A dangerous person is coming to Australia.
When she gets here, she will speak in public places to enthralled groups of supporters. She will spread a dangerous message.
And it’s perfectly possible that this message could end lives.
This woman is not a terrorist, but she is an extremist.
In March, prominent American anti-vaccination campaigner, Sherri Tenpenny is scheduled to give a series of seminars in Australia designed to encourage parents to not vaccinate their children.
In these seminars being promoted by the Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network, Sherri Tenpenny will apparently speak about “the truths about vaccination risks”, “your rights regarding vaccinations for child care and school”, and “how to keep babies and children healthy according to nature”.
Look at this: the devastating effect of anti-vaxxers on the world.
Sherri Tenpenny is an osteopathic medical doctor from Ohio in the United States. Her website says that she provides “vaccine information you won’t hear from your paediatrician”. She claims to be “an outspoken advocate for…the right to refuse vaccination.” In addition, she “offers hope through her unique treatments” for patients who have been “vaccine-injured.”
She is on the record as objecting to childhood vaccinations, as well as Gardasil (the Australian-made vaccine that prevents the human papillomavirus, a major cause of cervical cancer), and the flu shot.
But perhaps the best demonstration of her views is the tshirts that she sells on her website.
There’s a tshirt for parents who want to celebrate “sparing” their children from vaccines:
Tshirt reads: “I didn’t deny my children vaccines. I spared them.” (via)
There’s one for an unvaccinated child:
Tshirt reads: “Look at me! I’m vaccine free!”
And there’s a tshirt for every person who hates facts:
Tshirt reads: “FACT: 1 in 50 Autism overall. FACT: 1 in 25,000 unvaccinated. Prove me wrong.”
There is a reason why the nonsense that Sherri Tenpenny spouts is not akin to the information that you’ll receive from your doctor.
It’s because it not credible. It’s lies. Misinformation and manipulation.
Science has repeatedly proven that immunisation does not cause autism.
Another win for science: Anti-vaxxer’s claims ruled “misleading and deceptive”.
A University of Sydney study involving more than 1.25 million children concluded that there was no evidence to support a relationship between common vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough and the development of autism.
But what science has also told us is that failure to immunise causes disease, disability and death.
NSW saw a spike in measles infections from early 2012 to late 2012.
In the past five years, three babies from New South Wales have died from whooping cough — all were unvaccinated. More than 1500 infants in NSW were diagnosed in 2014 with the potentially life-threatening, but vaccine-preventable, disease.
6 things to say when you’re faced with anti-vaccination rhetoric.
The pro-vaccination group Stop the Australian Vaccination Network and pro-vaccination campaigner, Reasonable Hank, are encouraging people to write to the Health Minister, health departments and the commercial venues that are hosting Sherri Tenpenny’s lectures to protest Tenpenny’s dangerous campaign. The details of this campaign are here.
But the Australian Government has an opportunity to go further. Specifically, the new Immigration Minister (and former Health Minister), Peter Dutton has an opportunity to take a stand against deadly misinformation and the people that peddle it.
He can make sure Sherri Tenpenny never enters the country.
Mr Dutton has the power to refuse a visa to travel to Australia on the basis that the person fails a test of character. Last year, Scott Morrison used this character test to cancel the visa of so-called ‘pick-up artist’ Julien Blanc for “putting a view that was derogatory to women”.
New Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton (via his website)
Visas can be refused or cancelled by the Minister if they are satisfied that the person ‘represents a danger to the Australian community’, ‘would incite discord in Australia’ or is otherwise not of good character.
In making a decision on this issue, the law requires that Minister take into account the best interests of minors in Australia.
Let’s be clear: Sherri Tenpenny represents a danger to Australian children.
She encourages people to reject scientific principles and to put their children, other children and the wider community at risk from deadly diseases. Rejection of immunisation is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
On several measures, Sherri Tenpenny fails the character test. In the same way that Julien Blanc’s misogynistic ‘pick-up’ tips were a danger to women in the is country, Tenpenny is a danger to its children and the Australian community.
We call on the Minister for Immigration to reject Sherri Tenpenny’s application for a visa to travel in Australia and ensure that her misinformation and lies do not threaten the lives of children in this country.
As a community, if we value the lives of children, we must have zero tolerance for misinformation about vaccinations. That means, we must have zero tolerance for the views espoused by Sherri Tenpenny.
As Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton can and must send this message.
Want to do something about it?
You can contact Minister Dutton and encourage him to refuse Sherri Tenpenny’s visa. His email address is: minister@immi.gov.au or peter.dutton.mp@aph.gov.au and his Ministerial Office phone number is: (02) 6277 7220.
You can contact the Minister for Health about this issue and encourage her to speak to the Minister for Immigration about the importance of refusing a visa to Sherri Tenpenny. The Minister’s email address is sussan.ley.mp@aph.gov.au or farrer@aph.gov.au and her Ministerial Office phone number is: (02) 6277 7630
You can contact the commercial venues that are hosting Sherri Tenpenny’s seminars and let them know how you feel about it. Reasonable Hank has collated the names of the venues and their email addresses at the bottom of the page here.
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Top Comments
Here are some facts you didn't bother considering:
1) Wakefield never said to stop vaccinating, he said that the MMR required further research and that HE would personally recommend choosing the individual vaccines that were still on the schedule.
2) It was over 6 months AFTER the press conference that the pharmaceutical companies ordered the UK government to remove the monovalent options from the schedule. So who is REALLY to blame for parents choosing not to vaccinate against measles? Wakefield, who said to vaccinate against measles, for the pharmaceutical industry that removed that option for parents?
3) Wakefield's research was not fraudulent. The other authors retracted an "interpretation" of the data. They have never once said the study was fraudulent, that is another interpretation by a journalist, Brian Deer, which was then repeated Ad nauseam by the mainstream media and the government regulatory agencies who are responsible for making vaccine manufacturers a lot of money. Pediatric vaccines are the fastest growing profit segment for pharmaceutical companies as many big name drugs are approaching the end of their licensing.
4) It is simply impossible to resolve the idea that Wakefield was creating his own measles vaccine with the intent to replace the MMR, given that there was already a measles vaccine on the schedule which he even RECOMMENDED at the 1998 press conference, something Paul Offit, vaccine inventor turned millionaire vaccine spokesperson, conveniently forgets in his book.
5) Brian Deer's investigation was paid for by The Sunday Times. The owner of the newspaper at this time was Rupert Murdoch's son James Murdoch, who at the time of the investigation was sitting on the board of GlaxoSmithKline making £70,000/year in a non-executive director position.
6) Elsevier pulled the Lancet study, the CEO of Elsevier at the time was Sir Crispin Davis, who at the time of the investigation was sitting on the board of GlaxoSmithKline making £70,000/year in a non-executive director position.
Yes there is fact and fiction. Here is a fact, no study has ever compared autism rates between fully vaccinated and fully unvaccinated individuals. (IOM, 2013)
If people think this lady has no credentials to talk about the harm that vaccines cause then take a look at The Silent Epidemic on youtube and you will find many with the highest credentials informing the hypotised misinformed of the media suppressed but obvious dangers of vaccines. Don't just go blah blah blah about it; WATCH IT