A funny thing happened to Meryl over the last couple of years. She's gone from a darling of the media, regularly invited to give the "other side" in the name of "balance"... all the way down to outcast and pariah.
The majority of journalists have woken up to the fact that there is no scientific debate in terms of vaccination: the facts are settled in terms of scientific consensus. A handful of nutty & noisy science-deniers like Meryl have no bearing on the reality, however much they wish it was different.
What's more a number of Meryl's callous actions, starting with her harrassment of the grieving parents of Dana McCaffrey, have outraged ever-growing segments of the population.
Now Meryl stands revealed to all as she really is: lying science-denier, callous persecutor of grieving parents, promoter of practices which cause the spread of disease and resulting deaths, person who profits from paranoia and serial lawbreaker.
All of which is why today, her typical treatment by the media is like this:
Yes, brave Sir Meryl turned about, And gallantly she chickened out. Bravely taking to her feet, She beat a very brave retreat. Bravest of the braaaave, Sir Meryl!
[With apologies to Monty Python...]
Meryl is up to her cowardly tricks once again, but even by her standards this stunt is a clanger!
Back in 2012, Meryl applied for Apprehended Violence Orders (AVOs) against 3 people who said mean things about her online.
Her applications were breathtaking in their implausibility. While Meryl lives in the infectious diseasenutty fruitcake hippy capital of Australia, Bangalow, the 3 individuals supposedly causing Meryl to fear for her life were hundreds of kilometres away.
Dan Buzzard, for example, lives in Perth - hardly a location from which to threaten violence against a nutty conspiracy theorist near Australia's eastern most point.
And the subject of Meryl's most recent rantings, Peter Bowditch, lives over 750 kms away in the Blue Mountains, behind Sydney.
Meryl also pencilled on to the end of her AVO applications a request that her 3 supposed nemeses be prohibited from writing about her online, causing everyone but her most gullible supporters to wonder if perhaps that was the whole reason for the AVO applications.
The opportunity to use the courts to silence 3 of her critics was too tempting for Meryl to be concerned with small details like her total lack of supporting evidence. No, that's hardly an obstacle for someone with Meryl's extreme narcissism, so she pressed on.
Meryl dragged the case out for as long as she could, with no less than 9 reschedules and failures to appear before the courts patience finally ran out and the case was heard. Oops, Meryl's application was thrown out on its absurd and unsubstantiated ear!
Peter was even awarded costs, a rare occurrence in AVO applications and a confirmation that the court viewed Meryl's application as a frivolity.
Fast-forward a few months, and Meryl is seeking someone to debate her face-to-face at an upcoming woo festival. So who does she call on, but that "scary" and "threatening" object of her legal timewasting Peter Bowditch!
In the process, she set up this ridiculous scenario for the benefit of her gullible cult members:
So Meryl, remind us again why you're so physically afraid of Peter Bowditch that you fear to be in the same room as him again?
Hmm, it actually looks like you're afraid of him for a totally different reason. Perhaps it's actually because he calls you out for your absurd claims and repeatedly highlights the idiocy of your comments about vaccines...
Not content with with $150,000+ that “disappears” from the AVN accounts each year, Meryl has long had an online business selling makeup to supplement her income as editor of a non-existent magazine.
Oh, but wait a minute gullible AVN cult members! Don’t look too closely…after all, Meryl often insists she shouldn’t be judged by the standards she applies to everyone else…
Errr, little bit of a conflict with the naturalistic fallacies you usually push, Meryl. Oh dear…
This is a little old, but worthy of a wider audience:
The release of the 2011 financial accounts for the AVN causes the treasurer extreme concern about Meryl’s leadership of the organisation…
This video is loaded with in-jokes that regular AVN-watchers will enjoy and the cast is peppered with the usual suspects from the AVN crowd of quacks, charlatans, nutjobs and fruitcakes.
Oops! Meryl copped another spanking on national TV – even more blunt & directly than the last time.
So what’s Meryl done this time? Short summary of events:
Regional TV program WIN News Illawarra indulged in some very sloppy journalism by inviting Meryl to comment on a measles outbreak. Meryl reflexively pushed her usual line of scientifically discredited vaccine-Autism link crud and self-described as a “pro choice” advocate. Numerous people contacted WIN News to point out their error; WIN ignored most messages and acted like an antivaxxer themselves by deleting others off their Facebook page. As a consequence, national media watchdog TV show Mediawatch ran a story on the incident, describing Meryl’s organisation in perfectly-worded terms:
“But Meryl Dorey’s deceptively -named Australian Vaccination Network is in fact an obsessively anti-vaccination pressure group that’s immunised itself against the effect of scientific evidence.”
“Dorey’s claim about the medical literature linking vaccination and autism is pure, unadulterated baloney.”
“Medical practitioners – choice groups. One opinion as valid as the other. It’s a classic example of what many – especially despairing scientists – call ‘false balance’ in the media.
[…]
To put it bluntly, there’s evidence, and there’s bulldust. It’s a journalist’s job to distinguish between them, not to sit on the fence and bleat ‘balance’. Especially when people’s health is at risk.”
Oops, Meryl! We know you crave publicity you attention-whore, but this isn’t helping!
National negative publicity like this will ensure it’s a long time indeed before you get another credulous interviewer inviting you to say whatever you want in mainstream media. Which is a good thing, because frankly you deserve to languish in obscurity…with, say, an audience of the dozen tinfoil hat wearers who listen to Fairdinkum Radio.
In fact, why not cut out the middleman and just invite your fellow nutters over to your house to listen firsthand to your next spittle-flecked diatribe? Why not fling open the trapdoor and entertain them in the room under your kitchen floor? Macadamia toast slathered liberally with Macadamia butter and a hot cup of Macadamia tea for everyone!
Meryl has never met a vaccine-related conspiracy theory she didn’t like, or even one she didn’t endorse wholeheartedly. Even so, this one is an absolute cracker by any standard:
Perhaps you think that’s just too far “out there” even for Meryl? That even she couldn’t buy into such a nutty, crazy conspiracy theory? Think again:
How ironic then, that she has banned hundreds of people from the AVN Facebook page for politely, respectfully pointing out one of Meryl’s many lies factual errors.
And then, a short time later, Meryl decides that she needs to make her hypocrisy even more obvious because there are still a few people left who haven’t noticed it yet. So she posted this:
Meryl has been under pressure lately, with several government agencies pursuing her and the media becoming very unsympathetic in their reporting. So what better way to rustle up some support (and the usual drive for cash) than by showcasing a lineup of children “killed or injured by vaccines”? Great idea Meryl, soon the cash will surely be rolling in…
Oops, just one problem though…
Yes that’s right: Australia’s leading antivaccination campaigner and self-described “Australia’s leading expert on vaccination”, could not come up with a single report of vaccine injury in almost 24 hours. [There were zero responses on Twitter either.]
But Meryl frequently states that the real rate of death and injury from vaccines is “ten times higher than the official reports”, and that the she receives many such reports from her cult membersmarks, well from unnamed parents. And yet despite their reported gratitude for Meryl’s help, none of them responded to help her buy a new iPad the AVN fundraising drive.
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