Last night, ABC’s Media Watch program, presented a hatchet job piece called False Balance Leads to Confusion, attacking WIN Television for presenting both sides of the vaccination issue in a recent report on a measles outbreak in NSW. Because the interview contained information from both a medical community spokesperson and myself, representing the Australian Vaccination Network, Inc. (AVN), Media Watch called it a “false balance”. They called the AVN’s information “baloney” and said that the AVN’s data, much of which is sourced from peer-reviewed medical journals, is “bulldust”
To WIN Television’s credit, their spokesperson said:
The story presented was accurate, fair and balanced and presented the views of the medical practitioners and of the choice groups.
— Shirley Brown, Group Business Director, 4th September, 2012
What proof did Jonathan Holmes, the current host of Media Watch, provide for his assertions about the quality and veracity of the AVN’s information? Absolutely none.
Did he reference any of the peer-reviewed articles linking vaccines with autism and minimal brain damage or mention the cases where courts listened to expert testimony and paid compensation to families whose children developed autism as a result of vaccination? No.
In fact, I submit that this program has breached the ABC’s own Charter and Code of Practice. This program represents reporting of the lowest standard since it attacks a group providing scientific information without providing any evidence that this information is in any way incorrect. In addition, against all tenets of responsible journalism, it openly asks for one side of a scientific debate to be censored.
It is not the role of the ABC or any other media outlet to tell people what they can and cannot know about a scientific issue. One might have thought that a program such as Media Watch would have supported open access to information. One could be excused for believing that they would have supported healthcare consumers in their search for balanced information.
The AVN has never asked for a stifling or suppression of any information in this nearly 250-year old debate. In fact, we have openly asked for more public debate, leaving the final choice up to those who are the real stakeholders in this issue – the parents of Australia’s children. To knowingly withhold information on an issue of science which is far from proven (since vaccines are never scientifically tested using real control groups and true placebos – the gold-standard of medical testing) is not only wrong – it is unscientific. The medical community itself considers vaccination to be a controversial issue with tens of thousands of medical professionals worldwide questioning the evidence base for vaccine safety and effectiveness.
Organisations such as the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the International Medical Council on Vaccination and other doctor and specialist-based bodies around the world say that the jury is still out on the safety and effectiveness of current government mass-vaccination policies.
Media Watch is wrong. There is no such thing as false balance in this debate. There is only the ABC’s obligation to enable its viewers to access and question all available information. Contrast that with Media Watch’s evident desire to censor and suppress a reasonable and valid viewpoint in a scientific debate and you must wonder what they are trying to achieve and who will benefit from this censorship?
It’s time to break the silence and not just allow but encourage the debate. Pharmaceutical interests are frightened of consumers becoming better-informed about their family’s health rights. What role does the ABC play in supporting their attempts at censorship?
Please comment on the Media Watch page that hosts this story (and read the story transcript if you didn’t view the program yourself) by clicking here. And if at all possible, please send an email (click on Ms Brown’s name below) or letter of support to:
Shirley Brown, Group Business Director
WIN TV
Locked Bag 8800
Wollongong NSW 2500
Australia
Be sure to include me in the CC or BCC field on your emails – Meryl Dorey
PS – you may have noted that I have a different email address on this posting. That is because the AVN’s website was overwhelmed with people seeking information after last night’s media watch program. I have checked with our web host and they have confirmed that this was not a DDoS attack but a genuine surge of people trying to get information from the website. We have updated our hosting plan and are being moved to a larger server to ensure that the demand won’t take our website down again. Please bear with us – this move should not take more than 24 hours. I hope the ABC are watching what is occurring. If their audience is this interested in both sides of the vaccination issue, who is Jonathan Holmes to say they can’t access it?
A small sample of peer-reviewed articles linking vaccines and vaccine-components with the development of autism:
Do aluminum vaccine adjuvants contribute to the rising prevalence of autism?
Mechanisms of aluminum adjuvant toxicity and autoimmunity in pediatric populations.
Developmental Regression and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in a Child With Autism
Theoretical aspects of autism: causes–a review.
Neurotoxic effects of postnatal thimerosal are mouse strain dependent.
Recent court cases where medical experts deemed that a child’s autism was found to be caused by vaccination
Vaccines – Litigation: The Hannah Poling Case: Significance For Families Affected By Autism?
83 Cases of Autism Associated with Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensated in Federal Vaccine Court
There is such a thing as false balance…would you include input from an astrologer in a story about Jupiter or input from a creationist in a story about evolution. Each of those is as valid a “scientific debate” as much as there is a debate in medical science surrounding vaccination.
Hypatia, though astrology and astronomy may sound similar, they are not in the same field. A balance for astronomy would be having someone who believes in the big-bang theory balanced out by someone who believes in a multiverse. And the debate about evolution should absolutely involve those who believe in creation. Your saying that both sides of ANY issue should not be presented is the same as saying that you believe the population to be too stupid to make their own decisions when offered balanced information and therefore, a filter must be applied in advance for the poor dears. Who the hell are you to apply that filter? What made you so powerful that you can determine what should or should not be known about issues of import that affect individuals and society as a whole?
After all, if we completely block out one side of a debate, it will only make people wonder why someone is trying to suppress information. If people want to believe in a multiverse or creation, let them. What’s it to you? And if people want to debate the benefits and risks of vaccination and have information to do so, why shouldn’t they be allowed to do so?
Do you truly believe that medical science is infallible? If so, you must believe that the earth is flat and that the tooth fairy exists as well because there is as much veracity in the theory of infallible science as there is in the existence of the other two. The FACT is that much information about vaccination is wrong. The FACT is that the government’s own data shows that vaccination had nothing to do with the decline in deaths from infectious diseases over the last 150 years. The FACT is that vaccines are never scientifically tested because certain assumptions are made about them by people who call themselves scientists but are, in FACT, strangers to the word ‘science’. Because scientists are considered to be the new deities today, they have gained an unquestioned status and people like myself who dare to say that the emperor has no clothes, are now considered to be heretics.
When it comes to science, there is no such thing as false balance. There is only information and the suppression of the same.
Isn’t this just what Dr. Brian Martin predicted? The more the no-choice proponents try to silence dissenting opinion, the more people stand up and say, what are they hiding and where can I find out about it?
I was amazed at the unprofessional behaviour of Johnathan Holmes. New parents are vulnerable to huge pressures from uninformed health professionals and family to vaccinate without question. The media has a responsibility to inform and should not be blocking balanced information with such obvious skeptical attitude! Have a new regard for the people he berates every week now.
I no longer watch the ABC as it is my firm belief that they wouldn’t know the first thing about fair and balanced reporting. I used to think they were a reliable media source until it became clear that they seemed more obsessed with media scandals than reporting on the real situation of the world, such as the current dire situation in Spain, Portugal and elsewhere in Europe. Hardly heard a beep on their radar about it. Fair and balanced or just an agenda that the corporate elite (and their lobbyists such as the skeptics) want to ram down our throats? Props to WIN for standing their ground.
Sad but very true, Liz…
Overall I prefer to listen to ABC radio and watch ABC TV rather than the commercial variety but I take your point Liz and I listen now with a much more critical ear after seeing that incredibly biased report on the AVN by Steve Cannane Also Giselle Cook used to have a talkback session on alternative medicine at night which has mysteriosly disappeared (unless it is on at a later time now?)