While I did receive some early mail on this story. Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Blog beat me to the punch with a comment. What can I say? I had to muck out the chook shed and defend my eggs from some thieving crows.
In a fit of misguided journalistic balance, the unattributed article quotes AVN campaigner and fan of David Icke’s work Meryl Dorey:
She says the H1N1 vaccine could prove more dangerous than the disease itself.
We are of course left to wonder why this is so? How could the vaccine be more dangerous? Meryl doesn’t tell us and the reporter responsible for this irresponsible journalism doesn’t bother either.
Seriously Aunty, quoting someone who has no qualifications in medicine, let alone immunology on a vaccine for a world wide pandemic? You could have get more scientific sense out of you local fish and chip shop proprietor.
Not only that but the outright drivel that Meryl espouses on this and other medical matters, her conspiracy theories, her anti establishment agenda are all easily found if you spend a half hour digging online.
Despicable fear mongering and sensationalist news from the ABC maybe they should take a leaf out of the Age’s book:
LEADING health experts have dismissed as scaremongering claims that Australia’s mass swine flu vaccination will expose the public to greater risks of death and neurological disorders.
and
… infectious disease expert Professor Raina MacIntyre called the network a ”vocal fringe group” and said there was no scientific evidence linking vaccines to autism or Guillain-Barre.
Perhaps Aunty is suffering a little dementia?
Australian’s you can complain here
* Aunty is the affectionate name Australian’s use to refer to our national broadcaster.
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[...] Sean the Blogobaut’s post Aunty* gets it wrong – ABC online aids in the promotion of vaccination fears (though my ego point’s out I tweeted about it yesterday). Share and [...]
ABC1's 7.30 Report did air an excellent story which left no doubt (in my mind) as to where Meryl Dorey & her cohorts sit – loonies on the fringe. I believe Lateline also did a brief but accurate story on the dangers of not vaccinating. As did Catalyst (very brief story, not sure if that's gone to air yet).
The stories in the print newspapers and online followed the next day and I couldn't help but notice the slack journalist trick of take a whole story, divvy it up and make each piece a headline grabber. Sad to see the ABC journos doing this. It's one thing to report each person's point of view, quite another to imply that each of those people are "experts" and "knowledgeable" when in fact they are not.
Yes I expect this sort of thing from the Murdoch press.
The ABC consists of many individuals of varying qualities of both journalistic skill and the ability to approach subjects in a manner that recognises the individuals own attempts at prioritising what is important to them and thus how to communicate that as important to others.To me the ABC is just too conservative hiding behind people who claim some sort of objective status or academic understanding, the end result mainly is the comfort zone is never breached.So the rather silly statement of being a David Icke fan seems to be the energising quality of objectivity in defiance of other views that make the Establishment seem very sinister..You could check out the qualifications experience and attitudes of say Dr.Leonard Horowitz in any video article or footnote he ascribes to uses produced or is part of.The skill to do that is a search engine his name and what he has said directly in any form available on the http://WWW.To me why the medical profession is sinister shows up quite regularly in my own life when I took to people about their medical experience.I cannot deny what I know about disease,and when I hear some of the treatment attitudes..do I say to myself I think crap!?Then reading much literature here there everywhere and now using computer assisted insight,they ,the medical profession seems even more sinister! I cannot understand blog sites that are just plainly dismissive of why there is a groundswell of attitudes always verging on contempt for the medical profession. Truly,it is your own irrationality,no-one elses!
Journalists should report the news, and it should be responsible reporting.
Your suggestion that the ABC should abandon using experts or qualified people to talk about their areas of experise is worrying (is this what you are saying, I am not sure?).
These people have to back up their claims with evidence they have other qualified people analysing and testing their claims.
No in your ideal world everyone gets an equal say.
Didn't like my jibe at Meryl for being a David Icke fan? That was my polite way of refering to her plagerism of one of his articles for dissemination to her fan base.
ABC conservative – come on mate, Aunty has hairy armpits and chains herslef to bulldozer's, where have you been when she's been accused of being a lefty?
Then you go and suggest Horowitz as a reputable source because of his qualifications.
You may not have cottoned on here Phil, but I don't trust qualified doctors/scientists/plumbers/engineers just because of their qualifictions, I trust the evidence, the evidence that thousands of qualified personal have looked over and investigated.
I have met Doctors who have been arseholes, I have even been permanently disfigured by one, I have had a doctor try and sell me magnets to improve my strength.I have also met many hardworking dedicated doctors who treat their patients with compassion in trying circumstances. WHich means sweet fuck all. Experts are human and fallible, so thats why I like science, and evidence based medicine – its not the result of one person.
A groundswell? Funny I don't see it. I see fringe groups each with different axes to grind
Come on Phil, step out of the echo chamber.
To Philip Travers: Huh?
Please try again, this time using English grammar, and it might be possible to derive some meaning from your post.
[...] See a rest here: Aunty* gets it wrong – ABC online aids in a graduation of … [...]
I see they've revised the headline and added a short rebuttal from Prof McIntyre.
Very sneaky of them re-editing the original story with no evidence of the original article, not sure if I like them doing that. Should they have run an additional story. What do you think?
I think they should have deleted it and replaced it with a retraction and apology.
Online promotion is heavily done by internet marketers out there promoting goods and services.-”