2008-12-06
It's not what the papers say, it's what they don't
More from Ben Goldacre’s excellent Bad Science column in the Guardian, this time on the incredible media misinformation on the MMR vaccine.
“On Tuesday the Telegraph, the Independent, the Mirror, the Express, the Mail, and the Metro all reported that a coroner was hearing the case of a toddler who died after receiving the MMR vaccine, which the parents blamed for their loss. Toddler ‘died after MMR jab’ (Metro), ‘Healthy’ baby died after MMR jab (Independent), you know the headlines by now. On Thursday the coroner announced his verdict: the vaccine played no part in this child’s death. So far, of the papers above, only the Telegraph has had the decency to cover the outcome. The Independent, the Mirror, the Express, the Mail, and the Metro have all decided that their readers are better off not knowing. Tick, tock.”
This reminded me to dig out the following from the Economist: “Sow the wind - Measles and MMR”.
FLEDGLING engineers learn about disasters like the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-rig fire or the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 as a reminder of the dangers that attend their profession. Perhaps, if the subject ever achieves respectability, media-studies undergraduates will pore over the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine scare in 21st-century Britain.
[Tammy Boyce] lays much of the responsibility for the MMR furore at the door of a scientifically illiterate, scaremongering press. And whereas health officials may have learnt from their experiences, she is less sure about the fourth estate. “Have the media learnt anything?” she wonders. “No, on balance, I don’t think they have.”
