Anti-MMR vaccine put-down… hats off to David H. Gorski

Wow, in all my reading – and there has been a considerable amount… clinical studies in academic journals, books, magazines like New Scientist and Scientific American, Nature, online science blogs, online reportage, opinion pieces, you name it. I’ve read sh!t-loads over the last few years (apologies for the language), nobody has ever done such a thorough, concise and beautifully put-together put-down of the anti-vaccine movement as David H. Gorski, MD, PhD., over at Science Based Medicine…

 2009: Shaping up to be a really bad year for antivaccinationists (David Gorski, 23/02/2009)

I am not even going to quote excerpts from it, it is simply too good. Click on the link and read it in full and if that doesn’t put you straight, nothing will.

Aggressive dogs, poor training techniques, sound statistics and some good advice in the discussion – shame about the methodology.

I came across a new study the other day, recently published in the journal of Applied Animal Behaviour Science…

Herron, M. E., Schofer, F. S., Reisner, I. R., 2009. Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviors. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 117, 47–54.

Introduction and Methodology

The study looked at the responses of domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) to “interventions” (things done directly or indirectly to the dogs), with the intention of reducing agressive behaviour. In the researcher’s own words…

The purpose of this study was to describe the frequency of use, the recommending source, and the owner-reported effect on canine behavior of interventions that owners of dogs with undesired behaviors had used on their dogs. This study also aimed to report aggressive responses from the dogs subsequent to the use of aversive and non-aversive interventions.

I like what this study is attempting to do – laudible and much needed. As an animal behaviourist and someone who started training dogs with his mother before he went to primary school, I’ve seen my fare share of ignorant and downright dangerous (to animal and human), training techniques (e.g., suspending an aggressive dog consisted of, basically, hanging it for a few seconds on the end of a “check chain” and lead).

This study tries to point out how such techniques, animal welfare issues aside, can be dangerous for handlers, just don’t work and could even be counter-productive.

Great, so far so good – you can tell there’s a “but” coming can’t you?

Owners of dogs scheduled for an appointment with the Behavior Service at the Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, were sent a survey via email, fax, or postal mail designed to identify and briefly note the behavioral outcome of a variety of treatment interventions.

This survey was pre-tested for clarity by 10 dog-owning hospital employees. 

Okay, let’s say that the dog-owners who were sent the surveys had the same level of understanding as the 10 dog-owning hospital employees, and that they gave more than a split-second’s thought to filling out the survey (be honest, how much effort did you spend on filling out the last questionnaire you completed?).

The treatment interventions are noted in table 1, below (click on tables for enlarged versions)…

Once again, good, clear stuff – techniques I’ve seen used thousands of times over the years, all with varying degrees of success.

Anecdote Alert – Anecdotes are NOT evidence: The next time you watch a world-class, dog obedience championship (if you ever do), take a long, hard look at the dogs in the finals. They will all look like they are thoroughly enjoying what they are doing. Any trainer worth a dog choc, will tell you that training by fear and intimidation doesn’t get good results.

Anyway, back to the study… so here we have owners answering survey questions on their own efforts with their own dogs. And herein lies the rub.

Take a look at table 1, how willing do you think people would be to admit that they had “hit or kicked” their dog? That they had “kneed [the] dog in the chest for jumping”? That they had “abruptly jab[bed] the dog in the neck or side”?

If they did admit to such techniques, one person’s kick is another’s “push with their foot”.

When the word “muzzle” is used, does that mean one of the old-fashioned muzzles or one of the myriad of new devices with “kinder”, “softer” names? Are they muzzles?

What did the researchers mean by “yell” exactly? Or “growl at the dog”? I didn’t growl per se, I just lowered my voice a lot and sounded angry.

The people filling out these surveys were lay people, not scientists with clear descriptions and definitions for their terms. The respondents didn’t have a standardised template of what these interventions were, in order to compare their own behaviour and make a decision as to what constitutes a yell or a kick.

We have no way of knowing how accurate the responses to this survey were. Which unfortunately makes all that follows a bit of a wasted effort really.

The aggressive behaviour of the dogs (complaints)…

were then categorized as follows: ‘‘aggression to familiar people,’’ targeted to household members or people with whom the dog spent significant time, ‘‘aggression to unfamiliar people’’ targeted to nonhousehold members, ‘‘aggression to dogs’’ if owners described their dogs as aggressive to dogs either within or outside the household, ‘‘separation anxiety’’ if the dog exhibited problems in the owner’s absence, ‘‘specific fears or anxiety’’ if the owners described fear of noises or other environmental stimuli, such as thunderstorms, and ‘‘other’’.

Once again, much of the above categorisation is extremely subjective and based upon the opinions of the owners. Here we run into the anthropomorphism of pet owners and the fallibility of human memory, as well as simple accuracy of reporting original data.

In each case, owners were asked whether they had attempted the technique or intervention, the recommending source, whether the method used had had a ‘‘positive’’, ‘‘negative’’ or ‘‘no effect’’ on their dog’s behavior, and whether or not it elicited a ‘‘growl/bare teeth’’, ‘‘snap/lunge’’, or ‘‘bite’’ from the dog. For purposes of analysis and because any display of aggression was considered a safety risk to the owner, the responses ‘‘growl/bare teeth’’, ‘‘snap/lunge’’, and ‘‘bite’’ were collapsed into one ‘‘aggressive’’ response.

