2015 anti-vaccine tour of Australia – the Tenpenny caravan of hurt

Anti-vaccinationists have their own anti-Hippocratic oath: first do harm. First and foremost they must evangelise, like any fundamentalist organisation. First and foremost they must persuade vulnerable parents – those sitting on the fence – that vaccines are dangerous, poisonous, unsafe, untested…you know the drill. Time and again they are shown to be nothing but brazen liars; not by people who merely disagree with them, but, by evidence.

We have just been advised that US anti-vaccine campaigner Sherri Tenpenny is coming to Australia to do a series of seminars with a host of other anti-vaccine campaigners. Among them is Isaac Golden, the homeopath recently torn to shreds in the Federal Court, in the humiliating Homeopathy Plus! case. That’s quality information for you right there.

If you haven’t heard of Tenpenny, she’s one of the leaders of the global anti-vaccine cult. She’s like the duchess, to Barbara Loe Fisher’s queen. She is right up there. This article gives a pretty good run down on her as an inductee into the Encyclopedia of American Loons.

I don’t have many stored screenshots of Tenpenny because she is so consistently barking mad it never takes long to find evidence. For example, this very recent post should send shivers up and down the spines of every health minister and health department in Australia. Tenpenny exclaims:

print this and hand it out to your friends, family, teachers and healthcare workers!

See the shares under that post? 2515 shares. Most of them wouldn’t have read it, much less understood it; but, the point is, she has some sway at the top of the cult. And she’s coming here. I want to include the 10 Reasons from that blog post so you can gauge the quality of the reasons Tenpenny deems worthy of dissemination to healthcare workers, family etc:

1. Vaccines have never been proven safe or effective.

2. Vaccines do NOT work.

3. The very first vaccine was a disaster.

4. Vaccines are highly profitable for pharmaceutical companies and the health care industry.

5. All vaccines contain a number of toxic poisons and chemicals that are linked to serious neurological damage including aluminum, thimerosal (methyl mercury), antibiotics, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and formaldehyde. [seriously, read that again – ed]

6. Every study comparing unvaccinated to vaccinated children demonstrates that unvaccinated children enjoy far superior health.

7. Vaccines cause a host of “chronic, incurable, and life threatening diseases,” including autism, asthma, ADHD, auto-immune disorders, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, food allergies and brain damage.

8. The only way to create true life-long immunity to a disease is through natural exposure to the disease in which the body creates true antibodies and immunity on many levels.

9. Vaccines kill infants, children and adults.

10. If you or a loved one suffers from a vaccine injury, pharmaceutical companies and physicians hold no medical liability.

Every time I see “10 reasons” somewhere I immediately think of the execrable article written by Meryl Dorey which was the foundation of the first finding against the Australian Vaccination Network by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, in 2010. Her 10 Reasons were so bad she removed them from her site. The 10 Reasons above are way worse than Dorey’s.

Tenpenny, an osteopath – which in the US is an equivalent qualification to an MD. Joe Mercola is also an osteopath; maybe there’s a trend there – is also not averse to ragging out on members of the medical profession, for innocuous reasons. In this juvenile attack she likens a doctor to a “Reptilian” for merely expressing a valid opinion that health workers have an ethical and professional responsibility to their patients to ensure they have an annual influenza immunisation:

And we’ve seen the company Tenpenny keeps, before:

DeMoss the full-blown conspiracy theorist chiropractor is even more effusive in his admiration for Tenpenny, here:

Look, I can’t speak for any of you. But, if someone of the calibre of Billy DeMoss is showing me the love seen above I’d need to pack up, go home, wash, and take up drinking again. So, what do we do? We have someone coming to our country who is a clear menace to public health and safety. We need to let every health minister know. We need to let every health department know. And, because you can put money on the venues being unaware of just what is happening on their premises, write to the venues politely requesting they investigate fully the people they are hosting, and the possible repercussions for the health of our babies, our children, and our community. A friend kindly put this list together:

