Anti vaccine group has only a week left to heed to HCCC’s warnings

Will somebody please report this issue with a little depth?

The AVN is accused of harassing a family yet no details of the harassment are made known. An ABC lateline program indicated the only 'harassment' that took place was a letter from the Director of Public Health writing to inform the parents that an enquiry had been made regarding diagnosis.

The enquiry is surely not 'harassment'. It is in the public interest. The letter, on the other hand, seems outrageous. Why don't reporters ask the obvious question.... What was the purpose of writing a letter to the parents to tell them there had been an enquiry? Then ask... What, of substance, did the AVN do to harass anyone?

We deserve to know these things. After all, a community group is about to be censored in a move that bypasses all that we hold dear concerning democracy, and you are giving us no substance to make any judgement for ourselves.

Let's also examine the motives of the Director of Public Health in writing to the parents. Dig a little deeper, please!

Coverage by the ABC goes into the harassment. Here's a URL: au.news.yahoo.com/.../

The AVN contended the fact that Dana McCaffery died of pertussis, including accusing her parents of making it up. There's plenty of detail in that article.

This also isn't the first infant pertussis death related to falling levels of immunisation.

Also, I've seen no plan to prevent the AVN from speaking out, merely to force them to put a disclaimer on their website. It's no more censorship than putting warning labels on cigarette packets.

I'm sorry Kieran but there is no detail of any contact between the family and the group in that article. There is, however, reference to a letter sent from the Director Public Health to the family advising that Ms Dorey made enquiries.

To me, the enquiry doesn't seem out of place. The letter, on the other hand, does seem without purpose.

From what I can make out the family appear to have become activists in a sense by joining a group called 'Stop the AVN' and speaking out about them. When the AVN defended themselves the family have cried 'harrassment'. I can see no other evidence of harrassment, at least nothing of substance.

Claims are being reported without being backed up with substance. You may have a different opinion. I see there is a very organised movement to destroy the AVN. Whether or not that is a noble cause is entirely seperate from the issue of integrity in reporting.

The claims are that they made public comments denying that the death was due to pertussis, despite there being no medical evidence to support that. Admittedly, these are supposed to be on blogs and Facebook, and I haven't yet seen hard links (or screenshots), so who knows. There's some implication that they've received harassing emails too.

Anyway, the family involved have made a formal complaint to the HCCC, who I'm sure will do a more thorough investigation.