MEET WES ALLEN

Author of The Weather Makers Re-examined

This introduction to Wes Allen is written by Bob Brinsmead, 

Irenic Publications (www.irenicpublications.com.au)

David Weston (Wes) Allen was born at Gympie in Queensland in 1946, and grew up on a dairy farm. He excelled in mathematics at High School, even detecting errors and ambiguities in a text book and a maths exam, earning him a bonus point and 101%.

After graduating in Medicine at the University of Queensland in 1969, he obtained his FRACGP in 1975, a high distinction in exercise physiology in 1976 and a post-graduate Diploma in Physical Medicine in 1998.

From 1976 to 1982, Wes pioneered predictive and preventive medicine in Australia.  He developed a computerised Health Age assessment, using multivariate linear regression equations based on the Framingham Study, and introduced to Queensland the Bruce protocol still used today in stress testing.  He ran programs across Australia for the Family Medicine Program and had papers published in three Australian medical journals.

In 1988, Wes performed the first reported trial on the use of transdermal nicotine in assisting smokers to quit, his paper being presented at Athens and published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

More recently, Wes participated in the National Primary Care Collaborative to improve chronic disease management in Australia; and his clinic was shown to be so successful in managing diabetes that he was asked to run local and national workshops for the NPCC.  He was until recently a director and vice-chair of the Tweed Valley GP Network.

In 1982, Lindy Chamberlain was wrongfully convicted and jailed for life for the murder of her infant daughter Azaria, who was taken by a dingo at a campground near Ayre’s Rock in 1980.  Wes immediately initiated a movement to have the case reviewed on the grounds of the questionable forensic evidence presented at the trial.  He helped to form a 10-member Chamberlain Innocence Committee responsible for gathering and collating new evidence.  This was eventually submitted to a Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice Trevor Morling, who handed down his finding in 1987 that the forensic evidence presented by the Prosecution was seriously flawed.  The murder conviction was quashed and the Chamberlains received a compensation payment from the government.  Very recently, a fourth Inquest into the death of baby Azaria found that a dingo (a relative of the Asian wolf) had indeed taken the infant from the Chamberlain’s tent – just as Lindy had claimed from the beginning. So ended the most famous mystery killing in the history of Australia.

In 1965, Sandy McLeod-Lindsay was wrongfully convicted for the attempted murder of his wife in their Sydney suburban home. After serving nine years in prison, Sandy wrote the book An Ordinary Man in which he presented his case for innocence. After reading this book in 1988, Wes thought the matter deserved further investigation. He recreated the crime scene and, using his own blood, carried out a series of novel blood splatter experiments.  These proved to his satisfaction that the forensic evidence had been flawed and that Lindsay could not have committed the crime.  His work resulted in the case being reopened in 1990, the Inquiry being held by Justice Loveday with Justice Trevor Morling assisting. When Wes explained to Justice Morling that he was not a forensic scientist, the judge reassured him that he had presented more real science to the Loveday Inquiry than all the expert witnesses for the Crown.  In 1991, Lindsay was exonerated and awarded $2 million in compensation.

In 2007, Australia’s medical magazines, Australian Doctor and Medical Observer, began to publish alarming articles on global warming.  When Wes countered these with evidence-based letters and short articles, his scepticism was attacked by members of Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA) and by David Karoly, a well-known climate scientist and alarmist who engaged Wes in an ongoing debate in Medical Observer during 2009.

In January 2010, Wes published a 10-page document, Climate Change: the Science, Spin and Politics, which Senator Abetz widely circulated to his political colleagues shortly before their leader was dumped over his support for Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme. Prime Minister Rudd then abandoned his ETS and was soon thereafter replaced by Julia Gillard. 

Wes then wrote a damning critique of Tim Flannery’s best seller, The Weather Makers, and his 400-page review (The Weather Makers Re-examined) was published by Irenic Publications in 2011.  Flannery's book on climate change alarmism resulted in the author receiving lots of acclaim and being made Australian of the Year in 2007. Dr. Allen's book was the first published critique of Flannery's book. His review thoroughly dismantled not only Flannery's global warming alarmism, but every significant argument that others had raised in support of global warming alarmism. He did this without making any unkind remarks about either Flannery or any of his fellow climate alarmists. The publishers considered that The Weather Makers Re-examined deserved to be printed because it was convincingly reasoned, carefully researched and thoroughly documented with more than 300 peer-reviewed references - and furthermore, the author had distinguished himself as a scholar and a gentleman even in the context of furious debate.   

Behind Dr. Wes Allen’s softly-spoken and unassuming persona is a patient and tenacious scholar who quietly pursues the trail of the evidence regardless of public opinion or even that of his own medical fraternity.  He is a man who will stand up for those who are wrongly condemned even against the current of popular sentiment. As an old verse puts it-

“They are slaves who will not speak

for the fallen and the weak.

  They are slaves who will not be

in the right with two or three,

  Rather than in silence shrink

from the truth they needs must think.” (Lowell)

In the 48 years that I have known Wes, it has always been his conviction that the truth of a matter is not determined by its orthodoxy or popularity.  At the same time there have been occasions in his life when he has ungrudgingly changed his own opinions when facts emerge that he should do so. 

As a quiet family man, he is more inclined to be a tad reclusive than socially extroverted.  As a doctor, he has always been greatly appreciated, not just because he is a competent practitioner of prodigious learning and broad experience, but because he has a genuine empathy for people.

Wes is also a dedicated family man. He introduced his children to many sports, and his son, Stephen, went on to win 10 world titles in windsurfing.  Now in his sixties, Wes remains fit and active, participating in triathlon events and playing with his grand-kids.