[Closed] Measles outbreak, MMR and cretins who don't get their kids vacinated

Because vaccination isn't 100% effective, which is whyyou have to try to vaccinate everyone.

IHN - Member
And, this isn't about individual choice, it's about societal good.

Given the choice, a lot of people wouldn't pay tax, or educate their children, but it's deemed to be for the greater good of society that they do, so the choice is removed. The same should apply here

think the current trend is to "nudge" people to conform - so on the vaccine issue - low uptake triple dose MMR so why not offer option single dose if that might solve the problem?

(I'll answer that perceived cost and negotiating with GP's)

as to the CMO's credibility on other issues (which some of us considered and remembered) - here is an extract from Sir Donald Acheson's obituary in the Daily Telegraph - one persons greater good is some one else's problem

In November 1998 Acheson conceded at an inquiry that he might have misled the public over the safety of beef at the height of the "mad cow" epidemic in 1990, which was linked to the deaths of 29 people from a new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

At the time of the outbreak he had said in a television interview: "There is no risk associated with eating British beef, and everyone – children, adults, patients in hospital – can be quite confident with the safety of beef."

Looking back, Acheson said, he should have stuck to the more cautious line, previously agreed with his scientific advisers, that there was "no scientific justification for not eating British beef". The advice of his experts had been that "there was a remote risk, not no risk".

It was a measure of the tightrope that is often walked by the CMO. Acheson said that during the scare over salmonella in eggs, the government had tried to persuade him to issue over-optimistic public statements.

I think that any sanctions against non-vaccinated children will break the ECHR and UK HRA.

Why do you think that? Lots of decisions are taken against individual will, mental health 'sectioning' for example.

The whole thing was stupid. How many kids are born each year, say 500K. If you stick a empty needle into all of them then statically you will always get some that start to get a severe condition. Doesn't mean it is linked to the injection. In the same way you will always get some kids that do badly respond to MMR but from a government point of view they have to look at public health as a whole and whats best for the country. We might not like getting dictated to from government but sometimes it is needed as it's for the good of everyone.
Personally I have always thought you have to be an idiot not to give your kid the MMR. If you hate it so much get the single injections done privately.

Eldest was taken for polio diptheria and whatever it is yesterday, nurse commented that "not many people turn up for this one" is there some scar estory about this lot of jabs or is it just laziness from parents who CBA taking their kids?

edit IIRC someone on mrs side of the family (distant family) had the MMR and soon after developed problems, think a payout was involved, don't have the details tho. Did the NHS ever payout for [i]possible[/i] MMR links?

I would not hate people now, yes all need to be strongly encouraged to ensure children are vaccinated, however it seems we are living with the legacy of sitautions past, as previously described.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22036576

Bloody awful disease, I had it as a child in the 70s, mum and dad talk of how touch-and-go it was of me pulling through. Fevers, hallucinations, fitting... *shudders at memory*

Hope everyone is unnaffected.

kev

When mrsH was heavily pregnant we decided not to get the Swine Flu vaccine.

Why the panic and hysteria OP? You've got many many years of potential harm from drivers/roads etc etc etc. My 3yr old lad ignored me and rode into the road on Wed night even though hes normally sensible.

As odd as it may seem to most right-minded people:

A separate issue is that some parents, large numbers in some areas, just do not bother (Others are suspicious of 'authority') to take their children for any immunisations or normal check-ups. These people may not be the most 'thinking' people in the community and many are not necessarily [i]too busy[/i] to visit the doctor.

They are actively encouraged and visited by the health authorities in an attempt to rectify the situation.

Why do you think that? Lots of decisions are taken against individual will, mental health 'sectioning' for example.

There would be direct evidence presented of immediate risk to that individual's health measured against his/her right to refuse treatment.

When the benefit to the individual is less marked - a moderate risk of infection with a very snall risk of complications or death, it's much more debateable. The vast majority of children survive measles infection with no after-effects or complications whatsoever. Herd immunity also offers little or no additional benefit to the individual.

