Action is urgently required to address gross academic misconduct at The University of Wollongong.

The university has accepted an anti-vaccination PhD thesis that had been supervised by utterly unsuitable people.

From sbs.com.au: 'The university says it accepted a PhD thesis from a controversial anti-vaccine advocate on the basis that universities promote freedom of thought and it adhered to international standard protocol.

"As a leading research-intensive university, the University of Wollongong values intellectual openness, freedom of opinion, diversity of ideas, equity, and mutual respect," a spokesperson from the University of Wollongong said in an official statement....

'Judy Wilyman submitted a PhD thesis under the UOW Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts that argued Australia’s vaccination policy was taking its cue from WHO and the pharmaceutical industry that are conspiring to promote vaccinations, The Australian reported.

'Ms Wilyman regularly voices her anti-vaccination stance. In 2007 she wrote a thesis proposing that the whooping cough vaccine was not effective and was linked to autism. In 2011 she opposed the HPV vaccination saying evidence about the vaccine's benefits were not clear....'

Judy Wilyman also gained notoriety for her complicity in the harassment of bereaved parents whose child had died of whooping cough.

Judy Wilyman's PhD supervisors were the homeopath, Peter Dingle, and anti-vaccination supporter, Professor Brian Martin.

Links to further information about the conduct of Wilyman, Dingle, and Martin will be provided at the end of this petition.

We believe the above demonstrates an anti-scientific culture at the University of Wollongong that is inimical to scholarship and that federal funding of such dangerous myth-making is unconscionable.

We believe that such appalling distortions are profoundly dangerous to public health and safety and must be countered at the highest levels in the strongest possible terms.

We therefore ask the Department of Education and Training to take immediate disciplinary action against the University of Wollongong; and ask the Department of Health to issue unequivocal condemnation of this travesty.

***
Links to further reading:

. An overview from The ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-13/wilyman-phd/7086346

. The offending thesis: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5550&context=theses

. A refutation from New Zealand immunologist, Dr Helen Petousis-Harris: http://sciblogs.co.nz/diplomaticimmunity/2016/01/14/a-phd-by-stealth-bs-what-are-university-of-wollongong-thinking/

. The supervisor's defence of anti-vaccination proponents: http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/15nvu/nvu-8.pdf

. The supervisor's propagation of unsound information: http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/16jw.html and http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/16mobbing.html

. Judy WIlyman's anti-vaccination site: http://vaccinationdecisions.net/

. Judy WIlyman on vaccines causing autism: http://vaccinationdecisions.net/vaccines-and-autism/

. A site devoted to the child who died of whooping cough, whose family Wilyman was complicit in harassing: http://danamccaffery.com/

. Wilyman's complicity in harassment: http://nocompulsoryvaccination.com/2012/05/31/get-conflicts-of-interest-out-of-health-policy-now/#comment-4507

. The child's father responds to Wilyman: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=306999232721087&id=108238085930537 

. Background on initial supervisor, Peter Dingle:  http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/learn-from-this-tragedy/story-e6frfhqf-1225881062712

. More background on Peter Dingle: http://www.news.com.au/national/poor-science-led-to-penelope-dingles-death-from-cancer/story-e6frfkvr-1225899300532

photograph from sbs.com.au