Once again, owners are asked for the data… “Now let’s see, who was it told me to kick the dog when he attacks uncle Bob? Was it the trainer or did I get that one off the TV?” And of course, this doesn’t account for their partner who, having never liked uncle Bob to start with, encourages the dog to bark at the door whenever the poor guy shows up.

What I’m saying of course, is that there’s no real control mechanism here, we don’t know for certain if there are other factors affecting the answers given by the respondents.

In addition, owners are then asked to judge the responses of their dogs. This is all highly subjective.

Sure, we could use it to base a hypothesis on and conduct further research… (wait for it – you can just bet there’s a bit in the discussion about that one).

Fisher’s Exact Test was used to determine if dogs presenting with an aggression to familiar people, and dogs presenting for aggression to any people (either familiar, unfamiliar, or both) were more likely to respond aggressively compared to dogs presenting with other behavior problems.

Significance levels for multiple comparisons were adjusted for using the Bonferroni correction. A P-value of < 0.002 was considered significant.

Good, standard methods of analysing contingency table data and tightening up significance levels. But is the data valid in the first place?

Results and Discussion 

Between April 1 and July 31, 2007, 30 (28%) of 107 distributed surveys were completed and returned.

Between August 1, 2007 and May 1, 2008, an additional 110 completed surveys (98% of 112 distributed) were collected, for a total of 140 completed surveys (64% of the total distributed).

One-hundred and forty respondents is a good number, but it’s stretched out over three months - once again I’d be concerned over issues of memory and accuracy of responses.

Also, I wonder about changes in temperature and environmental stimuli (e.g., frequency / duration of exercise) and how this might affect aggressive behaviour in pet dogs?

Please guys, don’t send out any more surveys – when your dog bit the local cop, was it a hot day or was it a bit cold?

Owners attempted a variety of behavioral interventions, many of which elicited an aggressive response, with their dogs prior to their appointment with a referral Behavior Service. As we expected, the highest frequency of aggression occurred in response to aversive interventions, whether direct or indirect. In contrast, reward-based training elicited aggression in very few dogs, regardless of presenting complaint.

Table 3 (below), details opinion of the respondent dog owners on the behaviour of their dogs, following the interventions identified (click on tables for enlarged versions).

The table shows that “reward-based” interventions generally have a higher “positive effect” – in the opinion of the dog owners. Nobody else, and, sadly, certainly NOT as indicated by objective, scientific observation.

The data analysed in this study is not conclusive. The methodology for collecting the data was flawed and the analysis which follows is therefore equally compromised.  

This is certainly not news to the researchers, who deal with many of my criticisms (plus one or two more) as follows…

There were several limitations in our study. First, the dog owners surveyed were recruited from a population of owners making appointments at a referral behavior clinic; in many cases, the behavior problems were significant.

The frequency of aggressive responses and effectiveness of training methods might have been different if we had sampled a general population of dog owners.

Next, the survey did not request a temporal description of these interventions and many of them may have been applied well before the presenting behavior problems occurred.

It is, therefore, difficult for us to determine whether owners attempted specific interventions to alter aggressive behavior or whether aggression developed as a result of their use.

It is also possible that owners misinterpreted the meaning of the ‘‘effect’’ section of the survey.

The terms ‘‘positive’’, ‘‘negative’’, and ‘‘no effect’’ are subjective, and judging a technique’s effectiveness based on these options may not be accurate.

Not to mention the fact that the definitions of the interventions themselves (was it a “kick” or a “push”?), may have been unclear to some respondents.

Next, owners’ self-reporting may have led to recall bias and/or poor answer reliability.

For example, each owner may have remembered the outcomes of various treatment techniques differently and some owners may have felt reluctant to admit to a veterinary professional that they used physically aversive methods on their dogs.

Finally, the retrospective nature of the survey prevented the possibility for direct comparison of safety and efficacy between aversive and non-aversive techniques.

In other words, because the survey was conducted by having respondents remember interventions and results, it was not really possible to judge whether the results reported were accurate (i.e., positive, negative or no effect).

It would, however, be unethical to put dog owners at risk for injury for a randomized, prospective comparison between the two categories.

Dog owners possibly, but what about professional dog trainers? This study has a good premise and leaves a lot of important questions unanswered – this would be great stuff if it were part of a research proposal, rather than a published study in it’s own right.

I just don’t feel that the opinions of the dog owners constitutes real evidence and therefore data.

But this isn’t a criticism of the researchers, I for one want more from these people – they are breaking new ground!

This study is the first of its kind to investigate several commonly used behavioral interventions and the potential for aggression as a result of their use.

A larger scale study with a more general population of dogs would be the next step towards evaluating the effects of the various behavioral modification techniques and their associated risks.

Sounds great. I’m hooked and am awaiting the publication!

Who’s got the film rights?

In conclusion, confrontational or aversive behavioral interventions applied by dog owners before their pets were presented for a behavior consultation were associated with aggressive responses in many cases.

Owners of dogs aggressive to family members are especially at risk for injury—and their pets at risk of relinquishment or euthanasia—when certain aversive methods are used.

Ultimately, reward-based training is less stressful or painful for the dog, and, hence, safer for the owner.

