The Press: Vaccination scaremongering

See also You should know, you're a medic: Is the MMR vaccine safe?

Vaccine scaremongering is on the increase. The problem is that more people experience vaccine side effects if mass vaccination programs are in place, even though this often leads to a very small incidence of potentially life threatening diseases. This creates the ideal environment for vaccine scare stories to flourish. The link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism reported in 1998^1,2 has triggered an unrelenting stream of stories raising concerns over vaccine safety. These panic stories persist despite assurances that MMR is safe.^3-8 In April this year, for example, the Mail on Sunday reported "a new link between MMR and autism"⁹ based on one study which found measles in the bowels of 24 autistic children, even though the study was deemed "uninterpretable" by the Department of Health. The new meningitis C vaccine is the most recent victim of media reports about vaccine side effects.

Newspapers are not, however, solely responsible for vaccine scaremongering. The advent of the internet has given several minority groups the ideal tool to disseminate vaccine scare stories. There are enough of these stories on the internet to worry any parent about the safety of childhood immunisations. Self help groups run by parents of vaccine damaged children, such as Justice Awareness and Basic Support (JABS)¹⁰ and National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC),¹¹ claim to be not antivaccination but pro-information: their raison d'&etilde;tre is to inform others fully of the potential adverse effects of vaccination. Yet they make many claims that may well deter parents from vaccinating children. For example, they argue that vaccine safety is improperly monitored and that vaccines are inadequately tested. Also, their graphic accounts of serious vaccine side effects, such as brain damage, carry with them an implicit message that "this could be your child." All these groups gloss over the fact that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the vanishingly small risk of serious side effects, but perhaps this is understandable, given that they represent the parents of vaccine damaged children.

The internet is also used by several antivaccination groups. These conspiracy theorists claim to offer uncensored information about immunisation which doctors and the government cover up. Websites such as "Vaccination: 50 things doctor forgot to tell you,"¹² by the British Anti-Vivisection Association; "Thinktwice.com"¹³; and "Vaccines: the truth revealed"¹⁴ are numerous.(See Figure 1)

The additive effect of these various scare stories has created a lot of free floating anxiety about immunisation. This has led some people to a search for unsuitable, potentially dangerous, alternatives to vaccination. In a recent edition of The Rattle, newsletter of the National Childbirth Trust, a homoeopath advocated that "[if] your baby comes into contact with whooping cough, meningitis, etc then a remedy can be given to prevent your child developing that illness." It has also caused a lot of unnecessary paranoia. Health visitors report instances where parents have refused to vaccinate their child with MMR because they believe that the government or drug companies are covering up the link between MMR vaccine and autism.

All groups who raise concern over vaccine safety present vast amounts of facts and figures to support their argument. These are largely from unsubstantiated sources or unpublished data, are often taken out of context, or are just plain wrong. The self styled experts who promote these "facts" claim to act as a consumer watchdog, monitoring and interpreting vaccine research, yet they largely have no medical or research training.

Vaccine scaremongerers put forward apparently sophisticated arguments about the dangers of immunisation. They try to blind the public with science. Doctors and the government need to be more aggressive in dismantling these arguments. Much of the current pro-vaccination information, such as that on BBC Online,¹⁵ is insufficient to counter their claims. The public should be left in no doubt that the interpretation of scientific findings is a job for experts in research science. They also need to be made aware that judgments about vaccine safety are based on good science-that is, replicable research conducted using appropriate subject numbers, methodology, analysis, and controls-that is published in reputable peer reviewed journals. The "evidence" presented by vaccine scaremongerers fails to meet most of these criteria.

This approach may well mean that doctors are accused of being condescending and paternalistic, but the battle to maintain high vaccine coverage must be won if potentially serious childhood diseases are to be prevented. Vaccine scaremongerers fail to mention that in the prevaccine era, mumps, for example, was a leading cause of meningitis in young children.

The waters have been well and truly muddied by those seeking to demonise vaccination. It is small wonder that some parents shun immunisation when vaccine scaremongerers repeatedly get away with peddling dangerous and inaccurate information. It is time for the medical profession to fight back collectively.

Carolyn Edwards, third year medical student, University of Leeds
Email: ugm7cae@leeds.ac.uk


studentBMJ 2000;08:303-346 September ISSN 0966-6494

1. Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, Linnel J, Casson DM, Malik M, et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 1998;351:637-41.
2. Press reports in all major daily newspapers on 27th February 1998 (eg, Laurance J. Doctors link autism to MMR vaccination. Independent.)
3. Petola H, Patja A, Leinikki P, Valle M, Davidkin I, Paunio M. No evidence for measles, mumps and rubella vaccine-associated inflammatory bowel disease or autism in a 14-year prospective study. Lancet 1998;351:1327-8.
4. Taylor B. Autism and measles, mumps and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. Lancet 1998;353:2026-9.
5. Committee on Safety of Medicines. Report of the Working party on MMR vaccine, May 1999. Current Problems in Pharmacovigilance 1999;25:9-10.
6. Roberts R. MMR vaccination and autism 1998: there is no causal link between MMR vaccine and autism. BMJ 1998;316:1824.
7. Department of Health information and press releases responding to MMR scare. Department of Health website: www.doh.org.uk/
8. Chen RT, DeStefano F. Vaccine adverse effects: causal or coincidental? Lancet 1998;351:611-12.
9. Fraser L. Measles jab: new link to brain damage. The Mail on Sunday 9 April 2000:1-2.
10. www.argonet.co.uk/users/jabs/
11. www.909shot.com
12. www.eurosolve.com/charity/bava/
13. thinktwice.com/
14. www.odomnet.com/vaccines/resource.htm
15. www.bbc.co.uk/health/parenting/