BMJ  2007;335:126-127 (21 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.39280.447419.59 (published 18 July 2007)

Observations

Medicine and the media

MMR: the scare stories are back

A UK newspaper has once again linked autism with MMR and sparked a spate of media scaremongering. But the original story was wrong on every count, writes Ben Goldacre

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

It was inevitable that the media would re-ignite the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) autism scare during Andrew Wakefield's General Medical Council hearing (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39280.513310.4E). In the past two weeks, however, one front page splash in the broadsheet Sunday newspaper the Observer (8 July) has drawn widespread attention: the newspaper effectively claimed to know the views of named academics better than those academics themselves, and to know the results of research better than the people who did it. Smelling a rat—as one might—for once, I decided to pursue every detail.

The Observer's story made three key points: that new research had found an increase in the prevalence of autism, to 1 in 58; that the lead academic on this study was so concerned he suggested raising the finding with public heath officials; and that two "leading researchers" on the team believed that the rise was due to the MMR . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Pearce, A., Law, C., Elliman, D., Cole, T. J, Bedford, H., the Millennium Cohort Study Child Health Group, (2008). Factors associated with uptake of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) and use of single antigen vaccines in a contemporary UK cohort: prospective cohort study. BMJ 336: 754-757 [Abstract] [Full text]  
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