Another win for science.
Fran Sheffield is an Australian homeopath known for holding a series of controversial, sometimes dangerous views.
She’s claimed that homeopathy is better than chemotherapy at treating cancer. She’s claimed that homeopathy can cure autism. She’s created a Change.org petition calling on the World Health Organisation to treat the Ebola epidemic with — you guessed it — homeopathy.
And she’s promoted and sold “homeoprophylaxis,” so-called natural “vaccines” that she claims can prevent whooping cough, despite any convincing scientific evidence to that effect.
Ms Sheffield has written online that the whooping cough vaccine is “unreliable at best” and “largely ineffective”; As Lateline reports, she also previously claimed on her business website that homeopathic immunisation is effective against polio, meningococcal, cholera and other serious diseases.
But now, in a win for science and common sense, Sheffield and her company Homeopathy Plus! have been banned from advertising their all-natural “vaccines” for whooping cough.
Fairfax Media reports that the Tuggerah, NSW woman has been banned from selling the questionable products for five years, and that she and her business have been fined $138,000.
Ms Sheffield will also be forced to pay the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s costs from the case.
Justice Melissa Perry of the Federal Court said Ms Sheffield’s deceptive claims had “the potential to divert consumers from immunising themselves and those in their care, with potential risks to their health and to the broader community”.
She also pointed out that the “evidence” presented by Ms Sheffield was far from convincing.
“Mrs Sheffield’s evidence fell well short of providing any credible basis for the impugned representations regarding the Vaccine. To the contrary, the evidence emphatically established that the Vaccine is effective,” Justice Perry added in her judgment.
The judge also implicitly criticised Ms Sheffield’s contempt for science, saying she had “mischaracterised” the effectiveness of legitimate vaccination as a matter “of ideology or belief, and not of science.”
The legal outcome follows a six-year battle to get the central coast homeopath to retract her dangerous claims.
Dr Ken Harvey from Melbourne’s La Trobe University first complained about Ms Sheffield’s misinformation in 2009. The Therapeutic Goods Administration subsequently requested that she retracted it, but she ignored that request. An official order was issued, which was also ignored, according to Fairfax Media.
Ms Sheffield told ABC’s Lateline on 2010 that she says she “wasn’t advertising”, but was merely providing information and sufficient evidence to back up claims about homeopathic immunisation.
In 2012, the The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was able to get her to remove her shonky claims, but only temporarily. Then finally, in December 2014, there was a ruling that Sheffield’s homeopathy business breached Australian consumer law by engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct.
“We were worried if people were reading these kind of statement, they would choose not to have the vaccine and rely on one of these homeopathic treatments,” the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission told News Limited at the time.
“There are real public safety risks that come from that kind of statement.”
Whooping cough is a highly contagious – and highly dangerous – respiratory illness. It is usually mild in adults, but if your baby has whooping cough it can be life-threatening; this is why vaccination is so important.
Seven months ago, baby Riley Hughes lost his life to whooping cough. His parents have spoken out about the need for childhood vaccination in the wake of their family tragedy.
Late last night, they posted on Facebook: “Please be aware — homeopathic ‘vaccines’ cannot prevent whooping cough.”
Please be aware – homeopathic “vaccines” cannot prevent whooping cough. – Riley’s Mum & Dad
Posted by Light for Riley on Wednesday, 14 October 2015
Families with newborns should talk to their doctors about whooping cough vaccinations, which children usually receive at two, four and six months of age. Booster doses for parents, grandparents and other carers are also important to help keep kids safe.
Top Comments
It should go further. The law should allow her to be prosecuted if a child dies, is brain damaged, or suffers, because of her claims. Currently, it is very difficult to prosecute unregistered practitioners.
Lol, homeopathic. You might as well try wishing really hard. It's about as scientific and just as effective.
Laura, are you able substantiate your comments with factual evidence (without heading to google first)? Our 4 kids were vaccinated homoeopathically by our GP (on his advice, as I nearly died after my MMR shot as a child). If there was no h/p option, our kids would be unvaxed, so in my opinion there is a place for h/p vaccines. And of our 4 kids who all attend a state school, only one has ever had to take a course of antibiotics, and that was when she was 6 weeks old as a result of complications at birth (she died: had to be resuscitated). So they are very healthy kids: my wife and I sometimes wonder if the lack of chemicals (from 'regular' vaccines) in their body is a reason for this. Cheers.
Vaccines do not stop you getting the diseases, so your childrens' lack of illness does nothing to prove the worth of heomeopathic vaccines. And antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections, not viruses.
LOL! Can you substantiate you comments without using anecdotal evidence? Homeopathy does not work. It cannot work because diluting something in water until none of it's original properties are left is not at all scientific. There is no way this can work, even with vigorous shaking. And water does not have a memory. This has been proven by numerous studies that state that homeopathy is no more effective than a placebo. So, maybe you need to provide some factual evidence without heading to google first.