John Cunningham peddles false and misleading information

Some Ugly facts about Friends Of Science In Medicine

1) FOSM dominating a comittee to ban natural medicine

http://i2p.com.au/17-traditional-medicine-modalities-discriminated-against/

2) Article describing their evil in 2012 and their war on natural medicine

In this ABC article it states, Why is a group of prestigious doctors and scientists who have the backing of the most profitable industry in the world according to Fortune 500 – the pharmaceutical industry – targeting a few poorly-funded natural medicine courses? So we have ghouls, like Cunningham who are clearly representing the Pharmaceutical industry, pushing drugs & vaccines onto the population along with manipulating Government to change policies. 

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-21/schwager-war-against-natural-medicine/3840682

3) Professor John Dwyer talking against natural therapy  He’s been a skeptic for 20  l years and is truly evil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lswdEGWw6do

4) Attached article about Loretta Maron who has no scientific qualifications but is the driving force of FOSM

” Marron is a comparative recent arrival after her retirement following surgery for breast

cancer. She devoted herself with considerable energy to exposing “quackery” and lodging

many formal complaints with health authorities. She caused enough mischief and mayhem

to, like Dwyer in 2000, gain the Skeptic of the Year award, not once, but twice, a feat never

before accomplished.

The “ego”, recognition/status and self-aggrandisement driving Dwyer is fully encapsulated

in his title: “President and first Principal”.

Marron has self-described on-line as a “Scientist”, based on once earning a BSc, but

belied by having spent her working life in I.T., most of it apparently in Insurance. She does

appear as a co-author on a single paper and has completed a short course on the basics

of research with one of the only Skeptics in Academia, Martin Bridgstock.

This contradiction – the failure to appeal to real scientists and researchers – is also lost on

Skeptics. If professional Skeptics had anything of real scientific value to contribute, you’d

expect a string of peer-reviewed papers, many formal courses and a lot of practising

scientists and researchers as members. Yet that’s not what we see. After 35 years in

Australia, if this were going to happen, it would have by now, demonstrating they’re not

engaged in Science, but Scientism.

These Skeptics-cum-“Friends”, Dywer and Marron, are very dangerous people because of

their strong negative emotional drives, lack of good judgement and fanatical ideological

base. However they do have extreme weaknesses as well.\

5) A powerful group (The Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM)) comprised of medical academics and interested professionals has sprung into existence under the guidance of CEO Loretta Marron  (Australian Skeptic of the Year 2011), Professor Alastair MacLennan, Emeritus Professor John Dwyer, Professor Rob Morrison and Professor Marcello Costa and a cast of 400 Australian and international names.

Their full title, academic establishment and contact details are included in the press release that follows, along with a link containing the full list of academics involved.
The aim of this group is to directly challenge those universities that provide education and degrees to support some health disciplines, not deemed to be evidence-based.
This is in effect, a full-frontal confrontation to the universities that appear on the “naughty list (and there are quite a number).
It will also be confrontational to government and the agencies involved with regulating and monitoring the various health disciplines.

open this article full screen

Obviously as the “Friends of Science in Medicine” mobilise and begin to target and shoot down those activities on the “hit list”, there will be an opposite reaction as the “targets” also mobilise to protect themselves.
The health disciplines left standing at the end of this attrition will obviously seek to have scarce government funds directed towards their own academic activities and funding that subsidises patient care directed into their specific patient rebates.
Even private health funds will no longer be able to direct their marketing into naturopathy, chiropractic, homeopathy etc if they do not exist any more, even though consumers show a strong preference towards these services, mostly as refugees from the orthodox medical system.
Many health fund members are also in the younger age group because the alternate health systems appeal to them. Disruption of this younger member base has the potential to increase private insurance premiums and make it unaffordable to all but the wealthy.
A budget conscious cash-strapped federal government may be inclined to let go some of these health disciplines based on the need to balance a budget before the next elections, citing the evidence of the FSM.