It is important for primary care veterinarians to advise owners about risks associated with aversive training methods, despite their prevalence in the popular media, and to provide resources for safe and effective management of behavior problems.

Now, I’m not sure what it’s like in the United States, but over here in the United Kingdom, veterinarians are not necessarily animal behaviourists, and are just as capable of delivering some truly dire advice as any TV pundit you’ll ever tune into.

This is a much needed area of research – for both professionals and a lay audience.

 

References

M HERRON, F SHOFER, I REISNER (2009). Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviors Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 117 (1-2), 47-54 DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2008.12.011

Jeni Barnett – pandering to her own ego, by deceit through censorship. Previously posted as… Please Mr. Agent, can Jeni come out to play again?

First Posted – 18/02/2009

It appears that Jeni Barnett has begun posting on her blog again, but given how honestly she has reflected criticisms of her MMR vaccination ignorance in the past, she probably won’t address any of the questions I posed in a post to the above blog this afternoon (Jeni – you might feel it necessary to ask your agent’s permission before you write a reply, but really, you’re a big girl now and should be able to stand or fall by what you say… although, you’ve not done so well up until now I suppose).

Nevertheless, my post and the questions I’ve posed, appears below. If she responds, I’ll be reporting it here, in all it’s unedited glory (which is more than you can say about anything that’s posted over at Jeni’s blog – I wonder if she writes it all herself?)…

Given your complete and abject failure to acknowledge your dangerous ignorance in terms of the misinformation you presented to the public with regard to MMR vaccination. Will you now, publicly, acknowledge your reckless foolishness in this matter? Retract the ridiculous statements you made on air earlier this year? And apologise to the NHS nurse you (completely unfoundedly) branded “vicious”?

In addition, how do you answer the complaints to OFCOM and to LBC which allege that you have failed in your responsibilities under paragraph 2(1) of Part II of Schedule 2 to the Broadcasting Act 1990, paragraphs 9 and 10 of Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998, and paragraph 15 of Schedule 14 to the Communications Act 2003, which state that Broadcasting Act licensees should not:

> practise or advocate illegal behaviour;

> practise or advocate behaviour which is injurious to the health or morals of participants or others;

> practise or advocate behaviour which infringes the rights and freedoms of participants or others;

> pose a threat to public safety;

> pose a threat to national security or territorial integrity;

> or threaten the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

In particular, how would you address the complaint that your broadcast of January this year could prove “injurious to the health” of some listeners and/or their children? And certainly poses a “threat to public safety”?

Do you intend to withdraw from your position as a patron of The Grove Park School in Crowborough, East Sussex which focuses on (amongst others), autistic pupils? Given that you have so blatantly betrayed such a responsibility?

Please answer my questions in a public forum, instead of ignoring and/or removing these criticisms from the record of the discussion.

To be cross-posted at http://themilligan.wordpress.com

The Milligan – 18/02/2009

 

Update 19/02/2009

At last, despite posting my original questions / criticisms on Jeni Barnett’s blog more than 24-hours earlier, the “professional broadcaster” has at last published my post (as detailed above), numbered and time-stamped as follows…

1. At February 19, 2009 4:40 PM Terence Milligan

No reply as yet.

Developments will be posted here.

 

Update 20/02/2009

No comment on Jeni’s blog this morning, certainly no responses to my post, so, a little nudge is in order.

Posted at 10:20 this morning, maybe it’ll be published, maybe it won’t…

Nobody wants you to stop blogging Jeni and genuine criticism of misinformation is not bullying – free-speech and the chance to debate is what brought your little share of the media’s “MMR Vaccine Hoax” to the notice of so many. E.g., when LBC’s lawyers behaved so stupidly with Ben Goldacre, then the particularly crazy idea by your agent to remove those postings from your blog – he really doesn’t understand modern communications.

I can imagine that neither decision was yours, that doesn’t fit well with what I’ve read about your points of view on this blog.

However, you have been heavily criticised about the views you expressed during that January “MMR” broadcast. Not least by myself. The criticisms I have made have been very specific. The evidence supporting those criticisms has been conclusive.

Surely you know more about the facts now than when you started.

How do you answer the overwhelming weight of objective scientific evidence, and legal conclusions, from the UK and US, that completely contradict everything you based your position on?

Scientists have long decried the poor methodology of Andrew Wakefield’s studies. Scandalous weaknesses in his methodology were evident from his work published in scientific journals. Unfortunately, these journals are not commonly open to the public, who generally lack the training to identify a weak clinical study anyway.

As a result, the general public, yourself included are only exposed to usual, rather shabby, reporting of scientific evidence in mainstream media. Then, when a report which contradicts that which has gone before finally surfaces (e.g. the recent Times article criticising Wakefield), it’s rather easy to portray the situation as “a lone, maverick voice, being silenced by the establishment and big pharmaceutical company money”.

This is not the case here. Independent experts, as well as solid, working scientists, throughout the world have identified Wakefield’s work as extremely poor science, if not downright deceitful. We do NOT have an axe to grind, we do NOT have a bias.

I have children, if the evidence showed that the MMR vaccine caused autism – even in a minority of cases – I would not think twice about paying for single jabs. But the evidence does not. It really is conclusive that solid facts point elsewhere.

