MMR / Jeni Barnett / Ben Goldacre

Could anyone answer a related question for me? I'm athsmatic (well, used to be, it appears to have receeded now). The lovely Dr Jeni commented that her very athsmatic daughter couldn't have had the MMR as her athsma was too bad. Now is it me, or is athsma bugger all to do with your immune system? I know they won't immunise if you have a cold/infection, but they are different conditions, no?

Confused of Whingeland

I think that asthma/ezcema can be related to allergies which are immune system related, but it's not as Jeni was saying (anyway she was confused - first saying her daughter couldn't have imms because of weak immune system then saying she didn't need it because of strong immune system)

But the research shows no link between vaccs and atopy (asthma/ezcema/allergies)

Cheers Hazel.

Googling "Jeni Barnett" currently generates four MMR-related diatribes in the top ten. The highest is only at number six (Goldacre, obviously), but I suspect this won't be for long. ?

Incidentally, I could hardly be more certain that the MMR had nothing to do with my son's autism. And I suspect in every other case of an alleged link there were clear signs prior to the first vaccination, but these were either missed altogether or not recognised for what they were - I suspect if Lexi hadn't been a first child, we'd have spotted them much sooner. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that the first clear signs tend to coincide with the first MMR, which is why we get all this circumstantial supposition.

I can completely understand parents wanting a reason for their child's autism - and having someone to blame maybe helps them deal with it somehow - but we all know MMR ain't that and amongst Wakefield's many crimes, giving false hope must be one.

Before the MMR debacle I think Wakefield was actually doing some relatively useful/interesting stuff on the gut and autusm.

Asthma can be caused by allergy (immune system related) or other factors (eg, exercise, virus). Different causes of asthma, same kind of symptoms.

I think some people with a lot of allergies are recommended to have vaccinations at a hospital because of the risk of allergic reaction but it's not usually a reason for not vaccinating at all.

Mr JK, I totally agree, and I think it's vitally important families of autistic kids say these things publically.

A couple of years after Youngest Brother was diagnosed, the Wakefield scandal broke. My mum, bless her, is the least scientific person you've ever met. Some of her 'friends' spent some considerable time trying to persuade her to sue! I was pretty surprised at the behaviour of these 'educated' parents. I had to spend a long time explaining to her that my Dad has Asperger's. His Mum, in restrospect, was very Aspie. My Dad's brother has two 'spectrum' kids. Pretty likely to be a genetic component then. Oh, and none of them had MMR.

In the end me and H trawled through hours and hours of family videos cutting and putting together all the evidence that he was autistic from birth, we just didn't notice it. It was a really useful experience to do that, actually. A is the youngest (of 5) rather than oldest, but I think we all missed the signs partly because it's quite nromal for younger kids to talk later etc, and also my Mum was at this point so laid back about parenting she was just letting him get on with things in his own time.

Anyway, our 'detective work' was fascinating. Within his first few weeks he'd stare preferentially at the telephone wire rather than faces. He'd stare and try to grab the light on the video incessantly. As soon as he could crawl, he would crawl to the nearest electrical socket and turn it off and on repeatedly. His speech was definitely delayed (although not picked up at the time). For his 3rd birthday he got a plastic hoover, which he then took everywhere with him (bed, bath, nursery....). His first words were 'micafone' and 'hoofer'. It goes on in the same vein. In fact, I'm pretty amazed we never noticed any of those things as odd, but the retrospectoscope is a wonderful thing!

(Aged 14 he's still pretty keen on wires and microphones, but he no longer takes his hoover into the bath ?)

Needlessly to say, my Mum is now convince MMR had nothing to do with it.

The anti-vaccination posse seem to be primarily middle class, educated parents, who presumably have enough education to know a bit and to be able to read science and understand it on face value but not enough scientific training to temper that with an understanding of the scientific process or the wider scientific landscape.

We have loads of video footage of Lexi prior to his MMR. I can't bring myself to watch it again (I really don't need to, as my memory's more than good enough) but there's no question it would provide clinching evidence if any of us had had even the slightest doubt.

Credit where it's due - at least one parent spouting the "MMR gave my son autism" publicly retracted after digging out video footage and conceding that the signs were clearly visible before the MMR. I'd link if I could remember the name.

Or 'humanities graudates' as Dr Goldacre would say ?

It's gone the total opposite way with the MMR argument now, hasn't it? To say you're a medical professional seems to make people take you less seriously rather than more.

I've stopped telling people I'm a doc when we have these kind of arguments, and just stick to the family stuff, backed up with some solid facts! (and I can wheel H out to tell people what it's like being admitted to hosp seriously ill with measles).

And if I hear one more 'doctors just want us to have it because they make money out of it' - WTF?? I'm paid by the NHS, whether you have your idiot kid vaccinated or not makes absolutely no difference to whether I get paid. And it *costs* the government money to run a vaccination programme, not makes them money. Grah.

The MMR debacle (I won't call it a controversy because there is no controversy in my mind) is a very interesting study in memes.