IIRC someone on mrs side of the family (distant family) had the MMR and soon after developed problems, think a payout was involved, don't have the details tho. Did the NHS ever payout for possible MMR links

A small number of children will suffer vaccine damage - not of the type described by Wakefield, but complications linked to the vaccination nonetheless. ~Even 'safe' vaccines aren't 100% safe, there will always be a tiny number who will suffer reactions, some severe. The government has a scheme for paying out compensation to these families.

Why the panic and hysteria OP?

It's not either Hora, I'm angry at the idiocy of the situation, just like I'm angry at people who recklessly endanger others by driving too fast or using their mobile phone.

I know I sound very angry.

Hora, not wanting to get dragegd into this, but flu vaccine is different.

IIRC, there are countless forms of flu kicking around, it may help you as an individual to get the vaccine, will certainly do no harm, but as it is hit and miss it is not a population vaccine.

My understanding is that there is one form of polio, one measels, one mumps etc etc.

Does that make sense?

Kev

A separate issue is that some parents, large numbers in some areas, just do not bother to take their children for any immunisations or normal check-ups.

Kinda. But it's a little bit more complicated than that.

The BMJ link on the first page points to a fall in vaccinations in the areas where a local paper campaigned against MMR jabs. So there's a combination of apathy and people making a positive decision not to vaccinate going on here.

Uptake in the area covered by the study (the area around Swansea, where the current outbreak is taking place) was over 90% before the South Wales Evening Post's campaign, just over 77% after. Linky: [url= http://jech.bmj.com/content/54/6/473/T1.expansion.html ]http://jech.bmj.com/content/54/6/473/T1.expansion.html[/url]

There would be direct evidence presented of immediate risk to that individual's health measured against his/her right to refuse treatment.

It could also be the case that the individual presented a risk to the community, not just to him/herself. Either way, I very much doubt that making vaccinations obligatory would go against any current human rights legislation. IANAL, though.

Sometimes you can't do right for doing wrong..

My eldest was at the age for the MMR right in the middle of the scare / hysteria about it. We made the considered choice, as non-scientists who weren't able to reach an informed judgement, to pay for separate vaccines.

Unfortunately, we went with the doctor who was subsequently prosecuted for his shoddy practices (including not keeping vaccines refridgerated) so we ended up getting the MMR done at the GP anyway.

Much as I'm normally happy to blame the Daily Mail for most of society's ills, it's worth pointing out that one of the vociferous backers of Wakefield was the normally righteous Private Eye. They never really properly apologised when it became clear they had been disseminating dangerous nonsense.

I think I heard someone from public health Wales say they'd dropped the age restriction to 6mths in the outbreak area..

It could also be the case that the individual presented a risk to the community, not just to him/herself. Either way, I very much doubt that making vaccinations obligatory would go against any current human rights legislation. IANAL, though.

The lawyers would have fun with it either way, I guess, as you could make a good case in both directions.

As others have suggested, there are sneaky ways to compel parents to get their kids vaccinated without making it compulsory full stop - make nursery/school attendance conditional on vaccination, which I believe happens in other countries.

Of course it's panic and hysteria. In 2012 there were 2016 cases of measles in the UK, that's 0.003% of the population. I can't find stats for deaths from measles but a doc quoted by the BBC said it's 1 in every 1000 cases. The Health Protection Agency website says that a healthy person that contracts measles is highly unlikely to develop complications and even then it would be treatable by antibiotics.

There are many reasons that children are unvaccinated. The largest group is those who are too young, this group will always exist and will always be at risk of catching and transmitting the disease. The next largest group are those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. The group who's parent decide not to vaccinate is very small.

In just two pages of posts we've read about two vaccinated children contracting the disease, so it's not quite as reliable as 'they' would have you believe anyway.

[conspiracy theory hat on] The current hype about unvaccinated children from the press and government has more to do with earning profits for mega-pharma than it does a genuine concern for children's health and wellbeing [conspiracy theory hat off]

So from my brief skim read here the doctor is always right? Do what they say without thought.

cough
Thalidomide

Parents "try" to do the right thing, arguing the MMR case with my wife involved a lot of "what ifs" evenually we had it done.

I have found my family doctor to be pretty poor to be fair.

bent udder - Member

" A separate issue is that some parents, large numbers in some areas, just do not bother to take their children for any immunisations or normal check-ups."

Kinda. But it's a little bit more complicated than that.

