AVN meaning in Community ?

The Australian Vaccination-risks Network Inc., formerly known as the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network (AVsN), and before that known as the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), is an Australian anti-vaccination pressure group registered in New South Wales. As Australia's most controversial anti-vaccination organisation, it has lobbied against a variety of vaccination-related programs, downplayed the danger of childhood diseases such as measles and pertussis, championed the cause of alleged vaccination victims, and promoted the use of ineffective alternatives such as homeopathy.

The vast majority of doctors agree that opposition to vaccination is a fringe medical science viewpoint. The group has been described by the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) as a provider of “misleading, inaccurate, and deceptive” vaccination information, and has been heavily criticised by doctors and other experts on immunisation. The group has been called the "stronghold of the anti-vaccination movement" in Australia and is subject to widespread criticism from medical professionals, scientists and other proponents of vaccination. It has also been criticised for harassing the parents of a victim of vaccine-preventable disease, and for promoting the false idea that shaken baby syndrome is actually vaccine injury.

On 14 October 2010, the organisation's right to raise funds was stripped from it by the New South Wales Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing, stating that its appeals had "not been conducted in good faith for charitable purposes". In December 2012, the New South Wales Office of Fair Trading issued an order for the group to change its name within two months or be de-registered. The department described the group's name as being "misleading and a detriment to the community". The group changed its name in February 2014. In July 2018 the group changed its name to Australian Vaccination-risks Network Inc. citing that many in their group "did not feel comfortable with having the word 'skeptics' in" their name as the reason for the change. The group decided that the word "skeptic" too closely aligned them with Scientific Skepticism organisations such as the Australian Skeptics.