care of an individual client. In other words, among the evidence submitted, there would have to be a demonstrable case of a specific person’s healthcare to be affected. The HCCC argued for a broad net to be cast: if it could be reasonably inferred that someone had taken the AVN’s information into account, then the AVN had ‘affected’ their ‘care’. However, based on the evidence submitted, there was little in the way of specifics at hand. Ken McLeod’s allegation of appalling vaccination rates in the Northern Rivers area of NSW was offered, for example.

And this was to prove fatal. As the judge hits home hard in paragraphs 59 and 60:

59. Although I find that both complaints concern the health service that theplaintiff provides, the health service has not beenshown to “affect theclinical management or care of an individual client”. Although it might havethat tendency, andalthough the plaintiff hopes to have that effect, I do notconsider this to be sufficient to establish that it has had that effect.

60. I do not consider the evidence to be relied upon by the HCCC to besufficient that there was such a causal link, or that any link could beestablished in respect of “an individual client”. Had the HCCCapprehended that such would be required to found jurisdiction, itpresumably could have readily obtained such evidence from one of thecomplainants. However, the ease with which it might have done so is notthe test. It did not do so. As I have found, the evidence adduced before meis not sufficient to bring the complaints within s 7(1)(b) of the Act.

Ouch. Sadly, because the HCCC had not anticipated the need to prove that Meryl is not totally unsuccessful in achieving her goals, they could not prove with the evidence at hand that she had affected indviduals’ healthcare, and therefore fell within the HCCC’s decision.

It’s a tortuous route to get there, but that’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise. We’re better served by a judiciary that adheres to the letter of the law that one that does not.

As if to rub salt in our wounds, here’s a splendid screenshot demonstrating exactly why the HCCC could have been found to have jurisdiction, in a different set of specific circumstances (this is from 2012 and clearly not relevant to the case itself):

An individual client (thanks to Hank)

Oh, well.

I hope the HCCC appeals the decision (the likelihood of this evades me).

And as Jason notes, the AVN should not be celebrating too hard…

UPDATE: Please also see my followup on why the AVN won.

Justice Christine Adamson found that the HCCC did not have jurisdiction to investigate the complaints made about the AVN. The reasoning for the judgement will be published later, but rested on the technical wording of the Health Care Complaints Act. I wrote a summary of the last day’s argument in AVN v HCCC on Thursday.

None of this has anything to do with the truth of Meryl Dorey’s claims, nor the fact that her organisation is solely anti-vaccination. Nor does this necessary resolve any of the other legal issues facing the AVN, though it may affect them.

Meryl will justifiably be delighted at her victory and will no doubt crow that this is a victory on all kinds of fronts. It isn’t. It’s a technical matter of jurisdiction, which unfortunately means the HCCC overstepped it’s bounds in issuing the public warning. This case does not affect the truth of the warning.

I have no legal expertise whatsoever, but I’m concerned that this judgment may well set a precedent that renders the HCCC less able to tackle quacks who operate at the edges of the law’s various definitions around what constitutes ‘health care providers’. Perhaps we’ll need to lobby for better legislation as a result.

One thing’s for sure: none of this changes Stop AVN’s resolve. The AVN is dangerous and should be held firmly to account.

UPDATE: There will be more to say when the judgement is published, hopefully Monday.

In my brown shirt.

A couple of hours ago, I got out of the NSW supreme court, where we heard the final day of argument in AVN v HCCC. The anti-vaccination group took the NSW Healthcare Complaints Commission to court, appealing the HCCC’s jurisdiction to issue its famous public warning against the Australian Vaccination Network.

We had a new judge who was well informed on previous sessions and written submissions to the court. Today, we had her interrogation of the barristers for both sides on specific points of law.

I’m not a lawyer and what follows is based on my impressions, scribbled notes, memory and inexpert interpretations. Don’t rely on it for anything.

The Healthcare Complaints Commission of New South Wales is governed by the Health Care Complaints Act of 1993. Most time today was  spent on on section 7 (1) b) and 7 (2) of the act:

7 What can a complaint be made about?

(1) A complaint may be made under this Act concerning:

(a) the professional conduct of a health practitioner (including any alleged breach by the health practitioner of Division 3 of Part 2A of the Public Health Act 1991 or of a code of conduct prescribed under section 10AM of that Act), or

(b) a health service which affects the clinical management or care of an individual client.

