Is the Daily Mail killing children?

Media Integrity

No. Obviously not. Saying such a thing would constitute sensationalist reporting of the crudest kind, and I'm not going to resort to that. But remember this:

No. Obviously not. Saying such a thing would constitute sensationalist reporting of the crudest kind, and I’m not going to resort to that.

But remember this:

And this:

MMR autism

And this:

MMR autism2

And this:

Mail scaremongering

The “evidence” reported by the Daily Mail in the above instances turned out of course to be nothing of the sort, and was completely discredited years ago.

The “stories” came after the Lancet had published a study in 1998, led by Dr Andrew Wakefield, which linked the MMR jab with autism and bowel disease.

The Lancet, which originally published the research linking autism and MMR, issued a full retraction of the paper in 2010, describing it as “false”. Dr Wakefield was later struck off from the medical register for “offences relating to dishonesty and failing to act in the best interests of vulnerable child patients”.

Three years on, however, and the consequences of the scaremongering about MMR and autism are still being felt.

This week it was reported that a measles outbreak in Swansea has reached 588 cases, with the number of those contracting measles increasing by 116 in a single week with 51 people hospitalised. Measles is a disease which can cause brain damage and death in children.

Dr Roland Salmon, a consultant epidemiologist from Public Health Wales, told the BBC that local GPs were seeing a lot of children aged between 10 and 15. He added that they would have been the babies who missed out on the vaccine following the now-discredited 1998 report linking the MMR jab and autism.

The graphs below show the rough correlation between immunisation levels and rates of measles.

Immunisation levels

Measles cases

And this one shows that the UK has the fifth highest proportion of measles cases in Europe.

Top 10 measles countries
And to think, it was expected by the World Health Organisation as recently as 2008 that measles would have been eradicated by now. If some of our newspapers had behaved a bit more responsibly, it might have been.
But of course it goes on. Here’s what I find via a quick search today. Date: 15 January 2013.
Mail new
I think it’s best simply to leave you with the words of Public Health Wales in this instance: it said that it was “just a matter of time” before a child was left with serious and permanent complications, such as eye disorders, deafness or brain damage, or even dies.

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45 Responses to “Is the Daily Mail killing children?”

  1. Samantha

    *Sorry I mean rise in cases of measles not deaths.

  2. Mr King

    I know one thing The Daily Fail uses votes bots and also freezes comments section to promote a skewed view on a subject topic, Pro Government, Politicians Bankers Royal Family Negative benefit claimants living in poverty,

  3. DippingIn

    For a fully rounded view of the Mail’s position you also have to include this headline from 2011…

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2011310/Why-measles-rise-Just-blame-French.html

  4. Lynne Haywood

    Back when the measles vaccine was separate to mumps and rubella, my toddler son was vaccinated with the single measles vaccine.

    At the time, my daughter was recovering from mumps.

    I asked the nurse if she considered it the correct thing to do at a time when my son could be carrying the mumps virus. The nurse thought it best to vaccinate.

    After the measles vaccine my son’s brain became swollen and he staggered and fell each time he tried to walk.

    I took him to hospital.
    Fortunately he recovered from this incident but it proved to me that when the measles and mumps virus are in the body at the same time, it can be very dangerous, especially for toddlers.

  5. Kerry Kriel

    The paper was however retracted and The Lancet editor made an apology…The Daily Mail just carries on regardless

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