Action For Autism

UK Press and MMR: Let me hear your voice, please.

On Wednesday I blogged about an important new study that added to the weight of evidence that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. You would imagine that the UK press would be all over it. After all, we invented the MMR/autism crisis back in 1998 when the medical establishment failed to address the fears that were articulated by Dr Andrew Wakefield at that press conference. The media sensed a good story and magnified those fears until they became endemic in society. 10 years later the story rumbles on and now measles is endemic in society again.

Ben Goldacre, one of the few noble exceptions to the generally abysmal reporting, recently castigated fellow journalists for their role in creating and perpetuating what he describes as the Media’s MMR Hoax. In recent weeks they seem to have got the message. Reporting on MMR is beginning to reflect the scientific evidence. No doubt editors’ minds have been concentrated by the news that we face a measles explosion. A cynic might suggest that they have merely dropped autism in favour of the latest health scare. Nevertheless there was near universal and favourable coverage in August of a government initiative to vaccinate the estimated 3 million children in the UK who have missed one or both of their MMR jabs.

So I was eagerly awaiting the coverage of this novel Columbia University study. It was novel for three reasons.

Firstly, it was a direct attempt to replicate the original study by Wakefield et al that created the furore in the first place. This has been a constant criticism from Wakefield supporters of every other study that has cast doubt upon his hypothesis.

Secondly, the lead investigator, Mady Hornig had already endeared herself with the vaccine/autism community with a controversial mouse study on the effects of the vaccine preservative thiomersal. There never has been any thiomersal in the MMR vaccine but the anti-vaccine parents tend not to discriminate and regard all vaccines as equally bad for their children.  

Thirdly, the researchers had consulted with this constituency, described as the autism/parent advocacy community, as part of the process of study design.

This was not an establishment coverup or PR exercise. These researchers were looking to find something and wanted the parents on board. Well, they looked and found nothing. The parents jumped ship and issued stinging rebukes through their advocacy organizations  - Safe Minds and National Autism Association (NAA). I discussed this yesterday. But what of the British  press?

Over on Black Triangle, Anthony Cox had found nothing, zilch, zero   by yesterday afternoon. Then a breakthrough - a free newspaper, the Metro carried the story, followed by the Mail and the Telegraph. These are two of the newspapers that I have castigated  in the past for doing more than most to keep the vaccine scare going. And now they are leading the way with accurate reporting of some real research. Who will follow?

So far I have checked the websites of all the newspapers wth national distribution in the UK - all nine of them and the four television news services with universal coverage - free to view, no cable or satellite needed. All the other quality papers - the Times, Independent and Guardian have ignored it. The only tabloid to pick it up was the Daily Mirror. None of the TV news channels has touched it.

They must know about it so why the silence? UK media, let me hear your voice.

September 6th, 2008 Posted by Mike | MMR, journalism, research, science | 2 comments