(2) A complaint may be made against a health service provider.

(3) A complaint may be made against a health service provider even though, at the time the complaint is made, the health service provider is not qualified or entitled to provide the health service concerned.

In particular, the judge wanted to make clear what it would mean for a health service (such as Meryl Dorey’s website) to affect the clinical management or care of an individual client.

The AVN’s case

In particular, the AVN’s barrister wanted Her Honour to hold that evidence was needed of at least one specific individual case of a person whose healthcare was influenced by the AVN’s activities. The HCCC seemed to rely heavily on my friend Ken McLeod’s original complaint to the Commission. This noted the significantly lower rates of vaccination in Northern NSW, Dorey’s stomping ground. A reasonable to-and-fro on the issue of correlation vs. causation ensued, in which the actual effectiveness of the AVN was questioned, a theme to which HCCC’s barrister would later return. The AVN’s barrister rejected the idea that a general statistical correlation in vaccination rates was sufficient to establish that the clinical management or care of an individual client had been affected by the AVN’s activities.

The AVN’s barrister objected to the HCCC’s acting as a general consumer or public-health watchdog and took a strict line on the requirement for specific clinical effects of the AVN on individuals to be demonstrated.

One of the most humorous exchanges occurred when the HCCC’s barrister submitted that clinical management or care implied that the healthcare provider have some knowledge of the clinical situation of the client. The judge hypothesised a public lecture by an antivaxxer, based upon which a specifically nominated parent chose not to vaccinate. She asked whether that would constitute an effect, and the AVN barrister conceded that that would indeed trigger jurisdiction for the HCCC. When the judge pointed out that a public speaker could not know the medical history of each audience member, I double-underlined one word on my pad: ‘PWNED’. The barrister ceded the point.

There was the question of whether ‘information’ should be considered equivalent to ‘advice’, whether that mattered, and whether the disclaimer on the AVN’s website could reduce the latter to the former. The sentence ‘Isn’t that just a cop-out?’ was uttered by an incredulously laughing judge. She didn’t seem convinced by the suggestion that the AVN was ‘just putting stuff out there’, seemingly suggesting that it would be absurd to think the AVN did not actually want people to pay attention to them.

One particular passage from the AVN was called out, implying a link between vaccination and autism. The judge noted that while the AVN’s site is extensive, given the prevalence of concern about autism a parent might be expected to latch on to it.

All parties agreed soon enough that while the question of an effect on specific, named individual was unresolved, if an anonymous poll of non-vaccinators showed they had changed their mind on vaccination because of Dorey, then that would satisfy 7 (1) b).

Very amusingly, the AVN’s barrister argued that Meryl Dorey’s evidence should be ruled inadmissible for three reasons: Dorey’s opinion is not necessarily that of the actual plaintiff, the AVN and its committee (yeah, right); Dorey’s statement of her intentions is irrelevant to the facts of the matter; and her description of the AVN’s purpose in 2011 is temporally irrelevant to the AVN’s purpose in 2009. Whether the judge will consider it admissible was not revealed, but as it later transpired it seems Meryl Dorey did more harm than good to the AVN. Nothing new there, then. Cheers Meryl.

In case you missed that, here it is again. The AVN’s barrister requested that Meryl Dorey’s testimony be ruled inadmissible, so helpful was she to the HCCC.

In summary, the AVN’s barrister argued that Parliament drafted 7 (1) b) in a very specific way, incompatible with the interpretation that the HCCC has jurisdiction for broad public-health watchdoggery.

The HCCC’s case

The judge first questioned whether the allegation in My Friend Ken McLeod’s original complaint, that people make decisions based on the AVN’s info, is the same as an established fact. There was some discussion about the fact-checking by the HCCC. This was a reasonable question, rather disappointingly answered, in my opinion.