The BMJ link on the first page points to a fall in vaccinations in the areas where a local paper campaigned against MMR jabs. So there's a combination of apathy and people making a positive decision not to vaccinate going on here.

Agreed. There are other areas with a wider issue, though, and this has also mentioned.

In terms of sanctions/compulsion what I found interesting was that in 1998 I did a semester at a US university as part of my degree. In order to register as a student I needed to show my vaccination records and although I'd had the single vaccinations as a kid (and had my doctors records to prove it) I had to have MMR before they'd let me enrol.

The current hype about unvaccinated children from the press and government has more to do with earning profits for mega-pharma

There's a lot more profit in giving old men a stiffy than in the MMR jab.

Vaccines are safe and Gulf War Syndrome never existed .

So from my brief skim read here the doctor is always right? Do what they say without thought.

If I was medically qualified, or an epidemiologist, then I might question the medical profession more. I'm an accountant, so, yeah, I'll take the word of the doctors given that they know (a lot) more than I do.

Otherwise, it's a bit like those conspiracy theories about the twin towers, moon landing or whatever - I don't understand what you're telling me, so it can't be true...

In just two pages of posts we've read about two vaccinated children contracting the disease, so it's not quite as reliable as 'they' would have you believe anyway.

The plural of anecdote is not fact.

Two immunised kids contracting the disease. How many people with imunised kids have read this and their kids not had it?

Lots I expect. Bear in mind it's only 90% effective.

bent udder - Member

The plural of anecdote is not fact.

You've just killed the internet

In just two pages of posts we've read about two vaccinated children contracting the disease, so it's not quite as reliable as 'they' would have you believe anyway.

35 people in this thread - 2 cases of ineffective vaccination.

[i]"They"[/i] say effectiveness is supposed to be 90%.

So that all sounds about right given the small sample size. No?

The fact that vaccines are not 100% effective is the entire reasoning behind [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity ]herd immunity[/url].

There are many reasons that children are unvaccinated. The largest group is those who are too young, this group will always exist and will always be at risk of catching and transmitting the disease. The next largest group are those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

Yep.. and the way you protect the children in those two groups (plus those for whom the vaccine was not effective, plus those who choose not to have it) is by reducing the chances of the virus being transmitted to them by making sure everyone else is immunised.

gwaelod - Member
bent udder - Member
The plural of anecdote is not fact.

You've just killed the internet

Sorry about that. My bad. 🙁

No, the choice should not be available because they are less effective and there is nothing wrong with the MMR vaccine.

There IS a problem with the MMR vaccine - people are (wrongly) scared of it. Even if individual vaccines are less effective they should still be available, even at a cost and with the appropriate info. It isn't as good and shouldn't be necessary but is better than the current situation

Yeah, I see what you're saying, but by making the separate ones available you're reinforcing the idea that there is something wrong with the combined one, which there isn't.

Well I for one am very glad for all those people getting their kids vaccinated. My littlest one has been unable to have the MMR as he was diagnosed with needing heart surgery from the age of one (he would be un-eligible for surgery for quite some months if he'd had the jab).

He's now one and a half and is down to have the jab next week. Thank you to everyone in the herd for helping to keep him safe in this time.

🙂

Do some people not really understand the potential dangers of having measles?

There's potential dangers in letting your kids play outside, cycling on their bikes, playing conkers etc. etc. etc. I ended up on hospital for three days after playing hide-and-seek (long story!). There's a risk in anything.

I think the government handled it badly (possibly after string of untruths before that people just started not believing them for anything), but once someone says something is bad it's tremendously hard to convince even intelligent people that it's not.

There's potential dangers in letting your kids play outside, cycling on their bikes, playing conkers etc. etc. etc.

Of course - but most parents try to reduce the risk to their children (e.g. it's risky crossing the road. We still let them do it but we teach them the green cross code)

Vaccination is a very simple measure that reduces the risk to your child and all other children with practically zero impact on their freedom or happiness.

I can't find stats for deaths from measles but a doc quoted by the BBC said it's 1 in every 1000 cases

From the data collated in the US between 1987 and 2000, the frequency of measles attributable deaths was 0.3%.