I've trtied to understand why it's a meme that isn't dying out and I'm struggling a bit. A lot of blame is placed with the media, rightly in my opinion, but I don't think that entirely covers it. I think there's something in what Zebra said yesterday, about people finding it somehow exciting to go against the flow, to believe in some kind of conspiracy, to be different.

I hear a lot of anti-vaccination people say that it's nothing to do with Wakefield, it's other reasons. Which makes me think that deep down they do still worry about the autism link but are just finding reasons that sound more plausible.

Is it a fundamental distrust of science? Is it ludditism (is that a word btw? should it be ludditery?) Is it an excuse for something else?

Even if there was a link, my son has eczema - it's a shame obviously for him as it's uncomfortable but I'd rather that than he ended up blind or worse through measles, infertile through mumps, or passing on rubella to a pregnant woman and causing dreadful damage to her unborn baby.

The conspiracy theory mob really get on my tits. Believe me, no-one is more cynical about politicians/government than me, but I just refuse to believe they would advocate us giving our children something which could seriously damage them, and therefore if nothing else prejudice the future generation of taxpayers. I just don't accept it.

I do think that Wakefield's nonsense was bad enough, but also TB did no favours in refusing to confirm if Leo had had the MMR with all that mince about his privacy. I don't see that confirming whether his child has had a vaccine that we're all encouraged to give our own children is a gross infringement of privacy. Am I right in thinking Cherie has since confirmed Leo DID have it?

I also don't get the "it's not good for their immune system to get 3-in-one jabs". Jonathan had his second jabs on Thursday, and it was 2 jabs administerd at the one time for Whooping Cough, Diptheria, Polio, Pneumococcal Meningitis and something else I think, but 5 in 1 - why has there not been the same sort of stooshie about that then? If it's OK to get 5 in 1, why not 3 in 1?

I haven't read the whole transcript yet but plan to do so and join in the complaint.

Roobarb - I simply do not buy the conspiracy stuff. The government can't keep our data safe, let alone a conspiracy that would involve most of hte world's governments, medics, parents and scientists.

I also know that the vast majority of academic scientists (and actually, quite a lot of industrial ones, despite their pay packets) prize academic freedom very very highly. They would not take kindly to the idea that they should cover up results on the say of the government or anyone else. TBH, the way research works, it would be impossible to do.

I think it partly is wanting to be different and all that.

I think it's a general 'distrust of the government' thing.

I think it's also part of a much wider doctor/NHS-bashing thing - imho if this had happened 15 years ago, more people would have trusted their GPs when they said it was all a load of tosh.

But I still lay the blame mostly at the door of the media. For f*cking Radio 4 to have that crap on yesterday morning, so many years after the Wakefield paper was totally discredited, is totally irresponsible. People now think there is a genuine debate/controversy when there just isn't!

I wrote a huge essay on this for my Science and the Public module, but it's on my other computer.

i think one thing that came out was the focus the whole affair put on immunisation. There have always been people who were anti, but they were a very small part of the community. When the Wakefield bollox broke, it a) gave them a voice, they could shout "I told you so" very loudly, and suddenly people listened and b) it made people suddenly think about the whole process of vaccinations. I think beforehand parents focussed more on their poor child being stabbed by a needle, but it was OK (ish) because it was "medicine". Then all of a sudden there is a lot more detail available in mass-media about what a vaccination is, how it works etc, but people don't fully understand, just hear that their child is being injected with a disease blah blah blah.

sorry, i'm not being very eloquent today, but you get my point (hopefully). it made people really think about the vaccines, and once the autism thing had mostly passed the uninformed hysteria around "vaccines" remained.

that was just part of it - there was also all the mistrust stuff, expert opinion etc, and a few other factors that I can't remember.

Oh and the standard risk perception factor stuff.

I think a major part of the problem is the culture of spin that's affected (or rather infected) all branches of government since 1997. I know it was hardly a new concept back then, but it was under Blair that it became endemic.

In fact, it's quite revealing to compare the two most accurate political sitcoms of their respective eras, Yes Minister and The Thick Of It, because the only really important difference (besides the swearing) is that the press officer barely registers in the former but is the central character in the latter. And while Joe Haines and Bernard Ingham were hardly unknown shrinking violets during the Wilson and Thatcher eras, no-one seriously suggested that they were instrumental in running the country - as was claimed many times about Alastair Campbell.

And because so much has been spouted by government sources that really does turn out to be bollocks when given closer scrutiny, there's an understandable suspicion that the same thing is happening with MMR - regardless of the fact that the vaccine's safety has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt by a great many agencies in a great many countries. But the whole point of spin is to discourage people to look too closely.

I'm getting a Google-ad for the Bad Science book at the top of the page ?

Risk perception is funny stuff isn't it? There must be a lot of psychology behind why some people choose to ignore some risks but act on others.

The spin thing is interesting - although the wakefield paper was 98 I think so there hadn't been all that much time to get used to it. Do you think mistrust of government is actually worse than it's ever been or if it's one of those "when I was young" things?

