Ready for some good news?
The organisation formerly known as the Australian Vaccination Network – which peddles dangerous and misleading anti-vaccination rhetoric to parents and expectant parents – has been officially banned from fundraising for charitable purposes.
The Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network Incorporated group was forced to surrender its ‘Authority to Fundraise’ after a state government investigation into its anti-vaccination activities.
The NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing first wrote a letter to the AVSNI, asking that they make a case for why their authority to fundraise should not be revoked – and when this requirement was not met, the association surrendered its authority.
And it’s about time.
Under the Charitable Fundraising Act, an organisation can only fundraise for charitable purposes if their cause is in the public interest.
While investigating the AVSNI, the OLGR sourced expert medical advice regarding information on the anti-vaccination group’s website regarding the risks and benefits of vaccination. The experts found that the group’s anti-vaccination advocacy held the potential for great misinformation and could influence the important health decisions made by parents, which could in turn lead to adverse public health consequences.
The group has long been criticised by scientists and doctors for claiming that vaccines cause autism and that vaccination is a “personal choice”. This is despite the fact that babies who are too young to be vaccinated rely on herd immunity, as do children and adults with compromised immune systems.
But hold your applause, there’s more.
This news comes after another significant step in March, which saw the ‘Australian Vaccination Network’ change their name to a title that more accurately reflected their activities, after advice from Fair Trading and a decision from the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. The two government bodies found that the organisation had to more accurately reflect its scepticism about vaccinations – instead of hooking parents and members of the public with a legitimate sounding name and then providing them with misinformation.
The AVSNI has been peddling misinformation to members of the public for years now. They have been using their bogus science to scare new parents, who just want to do the best for their kids, into thinking that the risks of vaccination are greater than the positives.
But this is the truth: three million children’s lives are saved every year by vaccination and two million die every year from vaccine-preventable illnesses.
Mamamia applauds the actions of the NSW state government in finally taking the AVSNI to task.
This is a gallery of common myths about vaccines being harmful and why they’re wrong. It includes some good arguments to use when you’re faced with anti-vaccination rhetoric.
Click here for a harrowing and heartbreaking look at what whooping cough is REALLY like.
Click here if you’d like to know what it’s like to grow up unvaccinated.
Click here to see an example of how quickly dangerous and vaccine-preventable diseases can spread once the majority of the population is not being vaccinated.
Please share this post with friends and family who believe in science and support vaccinations to keep our community safe.
Top Comments
There are so many things wrong with the misinformation and paranoia that the AVSN is spreading, many of which are covered by MM. But one thing that just astounds me is that they dare to suggest that having a child with autism is less preferable than having a child die from a preventable disease. Even if the whole "vaccination causes autism" theory hadn't been disproved time and time again, I'd still choose the slight risk of my child "catching" autism from a vaccine than the very real risk of them dying or becoming seriously ill from mumps or whooping cough, or spreading those illnesses to the most vulnerable people in our community.
I feel just sick reading these narrow minded, pharma industry brainwashed comments. Bjgest worry the name of a group. What a kindergarten. Poor babies don't even get the chance to build their immune system.
How does one build an immune system? Does it come in kit form? Does it have instructions a baby can understand? Do Mum and Dad have to help with the tiny bits a baby might choke on?
Seriously, explain the process of building an immune system, then explain why vaccination prevents such building from taking place.
Building an immune system is exactly what vaccinations do. They just do it with much less risK of side effects and which much better control over when and where it happens.