Editor’s Note: The following communications from Dr Judy Wilyman illustrate her tenacity and dedication to righting the wrongs created by the vaccine industry and their associates in mainstream media plus the lobby efforts with selected politicians with incorrect information.
Full marks to Judy for standing up to all the pressures directed at her in a very un-Australian process.
The first item is a communication with a journalist who is happy to promote unfair breaches of human rights as “justifiable”.
The second item involves another mainstream journalist who deliberately tried to distort Judy’s thesis that earned her a PhD and the third item is a report relating to an apparently ignorant Victorian Health Minister who claims that all vaccines are safe.
The final item of interest is that Judy challenged the University of Wollongong’s action that removed important attachments from Judy’s thesis on the basis of “breach of copyright”.
The university has now reinstated the attachments which can be viewed at the link – “academic literature in my PhD thesis“.
Judy writes:
Below is a letter I have just sent to a journalist with Fairfax media who has stated it is justifiable to remove human rights without a proper debate of the evidence.
It is time that journalists were accountable for truthfully reporting the vaccination debate and not just a pro- or anti-vax argument.
- Hi Jorge (jorge.branco@fairfaxmedia.com.au),
Re Marginalising people with the term ‘anti-vaxer’ and removing human rights without debate.
Thankyou for taking the time to reply to Gabrielle’s concerns about the term ‘anti-vaxer’ and the abuse of human rights that occurs with mandatory medical procedures.
Perhaps you are unaware of the large percentage of the population that you are marginalising with the unbalanced reporting of the vaccination debate?
I am also interested to know why you are happy to exclude people from a proper debate of the topic.
I would highly recommend that you investigate who you are excluding from the debate.
It is harder to go against mainstream beliefs than it is to go with them – so please ask yourself why so many parents are now questioning this practice.
A small degree of investigation will demonstrate it is the educated parents who are choosing not to use all the vaccines.
And most will have used vaccines at some time in their life.
They are not correctly labelled as ‘anti-vaxers’ so your reporting of this issue is untruthful (A breach of the ethical codes of journalism (AJA)).
Many people agree with you that some vaccines are useful but this does not disqualify the argument that not all vaccines are safe, effective or necessary and this is the debate we need to have.
As someone who has used vaccines and has now studied this topic at university for a decade, I would like to challenge you to investigate the other side of this debate.
Here is my PhD thesis published on the University of Wollongong’s website http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/4541/ titled ‘A critical analysis of the Australian government’s rationale for its vaccination policy’.
Journalists who do not accurately report on health issues put public health at risk and they are also breaching the Australian Journalists Association (AJA) Code of Ethics (http://www.gwb.com.au/99a/ethics.html).
I hope that you will take the time to report accurately on the academic literature on vaccination policy and that you will ensure there is a national debate on this topic before our human rights are removed without evidence or justification.
Please be advised that this is an open letter to the community.
I have provided my website address below to assist your investigative journalism and I look forward to hearing from you for a proper debate on this topic.
Kind regards,
Dr. Judy Wilyman
- News with a negative frame: a vaccination case study
When my PhD thesis was published on the University of Wollongong’s website (11 January 2016), a journalist from The Australian newspaper (News Ltd), Kylar Loussikian, published a story that presented misleading information about this academic research. The story was titled “Uni accepts thesis on vaccine conspiracy’ .
He published his story on 13 January 2016 – a time frame of just 24 hours to make an assessment of the in-depth arguments in this document.
My UOW supervisor has written a rebuttal to this story titled ‘News with a negative frame: a vaccination case study‘ in which he makes the following conclusion:
“Loussikian’s treatment is based on another assumption: that a fair assessment of a PhD thesis can be carried out within 24 hours of it becoming public, that this assessment can be carried out by people without specialist qualifications in the field, and that there is no need to mention that campaigners had been attacking the student and her work for years beforehand. Loussikian’s article is also based on the assumption that a newspaper article is a suitable venue for assessing scholarly work, and that scholarly norms need not be followed in condemning a major piece of scholarship.”
The community should also note that in his article Loussikian states that the university’s vice-chancellor, Paul Wellings, has declined to answer any questions about the thesis and that the ‘university stood by it’.
The article written by Professor Brian Martin describes how lobby groups in Australia are influencing public behaviour through the negative framing of credible science on the risks of using multiple vaccines in children.
This misrepresentation of the academic literature by journalists is endangering public health and it reduces the integrity of academic debates.
Journalists should be accountable for accurately presenting the academic literature without using loaded labels such as ‘conspiracy’ and ‘anti-vaccination’ to influence public behaviour.
This type of journalism is preventing a debate on freedom of choice in medical interventions, particularly those for healthy individuals, such as vaccines.
Many people are concerned about the number of vaccines children are now required to have and parents have a right to be presented with the literature on this topic and be involved in the policy discussions.
Public health policy is stated to be for the protection of the public interest and this goal requires the participation of the community in public debates of the literature and on vaccine advisory boards which currently have many industry and medical representatives.
Here is a link to the academic literature in my PhD thesis that discusses the risks of using multiple vaccines in children that are not currently being included in the design of vaccination policies globally.
Dr. Judy Wilyman
www.vaccinationdecisions.net
- Australian Health Minister claims “There are no risks in vaccinating children”
Recently the Victorian Health Minister, Jillian Hennessey, who has qualifications in Arts and Law (not health), stated ‘There are no risks in vaccinating your children’ (Health Minister, Jill Hennessey, lies about vaccine risks, 20 February 2016) .
This is false and I recommend that you take 3 mins to watch this video of the severe vaccine reactions (the Hammond Story) that is an example of the harm that is occurring in families numerous times each year. The US Vaccine Injury Court has paid over $3 billion dollars to vaccine injured children/adults since 1986 but Australia does not have a similar compensation scheme.
The medical literature does not support Jillian Hennessey’s statement and it represents a danger to public health. I would also recommend that parents watch the following video (1:45 mins) titled ‘Vaccine Manufacturers have no liability for their product‘.
Perhaps Jillian Hennessey should also be provided with links to the following articles to improve health outcomes:
‘Settlement for Saba Button severely disabled after the flu vaccine’ OR ‘UK government awards compensation for swine flu vaccine that caused brain damage to hundreds of children’ OR Vaccines: Stories of Harm
There is plenty of evidence available of the harm being caused by vaccines but the Australian media is not reporting on the vaccination debate in a balanced manner and this is allowing harmful public health policy to be developed in Australia.
Please take the time to present these articles to Jillian Hennessey (jill.hennessy@parliament.vic.gov.au) and other politicians and Human Rights Commissioners (e.g. Tim Wilson, Megan Mitchell and Gillian Triggs) who have not supported the public’s right to freedom in the use of all medical interventions.
It is time for the public to ensure that politicians and the media are accountable for the health information they provide.
Dr. Judy Wilyman
www.vaccinationdecisions.net