News you won't see in controlled mainstream media.

Greetings!

No matter what your opinion is of the relative benefits or risks of this medical procedure, everyone who believes in the right of an individual to decide what is or is not put into their own body or the bodies of their children must agree that making vaccination compulsory is both morally and ethically abhorrent. No government should have the right to tell us that we must place our lives and our health at risk if our research has told us that in our particular situation, vaccinations could do more harm than good. Yet, it appears that the government may be thinking of doing just that.

In fact, as recently as yesterday, I received a phone call from the editor of a very well-respected health publication who said that they had received some information about vaccination being made compulsory in Australia. The editor wanted to know if I had any concrete details and I had to tell them I did not - but when you keep hearing the same thing over and over again - many times from sources who have proven themselves over time to be very trustworthy, you have to start asking whether or not all that smoke does indeed indicate a fire?

An opportunity
While the idea of losing our right to say no to something as basic as medical procedures is quite frightening, there is a unique opportunity for us all to do something positive to not only prevent vaccination from ever being made mandatory, but also enshrine our health rights as individuals in current Australian legislation.

Judy Wilyman of Vaccination Decisions has been working long and hard on a proposed piece of legislation which can help protect our rights once and for all. We here at the AVN have only recently learned of this opportunity, but we wanted to share it with you and to ask you all to become involved as a matter of urgency.

The Federal Human Rights Commission is currently considering recommendations and legislation to supposedly protect individuals against discrimination. Called the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012, It has some interesting wording (please see the highlighted section below) which appears - to me at least - to be doing anything but protecting our rights. Indeed, it seems to say that it is illegal to discriminate against individuals unless pre-existing legislation or various Acts (specifically, health legislation) says it's OK - and should that really be the purpose of anti-discrimination legislation? 

This Commission has received valid criticisms from many groups within the community, but the fact is that a golden opportunity has appeared if we are all willing to work hard and involve others in this task as well, we may have a good chance of making this legislation do what it should be doing - protecting our rights.

Judy Wilyman only heard about this Commission in December and was just in time to get a submission to them before the closing date on December 21st, 2012 (why do government bodies decide important matters and ask for information to be provided at a time when most people are away on holidays and unable to participate? See the letter from Greg Beattie for more information about this situation).You can find her submission here - it is number 569 in the list.

Ms Wilyman has stated that:

Ms Wilyman has written a draft clause to be included in this Bill to help protect the health and human rights of Australians and has asked us to forward this clause to the email addresses and contacts at the bottom of this post. You can put all emails into the CC or (preferably) the BCC field of your email program so you only need to do this once.

It is vitally important that the introduction to your message be in your own words and those words can be as simple as stating that you are a concerned person who believes that it is every individual's basic human right to decide how best to treat and prevent illness in yourself and your children. Because of this belief, you would like the Commission to recommend inserting the following clause inserted into the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill.

Human Rights Bill must protect Bodily integrity

 

The evidence for this clause has been provided in the submission made to the Senate Inquiry by Judy Wilyman - No. 569.

 

The Australian Government's vaccination policies are a human rights issue because the government has adopted coercive strategies that infringe upon the bodily integrity of the individual and result in discrimination. The government has set a default position of vaccinating (rather than not vaccinating) which removes the free choice of individuals to use or not use this medical intervention.

 

The modern international human right to bodily integrity protects the individual's right to make informed choices about vaccination and all other medical interventions. Justification for vaccination therefore depends upon voluntary use with full understanding of the risks and benefits involved. This is particularly the case because vaccine manufacturers in the US are legally free from ordinary tort liability for this product which carries serious risks in some cases.

 

Clause to be added to the draft Human Rights Bill:

 

The Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine adopted the following principle in 1997 and this principle is protected in all basic international laws and human rights Acts:

 

'An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it'.

 

Respecting autonomy in public health policy involves respecting another person's rights and dignity. Voluntarism is the essential foundation of health promotion and health practitioners and governments should be directed to promote informed decision-making rather than to coerce or persuade individuals to adopt a health practice. Governments and medical practitioners must respect individuals and provide accurate supportive information on medical procedures such as vaccination policies so individuals can make the free choice to use the procedure based on the available evidence.

 

The underlying ethical principle of health promotion is to avoid doing harm and all human beings must be treated as ends in themselves. US law describes vaccines as 'unavoidably unsafe' and as preventative medicine is given to healthy individuals it is not acceptable to adopt a coercive medical practice which accepts that harm will be caused to an unknown number of individuals. Coercive policies involving medical procedures must only be adopted after the policy is demonstrated to be based on disinterested science and made with the full participation and consent of the community on which they will be enforced.

 

In order to protect the public interest government public health policies must be founded on the Precautionary Principle. This principle is stated as follows (SEHN 1998):

 

'When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action'

 

Health policies that are not founded on this principle do not protect public health. The public should not be required to prove the danger of a technology or activity after it has been implemented in the population. Public Health policy must protect the public interest and not the interests of other stakeholders.

 

 

If you are outside of Australia, you can still write a letter - let the recipients know that international scrutiny is being focused on what we are doing here and that they will be judged by their actions on this proposed legislation.  

 

Please send your letters to the following email addresses / contact pages:

 communications@humanrights.gov.au
 elizabeth.broderick@humanrights.gov.au
 david.mason@humanrights.gov.au

The members of the Senate committee should also be included:

Senator Trish Crossin (President) - Contact Page (some Senators don't have a publicly-available email address so instead, you will need to copy and paste the text of your message into the form on their contact page).

Senator Penny Wright -  senator.wright@aph.gov.au

Senator Gary Humphries -  senator.humphries@aph.gov.au

Senator Sue Boyce - Contact Page

Senator Mark Furner - Contact Page

Senator Louise Pratt - Contact Page

In addition to the above individuals, I would like to ask you to add in your local Federal Member of Parliament and your State Senators as well. You can find their contact details on the Federal Parliament website by clicking here. If you would like to know the correct way in which to address the Members or Senators, there is a document here which will clarify that.

Lastly, be sure to BCC both myself (meryl@avn.org.au) as well  as Judy Wilyman.

Please be sure to forward this email (either by using the forward button in your email program or the link below) to everyone you feel may be willing to help with this effort. It would also be great if you can share a link to this newsletter on your social networks (FaceBook, Twitter, etc.) and if you aren't already following the AVN on social media, you can do so using the links below. 

If you yourself have an email list, please do share this widely. Whether you believe that vaccines are good, bad or indifferent, every thinking person should agree that government attempts to force citizens to take an action which may place their life at risk is and must always remain against the laws of any civilised society

Kind regards,

Meryl Dorey

PS - this newsletter was prepared very quickly due to the immediacy of the issue. We will update you as more information comes to hand. If you would like to be involved in a more hands-on way, please send an email to our committee to let us know where you live, what time you have available and any specific experience or qualifications you may have that can be valuable in this situation (not required but would be helpful).

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