Skip to content
Home » Meryl Dorey

Meryl Dorey

Ken Ham

I once got into a public row with Australian creationist Ken Ham

A long time ago, Australian evolution denier Ken Ham attacked me for an article about a growing whooping cough epidemic in Australia. The epidemic brought out one of the worst anti-vaccine activists in the form of Meryl Dorey, who is the leading mouthpiece for the anti-vaccination lunacy in Australia.

Dorey is no different than any other pseudoscience propagandist, such as the ones found in the anti-evolution crowd (Ken Ham again), climate change denialists,  and sasquatch/alien abduction/Loch Ness Monster/crop circle conspiracists. That’s right, there is no difference between creationism, sasquatch, and homeopathy — no science, and many beliefs based on…nothing.

I guess Ken Ham decided that he had to support Meryl Dorey by attacking me. So, let’s take a look at creationism, anti-vaxxers, Australia, and everything else that brought this story together. It’s fun

Read More »I once got into a public row with Australian creationist Ken Ham
vaccine rape

Vaccine mandates are NOT rape – debunking another anti-vax trope

Anti-vaxxers love their ridiculous strawman arguments against vaccines – recently, it’s comparing vaccine mandates to rape. Yes, you read this right they want you to believe that vaccination is equivalent to rape.

COVID-19 vaccine mandates (actually, any vaccine mandate from before the pandemic) have caused the anti-vaxxers to use all kinds of false equivalence and disgusting imagery in tropes from rape to the Holocaust. Some are even more disgusting, giving us an indication of the filth that encompasses the anti-vaccine world. But comparing vaccine mandates to rape is possibly the most disgusting, though we could argue about that.

The trope that mandated vaccination is rape has been around for a while. And the usual suspects on the pro-science side have done their best to demolish it. The secretive Orac wrote about it – “there’s a disturbing amount of rape imagery, both subtle and not-so-subtle, in the language used by antivaccinationists to describe vaccination.”

I’m actually running out of adjectives and adverbs to describe the activities of anti-vaccine zealots lately. But claiming vaccine mandates are rape is going to test my knowledge of the English language.

Read More »Vaccine mandates are NOT rape – debunking another anti-vax trope
Vaccination is rape

Vaccination is rape – another disgusting and ridiculous anti-vaccine trope

It’s hard to keep up with all the warm bovine manure that emanates from the typing fingers of the anti-vaccine religion. Of course, like a zombie, various anti-vaccine myths and tropes keep returning, as if the anti-vaccine crowd thinks we forget about it from year to year. Some of these tropes are merely laughable. Some are disgusting, giving us an indication of the filth that encompasses the anti-vaccine world. But a returning claim that vaccination is rape is one of the foulest and most reprehensible conceits of the anti-vaccine superstition.

Generally, I take one day a week to read all of the Disqus comments on this website. Most of the comments from the anti-vaccine sect are the usual repugnant claims. I’m a Big Pharma Shill. Dorit Rubinstein Reiss is a Big Pharma Shill who apparently owns 97% of one or more pharmaceutical companies. We’re in collusion with the CDC to hide the truth about vaccines. Same ad hominem personal attacks, different day.

While drinking my favorite coffee, I ran across a comment so vile, so heinous, so disgusting that I wasn’t sure that I read it right – vaccination is rape. What?

Apparently, many of the pro-science side have dealt with this claim before – I must be naive because I never heard of it. But I was wrong, the trope that vaccination is rape has been around for awhile. And the usual suspects on the pro-science side have done their best to demolish it. The secretive Orac wrote about it – “there’s a disturbing amount of rape imagery, both subtle and not-so-subtle, in the language used by antivaccinationists to describe vaccination.”

I’m actually running out of adjectives and adverbs to describe the activities of anti-vaccine religion lately. But claiming vaccination is rape is going to test my knowledge of English language.Read More »Vaccination is rape – another disgusting and ridiculous anti-vaccine trope

Australia blocked anti-vaccine

Australia blocked anti-vaccine radicals from re-entering the country

For those of you who don’t follow these shenanigans, a gang of anti-vaccine radicals have been traveling in a bus across America promoting the anti-vaccine fraudumentary, Vaxxed. They push their pseudoscience and vaccine lies to gullible audiences across America. The Vaxxed tour was heading to Australia to promote their unscientific nonsense to the continent down under. Lucky for the citizens of the fine country, Australia blocked anti-vaccine radicals from returning to that country.

