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What the Papers Don't Say About Vaccines

Posted by Soulskill on from the headlines-over-reason dept.

jamie tips an article in The Guardian's "Bad Science" column which highlights recent media coverage of the MMR vaccine. A story circulated in the past week about the death of a young child, which the parents blamed on the vaccine. When the coroner later found that it had nothing to do with the child's death, there was a followup in only one of the six papers who had covered the story. "Does it stop there? No. Amateur physicians have long enjoyed speculating that MMR and other vaccinations are somehow 'harmful to the immune system' and responsible for the rise in conditions such as asthma and hay fever. Doubtless they must have been waiting some time for evidence to appear. ... Measles cases are rising. Middle class parents are not to blame, even if they do lack rhetorical panache when you try to have a discussion with them about it. They have been systematically and vigorously misled by the media, the people with access to all the information, who still choose, collectively, between themselves, so robustly that it might almost be a conspiracy, to give you only half the facts."

9 of 737 comments (clear)

  1. Negative headlines sell better by Zironic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No one is interested in reading positive news like the fact the vaccine isn't actually harmful so there's no money in printing it.

    1. Re:Negative headlines sell better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My daughter got the MMR a month or two ago and she ended up with a week of 106F fever.

      So the doctor told you that the fever was a result of the MMR or did you come up with the diagnosis yourself?

      I'm just saying that it could have been a coincidence. Perhaps it wasn't the vaccine but some other cause after all kids do tend to get sick.

    2. Re:Negative headlines sell better by Xaria · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Whereas I've had Mumps and Rubella, and the fever was worse and I felt horrible and missed school for over a week each time. 2 days, 2 weeks ... my kids are immunized, thanks.

  2. Parents ARE to blame by tannhaus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When it comes to something that may seriously harm your child, whether it be vaccines or the illnesses the vaccines prevent against, it is your responsibility as a parent to not go off half-cocked and to make extremely sure that you have all the facts before you make a decision regarding the welfare of your child. If you're not up to that responsibility, then you shouldn't have custody of your kids. Plain and simple.

    *Father*

    1. Re:Parents ARE to blame by Samschnooks · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When it comes to something that may seriously harm your child, whether it be vaccines or the illnesses the vaccines prevent against, it is your responsibility as a parent to not go off half-cocked and to make extremely sure that you have all the facts before you make a decision regarding the welfare of your child. If you're not up to that responsibility, then you shouldn't have custody of your kids. Plain and simple.

      *Father*

      Or why not ask your physician who, I would think, knows a bit more than a writer who does the bare minimum of research, if any, to meet his deadline.

    2. Re:Parents ARE to blame by st0rmshad0w · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.

      No, what will happen is that there will be a spike in previously preventable diseases due to unvaccinated kids, which will eventually bring about a mutation in the pathogen which will then infect your vaccinated child, or possibly you yourself, who is no longer protected because the anti-vaccine crowd gave the disease a breeding ground and place to evolve to evade the vaccine-created immunity.

  3. Doctors != Scientists by DrLudicrous · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know this is going to be viewed somewhat as flamebait, but to put it bluntly, doctors are mechanics for the human body. No more, no less. The vast, overwhelming majority of doctors have little to no true scientific training, any more so than a business person or Joe the Plumber. Even those doctors doing active medical research have limited scientific faculties IMO, having heard about this stereotype from others, read about on the internet, and dealt with it myself. Therefore, when it comes to scientific interpretation, anything coming from a doctor's mouth should be taken with at least a grain of salt, if not a shakerful.

  4. Re:Err... by gowen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem here is that many British newspapers have spread wholly-untrue scare stories about the MMR injections, largely based on erroneous analysis by descredited scientists, Andrew Wakefield.

    No-one can be be expected to follow every major medical story by reference to the original papers (and despite your noxious smugness, you don't either). We all rely on the media, both to alert us to potential medical risks, and to give accurate and even handed treatment to medical stories.

    The papers and journalist in question (and. Melanie Phillips, I'm looking at you) have put sales-grabbings scare stories ahead of providing actual information -- acceptable if you're just gossiping about celebrities, but children have lost their lives because well meaning parents have been swayed by newspaper medical stories written with scant regard for the truth. Like people who shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre, they should be held to account.

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  5. Power Lines by bperkins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember when power lines were giving our children cancer?

    I'm glad they fixed that.