At one point you said something akin to “why can’t those with science-based opinions allow others to have a different opinion?”

Well, the answer to that is, in cases of this kind, a different opinion can kill people.

Take a look at this web site…

http://www.whatstheharm.net/vaccinedenial.html

where case studies of those that have been killed or injured through “vaccine denial” have been collected.

This is not a matter of “opinion”. In my “opinion” the square root of 9.8696 is approximately equal to Pi. In this case, you can do the calculation necessary to check my opinion quite simply, on a calculator. You can make an independent assessment of it’s accuracy – but not without some training in mathematics. Without some higher level of scientific training, it’s not very likely that you can make a sound judgement of a number of clinical studies… and that is what is needed to form a consensus of opinion in science. Not just one study from a “lone maverick” – that simply is not good enough to make decisions upon which will affect people’s lives.

Somebody in a position, of even a little social influence, could prevent a number of children from being vaccinated in the best way possible. This could kill innocents and nothing is more important than that. As a result, you and anybody else that reaches a large audience, must be held to a standard of truth and fact.

You must, at least, get your facts right. You know, and have admitted as much, that you failed to reach that standard.

PLEASE, engage the debate. Look carefully at the facts, not the rumour – address your critics in a public forum. Address the facts.

The Milligan – 20/02/2009

 

 Update 22/02/2009

Well now, the case of the mysterious vanishing blog posts continues. On Thursday 19th February 2009, Jeni Barnett’s blog page…

http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/brits_and_me.php

Had the following first posting…

1. At February 19, 2009 4:40 PM Terence Milligan wrote:

Followed by my posting detailed above on the 18th February.

Now it appears the “The Agent Gremlins” have been attacking again.

The Milligan’s posting has vanished! Shock! Horror!! Oh the deceitfulness!!

After all, it’s not as if the old girl has a track record of this sort of dishonesty is it?

Judge for yourselves people. Was my post hurtful, or a personal attack in any way? Nevertheless, it’s gone.

Uncomfortable truths that she doesn’t want to deal with.

My posting has been replaced by a bit of simpering “Jeni we love you”…

1. At February 19, 2009 8:57 PM judi4 wrote:

I wonder if she typed it herself or got her agent to do it.

This plumbs new depths even for Barnett.

But Lo!!! Not content with censoring honest debate from The Milligan, she deletes a posting from a character by the name of “Buggy”, who originally appeared as posting number 12 on the following thread…

http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/neigh_neigh_thrice_neigh.php

Buggy helpfully pointed Barnett in the direction of all those other missing posts that the “Agent Gremlins” had eradicated, but no, we can’t have anything eluding to the fact that the Barnett may have critics. Instead we now have posting number 12, as below…

12. At February 22, 2009 12:17 AM Mo wrote:

@ Buggy, comment 12, give it a rest will you! Can’t speak for other regular readers of Jeni’s blog but I’m not interested in your nonsense.

It’s great to see you back blogging Jeni, I missed you!

Now, because this post “gives the game away” slightly, by revealing that there was really another “No.12″ before this one, I thought I’d include a screenshot this time…

Which doesn’t really make sense any more does it? But what the heck, it’s a bit more simpering crap to pander to the old girl’s ego. So now, even Barnett’s regular bloggers can see the level of deceitfulness which is routinely being practiced (and they’re not pleased… see below).

Well done Jeni, as an actress – a professional faker by your own admission…

“Acting is all about honesty, if you can fake that you can fake anything.”

Jeni Barnett

 

… you are doing your profession proud.

I’m sure there’ll be more to come – keep checking here.

 

Update – 22/02/2009 23:05

I know I said that there’d be more, but I really didn’t expect it to come so soon. It seems that someone with a sense of humour got a sneaky post on the Barmy Barnett’s latest blog thread – “Bulbs a Plenty”…

1. At February 22, 2009 1:13 PM PaulG wrote:

Hello Jeni,

Great to see you posting again… I thought this would be of interest to you, click here.

I have to admit to a sneaking amusement here, take a look at where the hyperlink actually points, and just in case the old faker decides to pull her usual trick and kill the post, here’s a screenshot for posterity…

 

Update – 25/02/2009 08:20

Sadly, still no reply from the woman who claims to be an advocate of debate. I shall of course, continue to submit posts to the old faker’s blog, in an attempt to glean some sort of response… a proper one that is, you know, as opposed to the ones that are written IN BLOCK CAP’S and have little thought behind them.

You won’t see the posts I submit to JB’s blog of course, the woman who wants the debate won’t allow them to be published, but trust me, they’ll be just the same as the one I sent on the 20/02/2009 (above).

And lastly, just because I’m chilidsh and can’t resist it – Hey, Mo…

Where’s Buggy gone?

Update – 25/02/2009 14:30

Cross-posted at http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/snow_bound.php

Well now, I’ve been keeping  a “bit of an eye” on jeni barnett’s blog – as I’m sure you can see – and this afternoon I notice that something like one of my old posts has surfaced on the Snow bound thread, as post number 9. Before it’s deleted again, here’s a screenshot…

OK – she’s posted at last, but this isn’t quite what I wrote is it Jeni? I have provided details of all my submissions to Barnett’s blog (as can be seen above).