Let’s backtrack a bit and talk about the Vaxxed bus tour. It includes a rotating cast of deplorable characters including the fraud Mr. Andrew Wakefield, the pseudoscience pushing Suzanne Humphries, Vaxxed producer Del Bigtree, and the reprehensible Polly Tommey.Read More »Australia blocked anti-vaccine radicals from re-entering the country

Time to regulate the antivaccine liars out of existence, Part 1

Miracle-cureThis week, Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of  the Law in San Francisco, guest wrote an article on this blog (and I’m grateful when she does) regarding the possibility of using the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), whose principal mission is the promotion of consumer protection, to regulate or block antivaccine misinformation.

The process to request that the FTC investigate these individuals is relatively easy. And it’s time to change the discussion about vaccines, and make certain that those individuals who make money from lying about vaccines are blocked from doing so.

Pressure from pro-science/pro-vaccine on the Australian state of New South Wales led to an order that Meryl Dorey’s “Australian Vaccination Network (AVN)” must change its name since it “is likely to mislead the public in relation to the nature, objects or functions of AVN.” The core of the argument was that AVN was and continues to be strictly antivaccination, and it’s name seemed to imply it was something else.Read More »Time to regulate the antivaccine liars out of existence, Part 1

Australian vaccine denier group changes name–still a lie

 

 

Thanks to StopAVN.

Thanks to StopAVN.

About a year ago, Meryl Dorey, Australia’s infamous American-born vaccine denialist and anti-science promoter, and her Australian anti-Vaccine Network (AVN) was ordered to change its misleading name or be shut down. The New South Wales (an Australian state) Office of Fair Trading left an order at the home of AVN  president Meryl Dorey yesterday with a letter of action, “labeling the network’s name misleading and a detriment to the community.” Given Dorey’s, and by extension the AVN’s, well known antivaccination stance, this order wasn’t surprising.

Dorey and AVN attempted to fight the order through Australian courts, but lost. And was recently ordered to pay A$11,000 in court costs to cover the legal fees of Stop the Australian Vaccination Network campaigner Dan Buzzard after he appealed against an apprehended violence order she took out against him last year. She actually then went to AVN and begged for money to pay for it, since I guess she does not get the Big Pharma shill money. Amusingly, the group, formerly known as the Australian Vaccine Network, and their leader/mouthpiece, Meryl Dorey, kept prevaricating about changing the name. But finally the Australian government ordered her to change the name or there will be consequences. 

Finally, Meryl and gang renamed their group the Australian Vaccine-Skeptics Network (still abbreviated as AVN). Ironically, Meryl and AVN first tried to name the group the “Australian Vaccine Sceptics Network”, using the Australian English spelling of the word, but a real skeptic (or sceptic) already owned that name. In even more irony, Meryl called the real owners of the trade name, a “hate group.” No, she really said that given Meryl and her group are the definition of a hate group.Read More »Australian vaccine denier group changes name–still a lie

Meryl Dorey is ordered to quit misleading the public about vaccines

StopAVNMeryl Dorey, Australia’s infamous vaccine denialist and anti-science promoter, and her Australian anti-Vaccine Network (AVN) has been ordered to change its misleading name or be shut down. The New South Wales (an Australian state) Office of Fair Trading left an order at the home of AVN  president Meryl Dorey yesterday with a letter of action, “labeling the network’s name misleading and a detriment to the community.” Read More »Meryl Dorey is ordered to quit misleading the public about vaccines

Whooping cough–Washington state epidemic is very scary thanks to vaccine denialism

The Washington State Department of Health is reporting that, as of July 30 2012, there have been 3,285 cases of whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis) in the state. This compares to just 253 through the same time period in 2011. If you want to be scared, look at it graphically.

Read More »Whooping cough–Washington state epidemic is very scary thanks to vaccine denialism

Pseudoskepticism from Australian vaccine denialists

As I discussed a few days ago, Meryl Dorey, the anti-vaccination crackpot, used her vaccine denialist Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) to set up the Real Australian Sceptics in a laughable and amateur attempt to co-opt the word “skepticism” by starting a website that is pure, unadulterated pseudoskepticism. In case you’re wondering, a pseudoskeptic (using the term as defined) refers to those who declare themselves merely “skeptical” of a concept, but in reality would not be convinced by any evidence that might be presented. Global warming “skeptics” are in fact pseudoskeptics who deny the evidence for global warming. Vaccine skeptics are really just pseudoskeptics who deny all of the evidence that shows vaccine’s benefits far exceed the small risks. And that there are no risks of vaccines causing autism.Read More »Pseudoskepticism from Australian vaccine denialists