vaccines, the evil alien conspiracy

Australian anti-vaccine activists are joining forces with a man who thinks that shape-shifting alien reptoids secretly run the world.

Before you get that vaccine beware! The human-alien lizard hybrids who rule our planet as part of the Illuminati collective are using them to cull the human population for whatever their insane and sinister reasons may be. No, I'm not going for a ridiculous hyperbole to be witty.

That's actually the premise of a huge, rambling article by David Icke, who's to be considered completely off his rocker even by the rather generous standards of many other full time conspiracy theorists. Ladies and gentlemen, get your tin foil hats and lock all the hinges and bolts on your door.

During the swine flu outbreak earlier this year, I came across articles warning people about a non-existent vaccine for the new virus and subsequent hysteria from New World Order believers that swine flu was a bio-weapons test for an upcoming mass genocide. Icke's rant is undated so it's hard to say whether he was the original source for these stories, or just surfing the trend.

However, an abbreviated version of it his paranoid diatribe did end up on the blog of the Australian Vaccination Network which, unlike its name replies, holds that vaccines are actually a deadly hazard and evil governments and pharma companies are covering up that fact so they can keep making money from vaccinations.

This conspiracy theory's presence on the AVN blog raises a big question. Does Meryl Dorey, the group's lead quack, actually believe this stuff sans aliens, or did she just post something unflattering about vaccines because it has "vaccines," "fear" and "swine flu" in the title? Considering the content of her other entries, it seems pretty reasonable that she's ready and willing to fall for it.

And there might be new conspiracy theories gracing her blog in the near future. After the public debate stirred by the death of a four week old child who contracted whooping cough and her commentary on the case, Australian skeptics have finally heard all they could hear and launched a formal complaint against the AVN.

According to the complaint, since the AVN dispenses medical information, the organization must meet certain standards and criteria to do so. Spouting fear mongering, conspiracy laden pseudoscience isn't exactly med school material so it's a fair bet that the organization will get a black mark for endangering the public health with their paranoia.

In her rebuttal, Dorey says that all they're trying to do is "disseminate information about health issues" and that this legal action is a "symptom" of some sinister efforts to "impose" mandatory vaccinations on the entire nation. True to her conspiracy style, she hints that the actions to somehow muzzle AVN's disinformation aren't "coincidental" in the same sentence.

Here's a quick note to Meryl. Informing people about health issues is giving medical advice and if you give bad information, you're more than likely to hurt somebody. When I say that people should get vaccinated or that vaccines are 99% safe and effective, I'm saying exactly what trained medical experts say in scientific journals and to their patients on a daily basis. Those people know a lot more about this subject than someone who thinks that whooping cough can be treated with water and half an atom's worth of diluted potpourri.