End of Complaint

Email received from Roxanne Iwinski, 19 Jan 2010, in reply to my post entitled My response to VAIS complaint.

Hi Christine,
I have no desire to engage in any online dispute over a topic that is so personal and distressing to me and my family. I appreciate finally knowing who is responsible for anti-vaxxers and the civil tone of your detailed reply. From this please note the following:

My client is Griffith University QCA, not Les Bailey. Griffith University QCA has nothing to do with VAIS, nor was this information available on the VAIS domain. Please remove it.

Page amended to show Les Bailey was not client to which you refer. Griffith University is removed at your request. A connection between VAIS and Griffith University is irrelevant. My purpose was to make the general public aware of your actions which can have dire consequences on public health. I still believe the public has a right to know the exactly who is an ‘antivaxxer’ and situations where they may come in contact with antivaccination nonsense. I make no apologies for the inclusion of Griffith University in the first instance.

Les Bailey’s involvement was so very brief and in light of your methods, unfortunately timed. Your home page still has Les Baileys name listed. Please remove this information as you have done elsewhere.

Please provide evidence that his involvement was only brief. My evidence suggests otherwise, but I welcome the opportunity for correction.

VAIS owns the domain name. I am not VAIS. My details were provided in good faith as a contact person only. This information will be changed asap.

You were listed as the domain registrant contact for the VAIS domain. Explanation irrelevant.

You have missed my point with reference to ‘one in a million’. This phrase is taken from Government claims many years ago concerning vaccine damage, inspite of the fact it did not possess the means to qualify this as adverse reporting was, and still isn’t mandatory. Parents requests for investigation or support for vaccine damage is rarely attributed to vaccination, irregardless of the evidence presented.

You stated, “I accept that our family, who agreed to the vaccination program 16 years ago were ‘one in a million’ to have suffered vaccine damage and trauma.” That was your statement, I don’t understand the argument you are making here. As stated previously, your beliefs about vaccination don’t make those beliefs true. Unless you are qualified to draw conclusions about alleged vaccine damage, and it is backed up by peer-reviewed evidence, it is pointless addressing your incorrect and ideologically based views on vaccination.

Having expressed my disgust at the deceptive manner it was acquired, Peter Tierney today agreed to have ALL of the email communication between us posted. How is it you sought his permission but not mine? My email was aptly worded to support, and in parts, diffuse the verbage of a more extreme VAIS supporter (not member), as he pretended to be. Am I a fool to expect the best intentions from all people who greet me? It is misleading to isolate my replies to support a purpose I was unaware of. Either include the lot, or remove it all, if honesty is your policy.

You answered questions posed by a complete stranger. I ask again, why should the manner in which you answered them, be any different to a supporter or not? It is precisely that duplicity which I seek to expose in the antivaccination movement. To borrow schoolyard terminology, “you were sprung bad”.

Susan and Stephanie were associated with AVN well over 10 years ago, and have had no group affiliation since. It is not a consequence of more recent events as you claim.

I made no such claim. The connections that exist are totally irrelevant in any case. VAIS would appear on my site, for reasons I have already explained, even if the AVN did not.

I ask you to note the obvious omissions of some very outspoken antivaccination individuals and groups from this site. In short, those who are honest and transparent in their antivaccination messages and beliefs, do not appear on my site because the general public can see for themselves what they represent. Recent modifications to VAIS material, and your emails, show that you and VAIS do not belong in this category.

HLN and VAIS also separated their roles well over 10 years ago. HLN promotes and supports healthy lifestyles, not vaccination issues. It was a simple oversight that kept the HLN logo amongst VAIS publications. The HLN web address on your home page was built in 2002 by a past VAIS supporter. It was almost forgotten about until it appeared on your site, at which point we realised our error and had it removed. VAIS was established in 1993, as stated on our current website.

The HLN and VAIS logo appeared together until very recently. I am highly contemptuous of your explanation that it was a ‘10 year’ oversight.

And now it all comes down to this. The following image is a screen capture I obtained last year of the “Healthy Lifestyles Naturally” website, and other supporting evidence appears at the end of this post. I draw your attention to the following:

• the title: Healthy Lifestyles Naturally VACCINATION DVD.
• website updated 24 August 2009
• title on the HLN HOMEPAGE also includes “VAIS – Vaccination Awareness Information Service”
• Healthy Lifestyles Naturally mentioned multiple times by Stephanie Messenger in an interview in November 2008
• any pleas you make not to be aware of this information will fall on deaf ears as you were listed as the contact person for HLN’s Daisy Chain Newsletter
• Events listed on the HLN site go upto December 2009

We have a direct connection to HLN and vaccination. Website recently updated, and publically mentioned. Hardly forgotten about, is it now.

So Roxanne, my civil response to your request ends right here, right now. I am sick and tired of the lies that spew forth from the antivaccination brigade pushing dangerous, ideologically based health care information onto the general public. I don’t buy it, I see right through it, and I let the general public know about it as well. Public health is important. Lives matter.

You have posted my personal responses as representative of VAIS. They do not belong to VAIS. They were my own personal responses to public media and are signed as myself, not as a VAIS supporter.

You responded to an enquiry about VAIS. You made a complaint including information about VAIS. Therefore, I don’t accept your attempt at distancing yourself from VAIS.

You state, “My tactics, or motivation if you will, relate solely to exposing the ideology and duplicity of certain antivaccination groups.” And yet you have now devoted a great deal of space on your site to me personally. I am not VAIS! I was one VAIS member that willingly offered to take on more official roles. I am still at a loss about your reasons for posting my personal phone and email address. Is it to incite your supporters to contact me? I provided this information to the domain in good faith, and now realising, naive faith that it could/would not be used against me personally. This entire ordeal has provided quite a learning curve.

You are not VAIS, but you took on official roles. What exactly are you trying to say here? Your personal details appeared on the VAIS website, and they appear here. If you don’t want your personal details in a public forum, then don’t post them on the internet. Please direct further complaints to Google.

Nothing is being ‘used against you’. Your personal feelings on all this are entirely irrelevant when the consequences of people following your advice can lead to dead children. If you want pity, or respect, you have approached the wrong person. You published your opinions in a public forum, and you published your personal details in a public forum. Personal information that I have included about yourself on my site is not sourced from material published by a third party.

After much consideration, I have tonight resigned my VAIS membership and official roles, to restore and preserve my families privacy, my clients credibility and my peace of mind. I will be taking immediate steps to re-assign my VAIS roles and responsibilities. In the meantime, please respect my wishes Christine and remove my personal contact details and surname from your site.

Sincerely,
Roxanne Iwinski.

Let me remind you, that when a person takes a stand in a public arena, whether as an individual or part of a group, they can expect to be held up to scrutiny and criticism. The accepted response to such scrutiny or criticism is to produce evidence to support your stand. You have failed to do so. You have misrepresented facts, you have lied. I do not respect your wishes in the slightest.

I have no intention of removing material which was published by yourself in a public forum. Your resignation from VAIS is noted, but is otherwise irrelevant. Unless you can provide evidence to support your claim that you no longer meet the criteria I have previously mentioned being the reason for which you appear on my site, then I have no intention whatsoever of removing it. I will also add that due to the blatant lie about HLN above, I will not be addressing any further concerns that you may have about my site (with the exception of corrections).

More images from the Healthy Lifestyles Naturally (HLN) website.