Stripped of its charitable status and reeling from hits to its credibility, financial records show the income of the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network declined dramatically in recent years

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Despite an upcoming tour by a high-profile American immunisation critic, Australia’s anti-vaccine movement is at a low ebb and its most powerful organisation is struggling, a public health group says.



The income and membership of the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network (AVN) has significantly diminished in the past three years, according to financial records.

The influence of the AVN, too, has fallen, according to media surveys carried out by an opposition group, Stop the AVN (SAVN).

The AVN was formed in 1994 to dispute the science around vaccines such as those used to prevent cervical cancer, whooping cough and measles, and at its peak boasted more than 2,000 members.

Its growth coincided with a push by the federal government in the 1990s to boost childhood immunisation rates which had flagged as low as 53%. By 2001 the number of children immunised at one, two and five years of age exceeded 90% of the population.

Nonetheless, immunisation rates in pockets of the country, including the New South Wales north coast, the Adelaide Hills and the Gold Coast, remain “lower than South Sudan”, according to Melbourne virologist Dr Dave Hawkes, a member of SAVN.

But the AVN’s fortunes have declined dramatically in the past three years. From a peak of 2,042 members in 2011, the latest financial statements of the AVN show that the group’s membership fell to 418 people in 2013.

By selling tickets to lectures, books, merchandise and memberships, the group brought in $281,885 in 2010, part of more than $2m it has generated since 2005.

However, in 2013 the AVN’s income fell to just $65,534. Its spending on events and publications fell at the same rate.

Analysis of media monitoring showed that between 2002 and 2014 mentions of the AVN in print publications quadrupled. But an increasing proportion of the mentions were judged to be negative, with the group referred to as “anti-vaccines”, compared to earlier, more neutral descriptions such as “vaccine watchdog”.

News programs such as Channel Ten’s The Project have also decided against inviting AVN members to debate public health experts on the issue, for fear of creating a “false balance”.

The NSW government moved against the organisation in March last year, forcing it to surrender its charitable status.

A month later, the state’s Health Care Complaints Commission also issued a formal warning about the AVN after finding its information on vaccinations was “misleading to the average reader because it is either incorrect, inaccurately represented or because it has been taken out of context”.

Meryl Dorey, the former president of the AVN, said the group was undergoing a “change of direction”.

“We as an organisation chose to concentrate on the other aspects of what we do, building our website, networking with other organisations,” she said.

“We have taken a break from pushing memberships because at this point in time it didn’t seem like something we were interested in. We’ve chosen to work in areas where we’re more effective.”

But she added: “The need for our organisation is greater now than it’s ever been, because the pressure of parents to vaccinate without asking questions is greater than its ever been.”

Hawkes said that groups such as SAVN had succeeded in blunting Dorey’s influence by countering her claims with facts.

“I think people are inherently quite intelligent, and the parents who have chosen not to vaccinate their kids have made a decision based on misinformation.”

He said the key was a campaign of “1,000 cups of tea”: sitting with vaccine-hesitant parents and taking their concerns seriously.

“There’s no point in trying to bully someone or demean them because their goal is the same as mine: to give their children the best life and health that they can,” he said.

“I always argue, don’t take my word for it. I’ll give them the information that they can use to increase their own knowledge.”

Medical professionals were upfront about the risks of immunisation, he said. “Doctors are actually really concerned about vaccine side effects, and they watch for them and they monitor them.

“But when you get the measles vaccine for example, the risks are low. Around one in a million will get encephalitis [brain inflammation] from the vaccine. But when it’s that rare, it’s difficult to say it’s from the vaccine. And that risk is probably overestimated.”

In contrast, the risk of encephalitis among unvaccinated communities during a measles outbreak was as high as one in 500, he said.

The infection of three people at a university ceremony in Melbourne last month showed that measles was still a significant threat, even to those vaccinated against it.

“Immunisations work pretty well, but the problem is if you’re an immunised person surrounded by the disease, your immune system can only hold out for so long,” he said.

While the upcoming tour by American anti-vaccine advocate Sherri Tenpenny showed that the movement against immunisation was still active, Hawkes said the decline of the AVN was a significant blow. “The AVN was head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of their pull.”

Tenpenny is scheduled to tour the country in March, but a social media campaign has started to deny her a visa into the country.