I’ve been open here, publishing whatever comments have come my way and editing none. If there is some sort of stipulation in place with regard to not commenting on, for example, on-going OFCOM complaints, would it not be possible, even advisable to issue a statement with regard to status?

I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt here, but I’m sceptical.

All I’m after is a sensible reply, one based on evidence, not rumour and “mother’s intuition”.  Given the current evidence and the status of medical research, this could only result in a retraction of Barnett’s opinion piece during her January 2009 broadcast.

She also owes every healthcare worker in the country an apology, but I’d settle for just one – to the nurse that she lied about when she branded her “vicious”.

But I’ll tell you what, and this is the nature of science, if the evidence ever points to Jeni Barnett being right, my opinion will change completely.

I go with the evidence and I’ll acknowledge it from the highest rooftops and grovellingly apologise in any and every forum the woman cares to name.

I have no ego invested in this, just an opinion – based on rigorous, properly analysed, peer-reviewed, replicable, scientific evidence – on a topic that is as important as life and death.

Where’s your evidence Jeni?

No sign of anything yet.

Watch this space (but don’t hold your breath).

By the way, has anybody else noticed…

So, browsing the web as you do, I came across the following…

The Medical School Hypnosis Association
Patrons – Jeni Barnett

Jeni Barnett presents a daily show on LBC, five days a week. Having worked in theatre for twelve years and double that in television, she is no stranger to fear and the overcoming thereof…

When asked to be a supporter of the MSHA, she had not one moments hesitation:

“Silencing that chattering voice that says life is problematical and impossible is synonymous with living a creative successful life.

Not only is it important to support the MSHA, but it is imperative that we educate, encourage, and utilise hypnosis as a necessary component of 21st Century healing.”

Jeni is a patron of an Autistic school in Crowborough.

The Medical School Hypnosis Association
http://www.msha.org.uk/patrons.html

Without commenting on the MSHA, I can’t help but wonder about her position as a “patron of an autistic school in Crowborough”. There aren’t that many schools in Crowborough, East Sussex, UK, and even fewer that specialise in the education and care of children with disorders such as autism.

I can’t help but wonder what their position is on the opinions of their celebrity patron.

The Jeni and Jon Team, hardly the A-Team

Check out Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science, and the comments on the “Do not abuse Jeni barnett personally” thread, which The Milligan would wholeheartedly support.

Don’t send her abusive messages, don’t harass her at public meetings, a few mild references to “ignorance”, “idiocy”, “foolishness” and other such terms are fine on your own blog (especially if you have as few readers as I do), but do NOT get personal – the woman did this in her professional life, idiotic as it may have been and including references to her personal life to illustrate her point as she did, but she should not be personally abused in any manner.

It has not escaped my attention that thinly veiled threats of attending her public appearances and questioning her there have been posted on her blog (links to these have  intentionally not been posted).

I very much doubt that this is a good idea. Public order offences aside, this sort of approach is counterproductive and provides Jeni with a lot more “poor me, look what a victim I am” material.

Stay polite, the scientific argument has the moral high-ground and the facts. We don’t want to lose the former.

Posts on this thread detail the reaction that LBC 97.3 has had to the perfectly reasonable complaints made by listeners. Of particular interest are the replies made by Jonathan Richards, Jeni Barnett’s Programme Director…

—–Message 1—–
Brand and Ross leave a tasteless message on a clebrities’ voicemail, and are publicly disciplined with a full apology by the most senior member of staff at the corporation.

Jeni Barnett spouts complete, uninformed ignorance, without any basis in fact (and yes, I am a qualified biological scientist and do know of what I speak).

Ignorance which can endanger lives – not just some ill-considered prank.

She admits publicly that she was uninformed on the topic (as was revealed by two healthcare professionals on-air), and she is allowed to continue broadcasting without any public acknowledgement of her failure as a professional broadcaster (in terms of lack of research), or of her failure in her responsibilities under paragraph 2(1) of Part II of Schedule 2 to the Broadcasting Act 1990, paragraphs 9 and 10 of Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998, and paragraph 15 of Schedule 14 to the Communications Act 2003, which state that Broadcasting Act licensees should not:

> practise or advocate illegal behaviour;
> practise or advocate behaviour which is injurious to the health or morals of participants or others;
> practise or advocate behaviour which infringes the rights and freedoms of participants or others;
> pose a threat to public safety;
> pose a threat to national security or territorial integrity or
> threaten the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

My complaint is that Jeni Barnett’s broadcast will prove “injurious to the health” of some listeners and certainly poses a “threat to public safety”.

On these grounds I intend to raise a complaint with OFCOM and look into the potential for legal action against LBC and your parent company.

Please acknowledge that this complaint has been LOGGED (not simply received).

A copy has been kept for my records and forwarded to solicitors retained.

—–Message 2—–
The incident you refer to happened four weeks ago. The presenter was given robust feedback about her performance straight afterwards. She is entitled to have her own views but must present a balanced debate. Since then the subject of MMR has been discussed several times on LBC without any comment from bad science or any other quarter. At the time of the original broadcast I received three complaints. We take the subject of MMR and other public health matters extremely seriously.

Jonathan Richards
Programme Director LBC News 1152 & LBC 97.3
Group Head of News Global Radio

—–Message 3—–
> The incident you refer to happened four weeks ago.