On the basis that there have been at least 500 confirmed cases in South Wales (and that number is expected to rise), at least one family is going to experience the death of their child.

That death is going to be entirely preventable.

You can't reasonably expect your kids to grow up in a hermetically sealed box and yes they could get killed by a car tomorrow. But that argument is analogous to saying that there is not point in teaching your kids road sense because they might get leukemia.

You teach your kids road sense to reduce the risk of them getting killed on the road. You give your kids the MMR vaccine to reduce the risk of them dying from measles.

Another decliner of MMR here. As has been said before, at the time of Wakefield,(my eldest is 15 and we were exactly in the frame, normal MMR in our town at the time was 15months) there was enough credibility put through the media to raise the doubt in our minds. This was following other significant public health problems like CJD. We went with separate vaccines done privately at a travel vaccinations clinic as no NHS facility had stock or would offer them. In fact only measles and mumps as Rubella isn't a massive risk to a child, and protection has often worn off by the time you want to have kids, so rubella vacc. as a teenager is a much better bet. I still don't fully understand the reluctance to offer separate jabs(perhaps even paying) through the NHS.

The argument to say it will mean lower uptake falls immensely flat when you have a parent in the room saying "No, not MMR, but if you have separates, go right ahead." and that has happened a LOT in the last fifteen years. Most of those parents won't have gone for private jabs, but done without. Cost of ours privately was about £80 per child.

Also, without the relative risks being either outlined or understood to and by the majority of parents, if it was a straight choice between measles and autism, most would choose measles every day. It might be clear as day that Wakefield is junk now, but it certainly wasn't for several years from 1998, maybe even a decade. That's a long time for things to rumble along in the back of the minds of people who later become parents and are then faced with a choice.

I still don't fully understand the reluctance to offer separate jabs(perhaps even paying) through the NHS.

a) it's less effective

b) (I'm guessing) it's more expensive

c) it undermines faith in the combination vaccine; to wit, "why would you offer separate ones, is there something wrong with the MMR jab?"

The argument to say it will mean lower uptake falls immensely flat when you have a parent in the room saying "No, not MMR, but if you have separates, go right ahead."

The solution there (now, not ten years ago) isn't to pander to their ignorance, it's to re-educate the populace. It's a shame the Daily Mail et all haven't run a huge "the MMR scare was a load of shit" campaign; can't think why.

I didn't have the MMR - my parents, at the time (and this was the 1980s) had worries about the vaccine, so I didn't have it, and when I was born it was pretty new, so uptake was low. My younger brother and sister have both had it. My brother (the youngest) has autism. My Dad to this day feels guilty that he gave in to his wife and let the youngest two have the triple vaccine - he's convinced there's a link, despite my sister being fine, and me not having had the vaccine, but having Crohns disease!

What my dad thinks isn't rational at all, it was most likely nothing to do with the vaccine that my brother became autistic, he was probably born that way, and it's not always evident until the toddler stage. But all the science in the world won't stop him wondering "what if". Science cannot necessarily dispel all fear and emotion, and that's what we're dealing with.

Unfortunately it's had such terribly bad press and the scaremongering was so great that all the reassurance in the world won't cut it for some parents, and you're not necessarily dealing with "rational heads" when it comes to parents and children's health. There are strong views both for and against, but it has to come down to parent choice, and as a parent, what you can live with. And I do think parents should take into account the health of others when making that decision about whether to have their kids vaccinated, as well as their own kids.

No consolation to your dad now of course...but

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/48/4/456.full#sec-4

Conclusions

Twenty epidemiologic studies have shown that neither thimerosal nor MMR vaccine causes autism. These studies have been performed in several countries by many different investigators who have employed a multitude of epidemiologic and statistical methods. The large size of the studied populations has afforded a level of statistical power sufficient to detect even rare associations. These studies, in concert with the biological implausibility that vaccines overwhelm a child's immune system, have effectively dismissed the notion that vaccines cause autism. Further studies on the cause or causes of autism should focus on more-promising leads.