Even worse was the discussion of the particular statistic mentioned above: that 30-33% of kids are not fully vaccinated in the Northern Rivers, versus some presumably much lower national rate. This was very disappointing, with far too much reliance on Ken’s complaint. Regardless of the accuracy of Ken’s stats (which I do not seriously doubt), the assertion in his complaint was not an appropriate source for Court to rely on. I hope the judge does some background reading on this. Scarily, the HCCC’s barrister even came close to repeating Dorey’s own Pertussis Lie as she scrabbled for statistics.

The HCCC argued that specified ‘individual clients’ need not be identified (anonymously or otherwise). It is sufficient to establish that it’s likely that someone has been affected in a clinical sense by Dorey’s publications. That this was the intent all along was well established by evidence sourced from the AVN. For example, the AVN’s stated aims in its Articles of Association, and the ‘principle activities’ of the AVN stated in its 2008-09 financial reports to the Office of Fair Trading. Namely: the AVN intended to assist parents in making an ‘informed choice’.

Both barristers agreed in their own debates with the judge that other hypotheses could explain local drops in vaccination rates.

The HCCC then moved on to Meryl Dorey’s evidence, and it became apparent why the AVN’s barrister was keen to suppress it (I noted, with an ironic smile to myself, the echoes of Meryl’s own abuse of the DMCA to suppress records of her own idiocy). When asked if, in 2009, the AVN intended to help parents make the decision to vaccinate (or not), Dorey replied ‘yes’. Oops. There goes the temporal irrelevancy.

The HCCC made clear its belief that the case need not fall over if the judge was unconvinced that specific vaccination decisions were made on the basis of the AVN’s information. If AVN claims were ‘taken into account’ in the decision-making process, then it had affected the healthcare of the ‘client’, or the consumer of the AVN’s information.

The judge enquired as to the AVN’s web traffic, and the HCCC’s barrister was unable to respond. She did point out research that showed that people often turn to the Internet in the first instance for vaccination and other medical information. In my opinion, a better prepared barrister could have made a strong argument that the AVN’s high search-engine rankings for vaccination-related topics in Australia would be evidence of a likely influence on vaccination decisions.

It seemed the judge was thoroughly convinced of the AVN’s explicitly anti-vaccination stance. Mention was made several times of the notorious ‘Love them, Protect them, Never inject them’ t-shirt, which the AVN has sold for many years. The judge also wryly dismissed Dorey’s habitual denial of her anti-vaccination stance, stating:

It’s coy that your client is shy about admitting what it’s on about

There arose many more arcane legal points that I am afraid this blogger lost track of. Pharmacist sex popped up briefly but uninterestingly. Sorry I couldn’t follow everything.

In the end, it seems to me that the strongest argument presented by the AVN was that very specific wording was used by Parliament in 7 (1) b). This wording need not have been so specific, were the HCCC intended to have a broad remit. It is a principle of statutory interpretation that legislators use language advisedly.

However, it would be decisive if the judge were persuaded it is enough for anyone to be influenced in their decision-making by the AVN’s activities. And in that case, to win their case, the AVN and Meryl Dorey would have to be found wholly unsuccessful in their stated aims.

Oh, and did I mention that the AVN’s barrister wanted Meryl’s evidence ruled inadmissible?

I am not a lawyer.

Yes. That does say 'WOGs'.

Dear Mr Wrotniak,

I am writing to ask politely that you respect the very clear ‘No Junk Mail’ sign next to my mail box. The purpose of this sign is to decline unsolicited marketing material. This includes but is not limited to menus for takeaway restaurants, flyers for home-cleaning companies, and invitations to indulge in the consumption of the charred corpses of fellow mammals with members of a death cult which hopes a probably fictional (and if not long dead) Palestinian will return and absolve us of the need to make responsible use of resources such as paper.

I note from this hilarious conversation (should it be genuine) that you are, as am I, opposed to unsolicited communication. I would, however, not be inclined to address you in quite such strong terms. For example, I would not go so far as to say:

You’re probably a faggott too. Your self righteous,aggro, judgemental highhorse attitude is a characteristic of most faggs. Keep your hand off it,looser.

It’s spelled ‘loser’, above all else.

As this is the second time that I have had to contact your church regarding this matter, I am making this an open letter.

Kind regards,
Dave The Happy Singer