BIRTH, BABY & BEYOND

Melbourne – Sunday 1 March, Bayview Eden [CANCELLED]
Email: bayvieweden@bayviewhotels.com

Melbourne (dinner) – Saturday 28 February, Amora Hotel Riverwalk [CANCELLED] 
Email: [redacted at]amorahotels.com.au

Brisbane (seminar and dinner) – Sunday 8 March, Michael’s Oriental Restaurant & Function Centre [CANCELLED] 
Email: info@michaelsoriental.com.au;  lauren@michaelsoriental.com.au

Sydney (seminar and dinner) – Saturday 14 March, Concord Function Centre [CANCELLED] 
Email: info@concordfunctioncentre.com.au

RAISING HEALTHY CHILDREN NATURALLY

Adelaide (seminar and dinner) – Tues 3 March, Rydges South Park [CANCELLED]
Email: reservations_southpark@rydges.com;  stam_archontoulis@rydges.com

Gold Coast (seminar and dinner) – Wed 11 March, Quality Hotel Mermaid Waters [CANCELLED] 
Email: mermaid.waters.resort@alhgroup.com.au;  cara.flannery@alhgroup.com.au

Sydney (Sutherland Shire) – Sunday 15 March, Kareela Golf Club [CANCELLED] 
Email: contact@kareelagolf.com.au

If anti-vaccinationists reach the logical conclusion of their aims, more babies die.

Update December 30 2014

I had a pretty good inkling of this yesterday, but, now I’m certain; one of the main organisers behind the GanKinMan Foundation, the organisation holding the series of anti-vaccine seminars,  is none other than Stephanie Messenger, the author of that vile book written for children, Melanie’s Marvelous Measles. On Messenger’s publicly viewable Facebook profile she advises she is emailing flyers:

On December 22 she shares the GanKinMan website:

And on December 16 she puts out a call for singers at “upcoming” events:

The community needs to know who is behind this tour of hurt. It is already  extremely concerning that Tenpenny is coming here to misinform parents. Knowing that Messenger is behind it should have venue owners barricading their premises to keep them out. And if the two names featured above – as well as the disgraced homeopath Isaac Golden – weren’t bad enough, the Sydney lie-fest also features US anti-vaccinationist Norma Erickson, the head of the anti-Gardasil organisation, Sanevax. They’re the ones who consistently claim deaths have resulted from HPV immunisation, although there have been none. It is a lie. They are liars.

Update January 5 2015

I want to include some new information about the organisations – and there are many, all run by Stephanie Messenger – which has been coming to light, which we can now bring to you. I should say instead that this information has not been easily forthcoming, the circumstances of which we argue should now be in the hands of the regulators. Given that there has been higher than usual traffic on this post, due to readers accessing the contact details of venues, I want to include a full excerpt from the Diluted Thinking website, an astonishing read in itself:

Organisers

Payments for seminar tickets go directly to Stephanie Messenger and NOT the advertised organisers and please note that Both advertised organisers are controlled by Stephanie Messenger.

Get Rid of SIDS Project Inc

The Get Rid of SIDS Project Inc is a Queensland-based charitable association founded by Stephanie Messenger. According to its regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), Get Rid of SIDS Project is 9 months late in submitting its annual return. And please note that this charitable association which is organising these anti-vaccination seminars around Australia, is also a Deductible Gift Recipient meaning that donations to it are tax-deductible.

GanKinMan Foundation

The GanKinMan Foundation does not exist. It is not even a registered business name with ASIC: gankinman.com was only first registered on 3 November 2014. What I can tell you about the GanKinMan Foundation is that it is run by Stephanie Messenger. A health website forum has a post from a supporter of Stephanie Messenger which contains the text of an email sent by Messenger around 2 December 2014 plus the flyer (word document) that was attached to the email. The flyer was advertising a range of goods for sale (including tickets to the seminars) from Messenger’s other unincorporated groups “Healthy Lifestyles Naturally” and “Vaccination Awareness & Information Service”. NOTE: whilst Messenger runs these two other groups, ASIC shows that both are Queensland registered business names by her husband, Leslie Bailey. Neither of these groups is incorporated and therefore have no legal status. To order goods the flyer instructs consumers to:

email your desired order to stephanie@naturematters.info – You will be emailed the postal charges (or you may pick up in Cleveland if you prefer).