That has absolutely nothing to do with my complaint and is not an acceptable response. You have not addresseed my complaint.

> The presenter was given robust feedback about her performance straight afterwards.

Robust feedback is not sufficient for someone who has endangered public health with ill-informed argument and ignorance.

> She is entitled to have her own views but must present a balanced debate.

She may be entitled to have her own views, but she is not entitled to broadcast them if they are “injurious to the health or morals of participants or others” or “pose a threat to public safety”. In this case Jeni Barnett clearly does both and thus is in breach of broadcasting law.

This broadcast did not present a balanced debate, Jeni Barnett was clearly biased and dismissed her critics with ignorance and foolishness. This does not represent a “balanced debate” by any definition.

> Since then the subject of MMR has been discussed several times on LBC without any comment from bad science or any other quarter.

That has absolutely nothing to do with my complaint and is not an acceptable response. You have not addresseed my complaint.

> At the time of the original broadcast I received three complaints.

That has absolutely nothing to do with my complaint and is not an acceptable response. You have not addresseed my complaint.

> We take the subject of MMR and other public health matters extremely seriously.

Quite obviously you do not take this matter remotely seriously enough. Jeni Barnett – and yourself as a manager responsible for content, have endangered public health, to the point of promoting a strategy that endangers life.

This cannot be taken more seriously.

You have not even begun to address the matters raised in my original complaint and I shall be taking this matter further.

http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/
do-not-abuse-jeni-barnett-personally/
#comment-24553

Strikes me that LBC need to improve the standards of their recruitment policies.

The Jeni and Jon Team are hardly their biggest assets.

Watch this space for updates.

Jeni Barnett’s agent can’t get the facts right any more than she can.

So, Jeni Barnett removed all the comments from her blog, following advice from her agent, because they did not address the issues of the debate…

Jeni Barnett, the LBC radio presenter at the centre of the Goldacre/LBC case, has received ‘hundreds of extremely personal and abusive comments,’ her agent, Robert Common, confirmed to Journalism.co.uk today.

“[The comments] do not address the debate about the use of MMR and that is the reason for taking the comments off Jeni’s website,” Common said.

As Journalism.co.uk reported yesterday, support for Goldacre’s complaint against LBC had gathered fast, with high-profile figures such as Stephen Fry lending support to Goldacre. However, as Ben Goldacre has now made clear in a new blog post he does not want people to direct abuse at Jeni Barnett in such a personal manner.

“Do not send Jeni abusive emails, it’s not nice or helpful,” Goldacre wrote on his site, after being contacted by the programme director at LBC.

“I am sorry if people have sent unpleasant emails. I would want no part in that (…),” Goldacre said in a reply to the programme director.

The incident comes after a timely piece published by MediaGuardian on Monday, which looks at what happens when journalists face personal online attack.

Barnett’s agent, Robert Common, told Journalism.co.uk that he has “personally been very shocked at the hurtful level of criticism and and its very personal and threatening nature. LBC have aired the MMR debate several times in the last four weeks on other presenters’ shows where the debate has been continued.

“Jeni would never wish to restrict discussion on this topic or indeed any other, however, when that debate encourages threats and abuse it is impossible to do so and I have advised [her] not to continue to make any further comments,” Common said.

Personal comments detract
from original MMR / LBC debate
Posted by Judith Townend in Online Journalism,
Press freedom and ethics, Social media and blogging.
February 11th, 2009.

Well, here are the blog comments that were removed…

jeni_barnett_blog.pdf

Have a look, read them all thoroughly. Apart from my introductory comments where I refer to her as the “LBC Idiot” – a charge which I contend is factually correct, and which was never posted on her blog (though I did try, I really did) – I can find nothing of any personal nature and all of it, even the complete garbage from the pseudoscientific lobby, pertains directly to the issues of the debate.

Get yourself another agent Jeni. This one can’t get the facts right any more than you can.

Jeni Barnett – aka The LBC Idiot – No Debate Here

Well now, following the debacle of her recent broadcast, in which the LBC Idiot and Vaccination Denier managed to make a complete and total fool of herself, she now reveals herself to be one of the biggest hypocrites I’ve ever come across.

As at about 22:00 UK time on 8th February 2009, the blog post http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/mmr_and_me.php consisted of more than 100 posts, including at least one entry purporting to be from the disgraced medic Andrew Wakefield…

18. At February 5, 2009 7:50 PM Andy Wakefield wrote:

“Dear Jeni,

I would like to send you a pdf that may help you with any hostility from the MMR posting. Do you have a email adrdress that I can send it to?”

http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/mmr_and_me.php

But don’t bother clicking on any of the links I’ve put in above, because the (in her own words) “responsible… professional broadcaster”, has removed  all traces of the blog posts recording her failure as a broadcaster, professional anything or even responsible human-being.

Now, all we have is a post which, in one part, states…

I am interested in the debate not a witch hunt.

Should anybody from BAD SCIENCE read this I urge you to continue the debate, and if it gets too heated there is always the option of turning me off.

Posted by Jeni in | 5 February 2009

Of course you wanted the debate Jeni, that’s why you deleted it!! Elsewhere on her blog, Barmy Barnett states…

Acting is all about honesty, if you can fake that you can fake anything.

UK TV presenter Jeni Barnett’s blog.

