Communication and miscommunication of risk: understanding UK parents' attitudes to combined MMR vaccination

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7417.725

BMJ 2003;327:725-728 (27 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7417.725

Education and debate

Communication and miscommunication of risk: understanding UK parents' attitudes to combined MMR vaccination

Paul Bellaby, director¹

¹ Institute for Public Health Research and Policy, University of Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4QA p.bellaby@salford.ac.uk

In this article on the public perception of risks Paul Bellabyconsiders three examples of risks to children in the UK—aninsignificant risk (autism caused by MMR vaccine), a real butprobably small risk (vCJD from BSE), and a real and demonstrablylarger risk (injuries from road crashes) and contrasts the perceptionsof the risks by parents

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Science cannot prove a negative, but, where their children areconcerned, parents want to be assured that risk is zero. Wouldestablishing a comprehensive "Richter scale" of risks removethat misunderstanding? If not, then what accounts for miscommunicationof risk and how might it be overcome? In this article I tryto provide answers by considering public perception of threerisks, each of a different order, all involving children:

Autism linked to the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR)vaccination
Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) arisingfrom food containingthe causative agent for bovine spongiformencephalopathy (BSE)
Injury and death in road transport crashes.

In 1998 Wakefield was the first to make the claim that autismand the MMR vaccine are linked.¹ It is based on a dozen clinicalcases of gastrointestinal disorders with which developmentalregression seemed to be linked. They arose in previously normalchildren. His team found that . . . [Full text of this article]

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Re: compulsion may be the pragmatic response: GH Hall
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Communicating risk: Paul Lynch
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Re: compulsion may be the pragmatic response: L S Lewis
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