Triple vaccine fears mask media efforts at balance

“It’s all a result of scaremongering by the media,” said a general practitioner, speaking on a British breakfast TV station on 8 February. She was referring to public concern in Britain over the alleged risks of MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. This has meant that uptake of the vaccine has declined steeply in some parts of the country, leading to significant increases in the numbers of children developing measles in London and elsewhere. As a GP constantly trying but failing to reassure parents that the overwhelming weight of evidence supports the safety of MMR vaccine, her irritation was understandable. Many people have been more convinced by a single claim, publicised in the media, linking MMR immunisation with autism and inflammatory bowel disease (Current Biology, 16 October 2001, R807). They have remained unimpressed by warnings of the very real dangers associated with all three diseases. And the confident ignorance of certain journalists has not helped. “My mother had measles. I had measles. My daughter had measles...So why, all of a sudden, do we speak of ‘outbreaks’, as if it were typhoid or cholera?” wrote Carol Sarler in the Daily Express. The situation has also been exacerbated by the steadfast refusal of the Prime Minister to say whether his baby son has received the vaccine. “Tony Blair’s secrecy has alarmed parents, which is why the number of children having the jabs has fallen dramatically,” wrote Lynda LeePotter in the Daily Mail. “If there is a measles epidemic, it will be his fault.” A further complication, as highlighted by the Patients Association, is that some GPs have begun to strike off their lists the names of parents who decline MMR vaccine for their offspring. But have journalists really been responsible for the hysteria and the dangerous situation which the UK Department of Health has now been trying so hard to address? A dispassionate examination of media coverage across the board reveals a rather different picture. Journalists did, of course, report Andrew Wakefield’s original claim in 1998 linking MMR vaccine with autism. Yet textual analysis shows that most newspapers have at least tried to produce rational and balanced coverage, and that most have succeeded rather well. The Guardian, for example, assembled a dossier headed “The facts” which emphasised the results of extensive studies in the UK and elsewhere that have contradicted Wakefield’s claim, which was based on a very small sample. The dossier also showed that there was no scientific evidence that the triple vaccine was less safe than monovalent ones — whose use would leave children alarmingly exposed. Other broadsheet newspapers published similar evidence — as too did most of the mass market tabloids. The Daily Express, for example, ran a double-page spread headed “Vaccinate — or risk your child’s life”. This was accompanied by an editorial suggesting that parents be given the choice of single vaccines, simply because so many of them were rejecting the MMR shot. However, the main article stated prominently that the WHO and other authorities throughout the world believe MMR to be safe. Another tabloid, The Mirror, went even further and attacked two of its competitors. “Who backs combined MMR jab?” the paper asked in bold type. The answer was a list of organisations, from the British Medical Association to the News focus