You can say that again. Carry on faking the honesty Jeni, you’ve shown yourself up to be exactly what you are.

You call Ben Goldacre a “Bad Scientist” – what kind of broadcaster, journalist or even person does this show you to be?

I will attempt to cross-post this entry to Jeni’s blog – like my last two cross-posts, I’ll put a fiver on it never showing up over there.

==========================

This is also interesting. Guess what you get when you try and post to her blog entry (linked to above)…

“Somehow, the entry you tried to comment on does not exist.” Just about sums it all up really doesn’t it? Idiocy and ignorance masquerading as public service broadcasting, hypocrisy and deceit masquerading as open debate.

==========================

UPDATE

==========================

Head on over to The Quackometer at… http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2009/02/jeni-barnett-have-you-lost-something.html

For a full record of what was on the LBC Idiot’s blog before it was deleted! Excellent work – I should have known that somebody would have gotten to the Google cache in time. A quick check of the truly excellent Holford Watch and I was pointed to exactly the right place.

If anybody wants a full copy of the blog, in all it’s unedited glory (no censorship here), click on the link to the *.pdf file below…

jeni_barnett_blog.pdf

Have a read – all the posts are there from the two main threads, some are quite cogent and rational. Others are, well, you decide.

Jeni Barnett and Andrew Wakefield – what can you say?

The last few minutes of the recently infamous Barmy Barnett Broadcast…

Yasmin: … if they read the Wakefield study in the Lancet in 1998, Dr Wakefield actually said that he didn’t prove an association between MMR and…

JB: Well he wasn’t really allowed to have his say, was he, Yasmin. He was kinda…

Yasmin: I think he was. I think he said it recently in court.

And now of course, we have some great Sunday Times column inches given over to years of investigative reporting by Brian Deer, who puts the anti-MMR vaccine charlatan firmly where he should be. Let me give you some choice excerpts from Brian deer’s own excellent web site…

“In fact, Wakefield’s tabulated finding – linking MMR with the sudden onset of regressive autism in two thirds of a consecutive series of 12, seen routinely at a children’s bowel unit within the space of a few months – was both biologically implausible and statistically impossible. It simply could not happen…

Wakefield’s “finding” and “result” were thus abandoned by history, with only the sting of his attack remaining. In due course, he would up the stakes, issuing a string of false claims, including baseless comparisons between California and London autism data, published with a Royal Free sidekick Scott Montgomery Ph.D in November 1999, again in the Lancet, falsely claiming that MMR was responsible for an epidemic of autism. Then, in January 2001, the pair published a sham review of vaccine research, in Adverse Drug Reactions and Toxicological Reviews. Analysis of these texts reveals Wakefield’s motive: to attack MMR, with little heed for truth or consequence. But, with regard to the February 1998 Lancet paper, his claims were a charade: by a former surgeon with insufficient training in general medicine and paediatrics to realize that what he’d claimed was impossible…

The explosive revelation about Wakefield’s £55,000, however, only scratched the surface of his pecuniary advantage. On the legal front, in December 2006 – only five months after Wakefield’s supporters issued a statement denying that he was ever paid – the Legal Services Commission answered a Freedom of Information Act request from Brian Deer with a spreadsheet of fees to paid witnesses in the MMR lawsuit, stating that, since joining Barr ten years previously, Wakefield had been paid £435,643 [about $780,000], plus expenses, for his role in backing the generic case against MMR. This money – which is believed to have been augmented by yet more, still undisclosed, for work on individual children’s records – was drawn against the cash-limited UK legal aid fund, intended to help poor people gain access to justice. During this period, Wakefield and his wife built a house on land purchased adjacent to their home, which was offered for sale in March 2007 priced £2,950,000 [$5,677,550]…

…in September 2008, a uniquely-authoritative virological study, co-authored by O’Leary – whose lab had evidently been brought up to a better standard since facing earlier criticisms – repudiated Wakefield’s core claims. The study paper concluded:

“The work reported here eliminates the remaining support for the hypothesis that ASD with GI complaints is related to MMR exposure.”

This study was ethically reviewed by four institutional bodies, and only drew on data from children who, unlike Wakefield’s subjects, were admitted to hospital for ileocolonoscopies which were purely for clinical reasons, unrelated to research. One collaborator in the project – who also now publicly repudiated Wakefield’s claims – was Dr Timothy Buie, of Harvard university: America’s leading paediatric gastroenterologist with a special interest in autism.

As pennies have dropped, views have begun to change, with some parents even writing to tell Brian Deer that they supported his investigation: which followed 20 years of similar Sunday Times public interest probes, including inquiries into contraceptive pills from the Schering AG and Wyeth drug companies, antibiotics from Wellcome and Roche, sex drugs from Pfizer, and painkillers from Merck.

With regard to the events at the Royal Free, one mother wrote in an email:

“You’ll never get a thank you for stopping the bad things happening to the kids because sadly they aren’t capable of saying it, which is the reason they became victims in the first place.”

Another parent, incensed by ex-litigants and crank rallies outside the GMC, wrote to Deer saying that she was the mother of two severely autistic children, and had been bullied into silence by anti-vaccine activists. “Now they are calling on members to attend a rally at the GMC in support of Dr Wakefield,” she wrote. “Unfortunately I will be away or I would be there with my own banner! Do you know if I and other parents like me can send our own message to the GMC pointing out that not all parents of autistic children regard this man as a hero?”