Ben Goldacres bit n the grauniad from a few years back is circulating again. Another good read

Ben Goldacre
The Guardian
Saturday August 30 2008
Dr Andrew Wakefield is in front of the General Medical Council on charges of serious professional misconduct, his paper on 12 children with autism and bowel problems is described as “debunked” – although it never supported the conclusions ascribed to it – and journalists have convinced themselves that his £435,643 fee from legal aid proves that his research was flawed.
I will now defend the heretic Dr Andrew Wakefield.

The media are fingering the wrong man, and they know who should really take the blame: in MMR, journalists and editors have constructed their greatest hoax to date, and finally demonstrated that they can pose a serious risk to public health. But there are also many unexpected twists to learn from: the health journalists themselves were not at fault, the scale of the bias in the coverage was greater than anybody realised at the time, Leo Blair was a bigger player than Wakefield, and it all happened much later than you think.
Before we begin, it’s worth taking a moment to look at vaccine scares around the world, because I’m always struck by how circumscribed these panics are. The MMR and autism scare, for example, is practically non-existent outside Britain. But throughout the 1990s France was in the grip of a scare that hepatitis B vaccine caused multiple sclerosis.
In the US, the major vaccine fear has been around the use of a preservative called thiomersal, although somehow this hasn’t caught on here, even though that same preservative was used in Britain. In the 1970s there was a widespread concern in the UK, driven again by a single doctor, that whooping-cough vaccine was causing neurological damage.
What the diversity of these anti-vaccination panics helps to illustrate is the way in which they reflect local political and social concerns more than a genuine appraisal of the risk data, because if the vaccine for hepatitis B, or MMR, is dangerous in one country, it should be equally dangerous everywhere; and if those concerns were genuinely grounded in the evidence, especially in an age of the rapid propagation of information, you would expect the concerns to be expressed by journalists everywhere. They’re not.
In 1998 Wakefield published his paper in the Lancet. It’s surprising to see, if you go back to the original clippings, that the study and the press conference were actually covered in a fairly metered fashion, and also quite sparsely. The Guardian and the Independent reported the story on their front pages, but the Sun ignored it entirely, and the Daily Mail – home of the health scare, and now well known as vigorous campaigners against vaccination – buried their first MMR piece unobtrusively in the middle of the paper. There were only 122 articles mentioning the subject at all, in all publications, that whole year.
This was not unreasonable. The study itself was fairly trivial, a “case series report” of 12 people – essentially a collection of 12 clinical anecdotes – and such a study would only really be interesting and informative if it described a rare possible cause of a rare outcome. If everyone who went into space came back with an extra finger, say, then that would be worth noting. For things as common as MMR and autism, finding 12 people with both is entirely unspectacular.
But things were going to get much worse, and for some very interesting reasons. In 2001 and 2002 the scare began to gain momentum. Wakefield published a review paper in an obscure journal, questioning the safety of the immunisation programme, although with no new evidence. He published two papers on laboratory work using PCR (a technique used in genetic fingerprinting) which claimed to show measles virus in tissue samples from children with bowel problems and autism. These received blanket media coverage.
The coverage rapidly began to deteriorate, in ways which now feel familiar and predictable. Emotive anecdotes from distressed parents were pitted against old men in corduroy with no media training. The Royal College of General Practitioners press office not only failed to speak clearly on the evidence, it also managed to dig up anti-MMR GPs for journalists who rang in asking for quotes. Newspapers and celebrities began to use the vaccine as an opportunity to attack the government and the health service, and of course it was the perfect story, with a charismatic maverick fighting against the system, a Galileo-like figure. There were elements of risk, of awful personal tragedy, and of course, the question of blame: whose fault was autism?
But the biggest public health disaster of all – which everyone misses – was a sweet little baby called Leo. In December 2001 the Blairs were asked if their infant son had been given the MMR vaccine, and refused to answer, on the grounds that this would invade their child’s right to privacy. This stance was not entirely unreasonable, but its validity was somewhat undermined by Cherie Blair when she chose to reveal Leo’s vaccination history, in the process of promoting her autobiography, and also described the specific act of sexual intercourse which conceived him.
And while most other politicians were happy to clarify whether their children had had the vaccine, you could see how people might believe the Blairs were the kind of family not to have their children immunised: essentially, they had surrounded themselves with health cranks. There was Cherie Blair’s closest friend and aide, Carole Caplin, a new age guru and “life coach”. Cherie was reported to visit Carole’s mum, Sylvia Caplin, a spiritual guru who was viciously anti-MMR (“for a tiny child, the MMR is a ridiculous thing to do. It has definitely caused autism,” she told the Mail). They were also prominently associated with a new age healer called Jack Temple, who offered crystal dowsing, homeopathy, neolithic-circle healing in his suburban back garden, and some special breastfeeding technique which he reckoned made vaccines unnecessary.
Whatever you believe about the Blairs’ relationships, this is what the nation was thinking about when they refused to clarify whether they had given their child the MMR vaccine.
The MMR scare has created a small cottage industry of media analysis. In 2003 the Economic and Social Research Council published a paper on the media’s role in the public understanding of science, which sampled all the major science media stories from January to September 2002, the peak of the scare. It found 32% of all the stories written in that period about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, and Wakefield was only mentioned in 25%: Leo Blair was a bigger figure in this story than Wakefield.
And this was not a passing trivial moment in a 10-year-long story. 2002 was in fact the peak of the media coverage, by a very long margin. In 1998 there were only 122 articles on MMR. In 2002 there were 1,257 (from here). MMR was the biggest science story that year, the most likely science topic to be written about in opinion or editorial pieces, it produced the longest stories of any science subject, and was also by far the most likely to generate letters to the press, so people were clearly engaging with the issue. MMR was the biggest and most heavily covered science story for years.