Some of the course material covering the MMR stuff here: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/health/health-sciences/the-mmr-vaccine-public-health-private-fears/content-section-0

(Including risk perception: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=296896&direct=1)

There's been a massive change since the mid-1990s, and that's the World Wide Web. Previously, if you had somewhat eccentric political/medical views, you'd generally keep them to yourself or spout them down the pub to a small audience. Now, like-minded people can band together and create a pretty formidable national and often international fighting force.

Just look at what's happened to BBC complaints - records were broken over Jerry Springer The Opera and the Ross/Brand kerfuffle, with tens of thousands of people making their feelings known. But a massive part of that was due to:

(a) the fact that it's much easier to get momentum going;
(b) the fact that it's much easier to make a complaint.

In the early 1980s, Alexei Sayle wrote a very funny piece wondering why channel controllers and commissioning editors paid so much attention to people who wrote in to complain, as though they were representative of the general population. In fact, as he pointed out, normal people might think about writing in to complain, but very few would actually go to the trouble of sorting out a paper, pen, envelope and stamp and going down to the postbox to actually post it. And the overwhelming majority of those that do were, according to Sayle, fucking nutcases.

But now, you just fill in a form online or even scrawl an e-mail and click 'SEND' - job done, cost nil, time negligible. And if you're part of an organised mob you can cut-and-paste group letters so that you barely need to devote more than a couple of brain cells to actually writing one yourself.

That's why, every time someone disses Noam Chomsky or the BNP (to name two wildly divergent but equally good examples), a Google Alert will notify their defenders who will pile into the relevant comments boxes, creating the impression that there's some kind of major controversy when there really isn't.

But of course there's an upside to this - twenty years ago, there's no way the ravings of a London local radio presenter would be discussed in Minnesota within hours.

Thanks Flowery - very interesting reading

Thats so true, I took my daughter swimming when she was about 11/12mnths to a toddler and parent swim. I got talking to some of the other Mums (as you do ) all educated and well spoken, one of the Mums asked me if my daughter would be having the MMR, she went on to explain that her PIL had said they would pay for the single jabs and "she couldn't see the point of having the MMR if they had money to pay for the single jabs" and unfortunatly her views are not uncommon instead the're shared by other women I know. My daughter has had her MMR and I had every faith in it before she had the jab and I still do post MMR as I told the women who I was speaking to that we do have the money to pay for single jabs we just don't want them. I really struggle when people tell me about there child recieving single jabs - I feel I should speak up more

That's interesting Helen** - sounds like it's almost becoming a status symbol to have the individuals.

My response to people who have the single jabs would be that single jabs are unlicensed and there would be no way I would give my child unlicensed vaccines.

Sorry MrJK - I missed your reply earlier. You're right, globalisation has had a big effect on the way things are brought to the attention of the collective conscience. Is this part of the reason the facts on MMR get overlooked by so many? Anyone can set up a website and post what htey want and it's relatively easy to make that sound eloquent (although given how easy it is it's surprising how many people don't)

Who let this blubbering fool on the radio? Unbelievable.

I think there's a lot in what you say about people wanting to be different, for which they mean better. Another prime (although less serious) example is how far people take children's names - there's a lot of must have something different/original/quirky no matter how daft or inappropriate.

Fcuking hell! I feel sorry for the poor children with such ignorant, status obsessed parents as that! It's one thing to flaunt a 4x4, or a new kitchen but to play that game with your child's (and everyone else's) health is astounding.

I agree but I think that the intention of giving your child the single vaccines is probably seen as a compromise, doing the best you can for your child i.e. you don't risk the MMR and you still vacinate your child. I don't agree with it by the way I'm very Pro-MMR just trying to understand there logic and wondering how you start to reducate these people.

I think there are two camps of people to fight.

The first, and most worrying lot are those who are completely anti-vaccinations. They used to be a relatively small group so didn't really have that much effect on the total but, as several people have said, they have increased in numbers. Some of them are plain loony, but the really scary ones are those who use science to back up their arguments, not realising that they are selectively sampling the studies. There's a book by a GP called The Truth About Vaccinations, where actually makes what sounds like a fairly compelling, scientifically-based argument against vaccination. Unless you are an epidemiologist and really know your stuff, it can be hard to counter that as they are armed with references and you are armed with nothing but common sense!

The second lot are those who are still worried about MMR but want to vaccinate so choose single vaccines. It is still better that they give the single vaccines than none at all but it's nowhere near as good for the collective or the individual to use them. They're less effective and have nastier side effects - you avoid what you think is a tiny tiny risk of autism (but enough to avoid MMR) and instead walk into a significant risk of meningitis. Nice.

The two groups need slightly different approaches.

FWIW (and I know I've made this point on some of these vaccine threads) I think the way you fight anything like this (global warming is similar) is to engage with people. Their fears about MMR might be unfounded but you can't just tell them it's safe and expect their fears to evaporate. Nor can you just educate them of the safety/science/background and expect them to suddenly be converted. You need to discuss the specific nature of their concerns and really get into those.