ABC1 LATELINE Expose On The AVN – NSW Health Care Commission Ruling

Breaking news! The complaint to the NSW State Government-funded Health Care Complaints commission (HCCC) has been successfully upheld! Now the AVN has to feature disclaimers on their website.

It’s only just showing on ABC1′s Lateline program over in the Eastern States – if you’re in Western Australia, it’ll be screened at 10.35pm. There’ll be a transcript, vodcast and details on their official site, if you’re unable to see it today.

In addition, the ABC website has a short news item by Steve Cannane, which you can see in the picture I’ve attached to this blog-post: ‘Anti-Vaccine Group Accused of Harassing, Misleading Parents’.

‘In Australia vaccination is a key plank of public health strategy. It is thus extremely important for individuals, especially parents, to be able to make informed decisions about vaccination. The AVN provides information that is misleading for the average reader by inaccurately representing information, selectively reporting information, and giving non-peer reviewed and anecdotal material the same authority as peer -reviewed literature’. The NSW State Government-funded Health Care Complaints commission (HCCC).

The final report, in pdf format, may be downloaded at HCCC: AVN Final Report (PDF) - it includes the following:

The 2010 WA Telethon Institution Lecture On Vaccination. The Experts. The Facts.

I’m in the main hall of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research (TICHR), a large indoor venue that is part of an ongoing lecture series.

There is a LOT of information being given tonight, and these are very slide-heavy and text-heavy discussions. Here is the best summaries I can do, but the final speaker Bruce Langoulant (talking about his daughter Ashley) is the most powerful in terms of emotive appeal. I thought this was particularly effective, considering that although like the others, he brings in personal experience – but his determination to get better information out and encouraging us to think about long-term impact of children harmed by disease is really sobering. I found myself on the verge of tears at times.

Dr Fiona Stanley introduces the panel, saying that because of the issues that are facing us in the community, and with the recent flu problems with adverse reactions – best thing to do is give info via experts, importantly to parents in acknowledging there’s been problems and not throw ‘babies out with bathwater’.

The people who will be talking to us are:

• Dr Peter Richmond – Paediatrician at PMH, Head vaccine trials groups at TICHR – prof at school of paediatrics and child health at UWA.
• Clinical Associate Professor Deborah Lehmann Infectious disease research TICHR (has worked for WHO). Has worked for 30 years and committed to reducing mortality from diseases.
• Bruce Langoulant – Chairman of the Meningitis Center (I hope I got that correct!), President of the Confederation of Meningitius Organisations Inc. and a parent of a 21 year old child disabled due to meningitus as an infant.

Brief Comments – three expert panelists. Qu. at the end. ‘Will see how it goes’. Overview by Prof Fiona Stanley of the presenters given as above.