It was also covered extremely badly, and largely by amateurs. Less than a third of broadsheet reports in 2002 referred to the overwhelming evidence that MMR is safe, and only 11% mentioned that it is regarded as safe in the 90 other countries in which it is used.
While stories on GM food, or cloning, stood a good chance of being written by specialist science reporters, with stories on MMR their knowledge was deliberately sidelined, and 80% of the coverage was by generalist reporters. Suddenly we were getting comment and advice on complex matters of immunology and epidemiology from Nigella Lawson, Libby Purves, Suzanne Moore and Carol Vorderman, to name only a few. The anti-MMR lobby, meanwhile, developed a reputation for targeting generalist journalists, feeding them stories, and actively avoiding health or science correspondents.
Journalists are used to listening with a critical ear to briefings from press officers, politicians, PR executives, salespeople, lobbyists, celebrities and gossip-mongers, and they generally display a healthy natural scepticism: but in the case of science, generalists don’t have the skills to critically appraise a piece of scientific evidence on its merits. At best, the evidence of these “experts” will only be examined in terms of who they are as people, or perhaps who they have worked for. In the case of MMR, this meant researchers were simply subjected to elaborate smear campaigns.
The actual scientific content of stories was brushed over and replaced with didactic statements from authority figures on either side of the debate, which contributed to a pervasive sense that scientific advice is somehow arbitrary, and predicated upon a social role – the “expert” – rather than on empirical evidence.
Any member of the public would have had very good reason to believe that MMR caused autism, because the media distorted the scientific evidence, reporting selectively on the evidence suggesting that MMR was risky, and repeatedly ignoring the evidence to the contrary. In the case of the PCR data, the genetic fingerprinting information on whether vaccine-strain measles virus could be found in tissue samples of children with autism and bowel problems, this bias was, until a few months ago, quite simply absolute. You will remember from earlier that Wakefield co-authored two scientific papers – known as the “Kawashima paper” and the “O’Leary paper” – claiming to have found such evidence, and received blanket media coverage for them. But you may never even have heard of the papers showing these to be probable false positives.
In the Journal of Medical Virology May March 2006 there was a paper by Afzal et al, looking for measles RNA in children with regressive autism after MMR vaccination, using tools so powerful they could detect measles RNA down to single-figure copy numbers. It found no evidence of the vaccine-strain measles RNA to implicate MMR. Nobody wrote about this study, anywhere, in the British media (except for me in my column).
This was not an isolated case. Another major paper was published in the leading academic journal Pediatrics a few months later, replicating the earlier experiments very closely, and in some respects more carefully, also tracing out the possible routes by which a false positive could have occurred. For this paper by D’Souza et al, like the Afzal paper before it, the media were united in their silence. It was covered, by my count, in only two places: my column, and a Reuters news agency report. Nowhere else (although there was a post on the lead researcher’s boyfriend’s blog where he talked about how proud he was of his girlfriend). [EDITED to disambiguate]
Journalists like to call for “more research”: here it was, and it was ignored. Did the media neglect to cover these stories because they were bored of the story? Clearly not. Because in 2006, at exactly the same time as they were unanimously refusing even to mention these studies, they were covering an identical claim, using identical experimental methodology: “US scientists back autism link to MMR” said the Telegraph. “Scientists fear MMR link to autism” squealed the Mail.
What was this frightening new data? These scare stories were based on a poster presentation, at a conference yet to occur, on research not yet completed, by a man with a well-documented track record of announcing research that never subsequently appears in an academic journal. This time Dr Arthur Krigsman was claiming he had found genetic material from vaccine-strain measles virus in some gut samples from children with autism and bowel problems. If true, this would have bolstered Wakefield’s theory, which by 2006 was lying in tatters. We might also mention that Wakefield and Krigsman are doctors together at Thoughtful House, a private autism clinic in the US.
Two years after making these claims, the study remains unpublished.
Nobody can read what Krigsman did in his experiment, what he measured, or replicate it. Should anyone be surprised by this? No. Krigsman was claiming in 2002 that he had performed colonoscopy studies on children with autism and found evidence of harm from MMR, to universal jubilation in the media, and this work remains entirely unpublished as well. Until we can see exactly what he did, we can’t see whether there may be flaws in his methods, as there are in all scientific papers, to a greater or lesser extent: maybe he didn’t select the subjects properly, maybe he measured the wrong things. If he doesn’t write it up formally, we can never know, because that is what scientists do: write papers, and pull them apart to see if their findings are robust.
Through reporting as shamelessly biased as this, British journalists have done their job extremely well. People make health decisions based on what they read in the newspapers, and MMR uptake has plummeted from 92% to 73%: there can be no doubt that the appalling state of health reporting is now a serious public health issue. We have already seen a mumps epidemic in 2005, and measles cases are at their highest levels for a decade. But these are not the most chilling consequences of their hoax, because the media are now queueing up to blame one man, Wakefield, for their own crimes.
It is madness to imagine that one single man can create a 10-year scare story. It is also dangerous to imply – even in passing – that academics should be policed not to speak their minds, no matter how poorly evidenced their claims. Individuals like Wakefield must be free to have bad ideas. The media created the MMR hoax, and they maintained it diligently for 10 years. Their failure to recognise that fact demonstrates that they have learned nothing, and until they do, journalists and editors will continue to perpetrate the very same crimes, repeatedly, with increasingly grave consequences.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