You can then do an E.F.T. to BSB 032-563 A/C # 371362 Name on Account: GanKinMan Foundation. Your order will be shipped within one week. Seminar E-tickets will be emailed to you.

So there we have it. Payments for goods (including the seminars) on behalf of Messenger’s “Healthy Lifestyles Naturally” and “Vaccination Awareness & Information Service” are to be deposited into a bank account in the name of “GanKinMan Foundation”. In addition to this, an email received from the domain name of gankinman.com originated in Brisbane (QLD), a From: field in the header shows the term “StephaniePC” and its attached pdf document shows the the author as “Stephanie” in the document properties. I must stress that no published information from GanKinMan Foundation – its website, seminar advertising or emails – provides the name of any individual. To further confuse consumers, the GanKinMan Foundation facebook page made a series of posts on 3 January 2015 advising that:

“We have teamed up with the Get Rid of SIDS Project, Inc. – a registered charity doing research and education about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome – Come along to support the charity and cause, and hear what the team have been up to lately.”

Payments for Seminars

A PayPal receipt for the purchase of a seminar ticket shows the merchant as “Healthy Naturally” with an email address of stephanie@naturematters.info. This email address belongs to Stephanie Messenger. There is no registered name for “Healthy Naturally”. Unless you were already familiar with Messenger, it is not immediately obvious that Stephanie Messenger is involved. An email in regard to changes to a ticket purchase originated from the gankinman.com domain and did not provide any contact names.

Consumer Protection

There are now a number of major concerns for consumers in how Stephanie Messenger is selling and advertising goods for sale:

1. Messenger is trading under the unregistered business name of “GanKinMan Foundation”. As far as I know, even a name used for a personal hobby must be registered with ASIC if it’s trading (Non-registration aside, the size and scope of the seminars and dinners might stretch the ATO‘s definition of a hobby);
2. Messenger is using a registered charity (Get Rid of SIDS Project Inc) in an apparent attempt to lend legitimacy to an unregistered and unincorporated body;
3. Use of the word “Foundation” is potentially misleading because use of the word “may create a public perception of substance, stability and integrity” even for a legitimate registered charity (NSW Fair Trading);
4. No GanKinMan Foundation publications (website, emails, advertising) provides the names of any individuals involved with it;
5. Messenger is intentionally hiding her association with GanKinMan Foundation in regard to the seminars;
6. Messenger is promoting her seminars as being run by a legitimate charity and a group ‘masquerading’ as a charity without advising at any stage that payments will be made into a bank account operated by herself and not in the name of the advertised organisers (with the exception of the abovementioned flyer).

Note: according to Messenger (re: the flyer), a bank account does exist in the name of “GanKinMan Foundation”. Whilst it is possible that tickets purchased through PayPal are deposited into this account, consumers are led to believe payment has been made to the entirely non-existent entity of “Healthy Naturally”. In short, Messenger appears to be trading under an unregistered business name, misleading consumers as to who/what is in receipt of the funds, is using a registered charity to lend legitimacy to a misleadingly named non-entity, and is using a registered charity to sell goods where payment is made to account/s operated by herself and not the charity. The size and scope of the seminars may generate substantial income if well-attended. For example, a couple attending the Sydney seminar plus dinner at the best table will have to pay up to $612. Tickets for the Birth, Baby and Beyond seminars alone range from $80 to $100 and tickets for the Raising Healthy Children Naturally are $39. Tickets for the dinners range from $100 to $200. Consumers have a right to know exactly where their money is going and especially when charities are being used to promote and sell goods for sale.