i2P has the belief that evidence-based medicine is a sound objective for all the health sciences.
How that evidence has been derived is another “can of worms” and there are many holes in the medical system of the conduct of clinical trials and the publishing of the findings, where the heavy hand of Big Pharma is in the background, buying influence at all levels, including universities (the “not-so-naughty” universities are included here as well).
Therefore i2P suggests that in the clean up of the “naughty universities” that the “Friends of Science in Medicine” pay equal attention to the orthodox health disciplines – and that may mean extending the “naughty list” to embrace all universities to guarantee equality of approach.
Otherwise credibility may be prejudiced.
Health service consumers will also need to be strongly represented, for they are the group that is ultimately affected, and their preferences need to be recorded and taken to account,

What the “Friends of Science in Medicine” is trying to achieve is quite impressive and has the potential to clean up a lot of the “wrongs” in health generally. As for any organisation there is the potential for some of its members to hijack the primary agenda and steer it down different pathways.
Funding for this new group will need to be adequate and at the same time remain pristine, because it represents considerable power that needs to be harnessed democratically.
It will be a magnet for every single “power broker” in the health industry.

Australian researchers played a key role in exposing the unlawful marketing of antidepressants to teens, reporting failures, and bribing of doctors that mark the biggest case of health care fraud in the US, faced by Glaxo Smith Kline.

On my website I have invited medical practitioners and other health professionals to debate the information that I am providing on Australia’s vaccination policies. John Cunningham decided to take up this offer in February/March 2014. He is a leader of the Stop the Australian Vaccination Network (SAVN) lobby group and a medical practitioner. When responding to my request he chose to send his opinions in unsolicited emails to members of the public, including UOW academics involved with my research and journalists. This occurred whilst I was a student at the University of Wollongong (UOW).

Here are the corrections to the personal opinions and misinformation provided  by John Cunningham in unsolicited emails to members of the public and UOW academics in 2014.

Further, in July 2014 John Cunningham, made a complaint to the University of Wollongong about my research project completed in 2006. This research project was a critique of the Australian government’s whooping cough policy and the research was awarded a high distinction by UOW academics in 2006. Yet, in July 2014, John Cunningham, made allegations of academic misconduct about this research. This was 8 years after the coursework was completed and the degree awarded. An investigation was implemented even though UOW academics found no evidence of academic misconduct and concluded that this was an unwarranted investigation. When university investigation guidelines are not followed unwarranted investigations can occur.

In November 2014, the ABC provided anonymity to ‘two medical experts’ who provided information about UOW’s investigation even though the university’s procedures were confidential and the investigation had not been completed. I received an apology from Judy Raper, the UOW Vice-Chancellor of Research for the unwarranted investigation and she stated that the university’s processes had been misused: “university processes are not a forum for academic debate”. The unfounded allegations made by an organised lobby group in a confidential investigation were published in the mainstream Australian media even though there was no evidence to support the allegations and the investigation was incomplete at the time. This research project on whooping cough vaccine is published unchanged on my website ‘An Analysis of the Australian Federal Government’s Pertussis (Whooping Cough) Policy’ and it received a high distinction from UOW academics in 2006.

Professional lobby groups have used the mainstream media and university processes to misinform the public with their personal opinions about my research and my reputation has not been protected. UOW would not put out a media release to correct the public record and the ABC would not remove the misinformation when I requested that my name and research should be cleared of this smear campaign. Here is the letter I wrote to the ABC and the ABC added acorrection to the article that stated:

 In May 2015 an investigation by the University of Wollongong Student Conduct Committee found Dr Wilyman not guilty of academic misconduct. The Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Judy Raper stated that the investigation should not have happened and that “academic misconduct processes are not a forum for academic debate”.

If students reputations are not protected when they attend universities to get endorsement for their academic research and if universities are not obliged to correct the public record when false and misleading information is provided then I believe they cannot fulfil their role in maintaining academic integrity in public debates of scientific issues.

Source: http://vaccinationdecisions.net/correcting-the-information-provided-by-john-cunningham-in-the-vaccination-debate/