(i) If the Medical Establishment rails against any proposed cut in their budget, it reinforces the premise that expensive is good. They should not then be surprised when the public distrusts a remedy which is sold to them as both more effective and cheaper.
(ii) In the modern world where deference has largely disappeared, the most effective expert is often the one who is able to communicate his expertise to the non-expert - not the most qualified one.
(iii) I am somewhat surprised no one has complained about the use of the word "cretin" as a term of abuse.

Mefty, when you capitalise Medical Establishment, what's that supposed to mean? Are you talking about doctors, or about the NHS, or about pharma companies, or about something else?

Cougar - to the credit of Private Eye, which supported Wakefield for a very long time, it did publish a Mea Culpa and apology. The only media organisation to do so, from what I can see.

cough Thalidomide

My wife suffered adult chickenpox when the kids caught it, as there is no catch-up vaccination available in the UK, despite a vaccine. Whilst benign in children, it can be serious in adults. About 30 people a year die from preventable chickenpox. Measles deaths are just as preventable.

Thalidomide is not a relevant comparison. That happened before there were decent standards for conducting clinical studies, and was an important contributor to a complete change in clinical testing.

I thought that the reason single vaccinations were discouraged wasn't only cost but because evidence showed that people didn't turn up for the other vaccinations.

Death is not the only side effect of measles. I am short sighted due to catching it in the 60's from my sister. She didn't get spots behind her eyes, I did. Shame the vaccines weren't that effective fron that era and people want to go back to offering it as an alternative. Then having lived in S. Wales in Cardiff the locals regarded the Swansea dwellers as a little "special".