The MMR/Autism research by Wakefield was seriously flawed in the first place and leapt upon by a horde of journalists and celebrity columnists without a science qualification between them.

No actual studies have been properly published that show a link between MMR and Autism, and the evidence against a link is overwhelming. Every media outlet that discusses this always ends up trying to “balance the debate” by allowing anti-vaccine nutjobs to have their say and continue to spread this absolute rubbish. It’s all trial by anecdote with some very tenuous links. When we discuss gravity we don’t have to get someone on to balance the debate (or “teach the controversy”) ??

And the biggest bastard in all this is the Daily Mail… So of course, one of the things we really need to do is to get our children to start thinking about how science is manipulated by the media and by parties with a cash investment in peddling alternative therapies etc. It’s good common sense to doubt what these shitrags are telling us.

So this story in the Daily Mail yesterday made my blood boil when I read it (although to be honest every story in the Daily Mail does) – for the sheer arrogant cheek of it.

So – to try and show children that the whole MMR thing was complete bollocks and that people like Wakefield and the Daily Mail were bastards of the highest order – is somehow Brainwashing them?

To have people from JABS talking about insidious ways of shaping peoples opinions? Words fail me.

I think what the Mail is really concerned about is that we’re trying to teach people to be critical of the crap they publish in the papers and pass off as medical news.

And the Anti-vaccine movement is moving ahead at a scary rate in the US with cranks like Jenny McCarthy being signed up by Oprah. These diseases are going to come back, and people are going to die, and the blame for that falls squarely on these celebrity rent-a-quotes and the arts students that work in the media who don’t have a clue about what they are doing.

Here’s some extra reading for you:

Daily Mail Exposes Secret Government Brainwashing Plot!

Mail & MMR: who’s doing the brainwashing?Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On?

Oprah drinks the antivax Kool Aid

Why is Oprah Winfrey promoting vaccine skeptic Jenny McCarthy?