The Committee on the NSW Government body HCCC (Health Care Complaints Commission) is holding an inquiry that is intended to address the 'promotion of unscientific health-related information.'
The terms of reference are at:
bit.ly/1dvOT7x
Suggestion: for the sake of clarity in understanding, you may wish to open the link above in a separate tab in order to cross-reference with the points made below.
Because these proposals are at the discussion stage, it is impossible to be definite about their end result. However, it is wise to take the precautionary principle and assume that governments will be looking to maximise their powers if they have the opportunity to do so:
The number of concerns here is long, and includes:
-- The restrictions on freedom of speech that this represents are inconsistent with living in a democracy, and to my knowledge have so far not been introduced into any other democratic country.
-- In determining what is 'false or misleading', the Western allopathic medical model will almost certainly be used as the central reference point, thereby invalidating Eastern approaches to medicine such as Chinese medicine and acupuncture.
There are multiple perspectives in regard to health and medicine, and it is unreasonable to use a position of power in order to arbitrarily dismiss modalities that one dislikes, or which diverge from mainstream allopathic medical practice.
-- If these health censorship proposals go through, even quoting peer-reviewed science based on randomised controlled trials could fall foul of these powers.
-- On October 31st 2013, the ABC's Catalyst show ran an expose on statin drugs that are used to control cholesterol:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3881441.htm
If the proposals were to become law, the ABC's coverage would probably have been censored for criticising established medical practices.
-- Depending on how these proposals are eventually framed, they could gag individuals and media outlets from blowing the whistle on future drugs with the effects of thalidomide (10,000-20,000 birth defects) or Vioxx (30,000-60,000 deaths.)
-- In brief, the main purpose of part (b) is to prevent the dissemination of information that raises any issues with vaccination, and is designed to silence the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) and other vaccine choice and anti-vaccine groups. The HCCC's health censorship proposals would seem to extend to bans on listing the side effects on vaccine inserts, and on quoting independent peer-reviewed scientific studies that shed some degree of doubt on the notion that vaccines are 100% safe.
-- Criticising or questioning water fluoridation, another 'preventative health' measure, is liable to be gagged under the proposed rules.
-- Criticising the use of psychiatric drugs, including those with dangerous side-effects, including in controversial circumstances such as the treatment of children, may fall under the ‘preventative health’ category.
-- Because all naturopathic modalities 'may be harmful to individual or public health' if a person opts for a particular naturopathic modality in a situation where another medical avenue is clearly needed, all forms of natural health could be caught under (c), if 'accepted medical practice' is defined as allopathic medicine.
The risk of these proposals being used to prevent the dissemination of information about naturopathy in its entirety - to the extent that NSW state laws permit - cannot be dismissed.
Where modalities are arbitrarily defined as possibly 'harmful to individual or public health' and also being counter to 'accepted medical practice', relaying information about scientific studies that evaluate them in a positive light could then be defined as 'promotion' and be penalised.
-- It is likely that the therapies most disliked by the medical mainstream would be specially targeted, and examples that come to mind are homoeopathy (dismissed by the National Health and Medical Research Council), thermography (as a breast imaging technique) and live blood analysis (as a health screening method.) The last ten years has seen active suppression of these last two modalities in Australia.
-- Also at risk under (c) are all therapies that fail to conform to the reductionist scientific paradigm. A partial list of these includes acupuncture, acupressure, shiatsu, homoeopathy, electro-dermal testing, kinesiology, reiki, spiritual healing, EFT, Theta healing and flower essences.
-- How is the public to know which therapies have been blacklisted? Will they be listed on the HCCC website? Will they be televised or given column inches in newspapers? How do people who are not in the habit of checking the HCCC website or following the mainstream media know which therapies are 'acceptable' and which are 'not acceptable?'
-- Because these proposals are NSW-based, it is uncertain how censorship powers might be applied to media and Internet coverage that originates outside the state, including overseas. However the word 'dissemination' places an onus on computer users not to forward or Facebook any material that might be construed as 'false or misleading', based on subjective and biased criteria. Similarly, computer users could fall foul of the rules by relaying something positive about a blacklisted modality.
-- 'Over the back fence' comments in casual conversations could become technically illegal if a remark were to be somewhat critical towards mainstream medicine, or to be somewhat positive towards a blacklisted modality.
...........
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that measures such as this are a slippery slope towards totalitarianism. Having effectively gagged free debate in the health field, governments will be tempted to apply this power across a wider spectrum of issues.
TAKE ACTION
1) Please sign and share the Avaaz petition at
bit.ly/I3ryiY
2) Please make a submission by December 13th:
Postal:
Committee on the Health Care Complaints Commission
Parliament House
Macquarie St
Sydney NSW 2000
Fax: (02) 9230 3309
Email: chccc@parliament.nsw.gov.au
Online submissions: bit.ly/17xfhNo (Recommended, as it provides a brief set of guidelines at the top of the page.)
3) Please send this message out to your contacts, especially those involved with health freedom, civil rights, legal issues, naturopathy, and water fluoridation.
Thanks for giving this issue some of your valuable time.