Anti-vaxxer roundup

So, back to COVID vaccines. This past week has seen a huge amount of activity in anti-vax circles.

Firstly, Brian Tamaki, leader of Destiny Church, and promoter of the prosperity gospel, is currently on remand in Mt. Eden prison for (repeatedly) breaching his bail conditions. He'll be there for 10 days until his next hearing on January 27th. A small group of pastors have written a letter asking for Tamaki's release, essentially claiming that his imprisonment amounts to Christian persecution. I'm heartened by the fact that it's such a small group of pastors - hopefully meaning that most religious leaders in the country don't actually support Tamaki's irresponsible actions.

This week saw the beginning of the rollout of the vaccine to children aged 5 - 11. It seems that nothing annoys an anti-vaxxer more than children being given the COVID vaccine. It's been reported that anti-vaxxers are turning up at vaccination sites and harassing and scaring children going to be vaccinated. Despicable behaviour!

Liz Gunn, former TVNZ news presenter, who now runs a political organisation called FreeNZ, went well off the deep end this week. She showed up at a vaccination site on Auckland's North Shore (maskless, of course), claiming that five children had collapsed after being vaccinated and harassing the TVNZ reporter and camera crew about reporting it.

She then went on a furious rant on a video posted online. Despite the video being her own, it certainly doesn't show her in a good light - though I guess that depends on your own interpretation. The rumours of children collapsing have been denied by the Ministry of Health. (But, in the mind of a conspiracy theorist, that just smacks of a cover up!)

There's now a new dedicated group called The ‘Hood NZ with another slickly produced website, which seems to be a front for the familiar Voices for Freedom group - as admitted on their Facebook page where they bill themselves as an education website. This particular group's focus is on scaring parents into not vaccinating their children.

NZ Skeptics has done some digging into The Hood NZ. When you visit their page they're strongly focused on asking for donations. The suggested amounts are $1000, $500, $100, $50, $20, $10 or other.

Clicking through to the payment page reveals that the money would go to Childhood NZ Limited. Looking up that company on the NZ Companies Office website reveals it's a newly established company (December 2021).

So, its directors are Nicola Culver and Sereca Skye Friend.

The address is in Rangiora, which is the address of an accounting firm (which is run by Nicola Culver) and also a wholesale car dealership - run by Ms Culver's presumed husband Paul Culver.

Firstly, why does a website that purports to be about vaccination need donations, and why a company? Their donation page states:

If you can, we invite you to help us with the considerable cost of legal action.

The main thrust of the website is that it claims to be about presenting unbiased information about the COVID vaccine, especially for kids.

There's a survey page for 12 - 18 year olds (and we wonder whether it's legal to collect this information without parental consent). It's running on the JotForm platform. (I reached out to JotForm to review the site's use of their platform, but sadly they're not breaching any terms and conditions.)

The questions are not particularly unbiased. It starts with:

Have you felt any pressure to be vaccinated?

though there's no actual place to answer that question.

It follows up with the following questions:

How old are you?

Have you felt directly pressured to recieve (sic) the COVID-19 vaccination by anyone that you know:

Have you been prevented from doing something, or excluded from somewhere, because of your vaccination status? *

Do you feel you have been told or learned enough about the risks of COVID-19 for your situation so that you can or did give informed consent? *

Do you feel you understand any risks of the COVID-19 vaccine?

Do you know anyone that has had an adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine (adverse reaction means any type of medical response that followed receiving the vaccine)?

If you answered yes to 6, please provide information of adverse reaction (sic) and how that person is related to you.

And, as expected, they're promoting things like Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID. Because, of course they are! Grrrr!

Finally, there's been another claim by Sue Grey (again, written about many times in the past). She's the lawyer currently under investigation by the New Zealand Law Society for her typically evidence-free posts on social media, particularly those that spread rumours about the deaths from the COVID vaccines.

On Saturday she posted a supposedly revelatory claim that Professor Shaun Hendy from the University of Auckland and Te Pūnaha Matatini, is a member of FACT Aotearoa. He's not, but Sue's claimed evidence for this membership is that he signed a letter in support of FACT that called out the Taranaki counsellor for her anti-vax views.

FACT describes itself as a grassroots organisation. Professor Hendy is not a member, but Sue uses an article from September to claim that he's actually a member.

Sue went on to claim that FACT is an “unincorporated society (sic)” when there's no such thing.

Anyway, it seems she's back-pedalling the claim that just signing a letter implies membership of the group.