Meanwhile, a father from one of the many families only now recovering from the strain of Barr’s futile litigation wrote:

“Personally I think ’shot by our own side’ just about sums it up. I still find it shocking what Wakefield did, and we never blame you for exposing it.”“

The MMR-autism crisis – our story so far.
An investigation by Brian Deer.
Last updated January 2009.

The Sunday Times articles make fascinating reading and I urge you to buy the paper and hit the web site.

This is the charlatan that Jeni Barnett reckons “wasn’t really allowed to have his say” and that appears to offer her support on her blog…

18. At February 5, 2009 7:50 PM Andy Wakefield wrote:

“Dear Jeni,

I would like to send you a pdf that may help you with any hostility from the MMR posting. Do you have a email adrdress that I can send it to?”

http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/mmr_and_me.php

I think this charlatan has already had “his say”, and ruined enough lives in the process.

If this is the support being offered, she should do herself a favour and look elsewhere.

And, as if that weren’t enough, David H. Gorski, M.D. Ph.D., posts a succinct, analytical summary of Wakefield and his “work” at Science Based Medicine…

“… aided and abetted by useful idiots in the media, by British newspapers and other media that sensationalized the story, and the antivaccine movement, which hailed Wakefield as a hero, Wakefield managed to drive MMR vaccination rates in the U.K. below the level of herd immunity, from 93% to 75% (and as low as 50% in some parts of London). As a result, I “thanked” Andrew Wakefield for his leadership role in bringing the measles back to the U.K. to the point where, fourteen years after measles had been declared under control in the U.K., it was in 2008 declared endemic again…

Wakefield’s work and ethics are about as bad as it gets…

Either he [Wakefield] took the history from parents, for whom confirmation bias could easily have led to remembering incorrectly that their child’s behavioral changes were noted shortly after the MMR rather than before it or months later, in which case Wakefield was incompetent for not having examined the medical records. Alternatively, Wakefield did examine the medical records and lied about them in the Lancet paper. Take your pick…

Finally, Wakefield subjected children to unnecessary invasive medical procedures, and then incompetently analyzed the specimens obtained from them for measles virus. Given such a level of ideological blindness that seems to think his cause so just that good science and ethics are optional in pursuit of it, a lack of concern over blatant conflicts of interest, and an appallingly inflated opinion of himself that he is seems to believe that he is actually a persecuted Galileo, is it any surprise that Wakefield may have stooped so far as to falsify research results in his campaign?

… sometimes things are as they appear, sometimes there really is no conspiracy, and sometimes a rat is a rat.”

David H. Gorski, M.D. Ph.D.,
Antivaccine hero Andrew Wakefield: Scientific fraud?
February 8th 2009.

Don’t settle for my excerpts, they just don’t do the original articles justice. David Gorski includes good scientific explanations, whilst Brian Deer does his profession proud with the fruit of some excellent, long-running investigations.

About time the fallacies over this crucial issue were dispelled.

What a great weekend for evidence, logic and truth… for a change.

Jeni Barnett and her anti-vaccine drivel revisited.

This article has been cross-posted at…

 

http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/
mmr_and_me.php

 

Since other people are doing such a great job of tearing Jeni Barnett’s broadcast into little logical fallacies, e.g. The Holford Watch – Some Rebuttals to Jeni Barnett’s Canards in Her LBC Radio MMR Segment (incidentally a great job with the blog watching guys, you were really all over this one), I thought I’d take a closer look at the other load of dross the LBC idiot published, namely her blog…

 

Posted by Jeni in | 5 February 2009

http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/
mmr_and_me.php

 

I am not a scientist,

 

Painfully obvious. Not an iota of research went into this broadcast. Her answer to the simple question posed by Yasmin of Chelsea in the original broadcast, “Could you tell me what’s in the vaccine? What do you think is in the vaccine?”

 

“No, I can’t.” Was Barnett’s reply.

 

Despite seconds earlier having said, “But I don’t want my child to be fiddled with with all sorts of stuff that’s in a vaccine.”

 

Ignorance, pure and simple.

 

I would not claim to be a scientist.

 

I wouldn’t worry about that Jeni, Andrew Wakefield still claims to be a scientist and even offers you some support. Despite being one of the most famously discredited British doctors in recent years…

 

“What you’ve been offered is a series of fanciful notions that are backed up only by the fact that someone has offered them who has a couple of letters after their name, M.D. or Ph.D. That does not make it good science…

 

It’s at best speculation, idle speculation. Now, at worst–at worst–it’s a contrivance. It’s a contrivance that’s been developed and articulated and promoted by its chief proponent, and that’s Andrew Wakefield. He promoted it for financial gain. Either way it’s not science.”

 

V. J. Matanoski, appearing for the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Service (Respondent) in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Transript of Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Service (Day 12), pp. 26, 28-29.

 

When tested on the contents of the MMR vaccine I told the truth. I did not have the facts to hand. Was I ill informed? Yes.

 

Then a responsible broadcaster would not have been having the debate. Research first, talk when you have the facts.

 

As a responsible broadcaster I should have been better prepared

 

It has just been established that you are not a responsible broadcaster.

as a parent, however, I can fight my corner. I don’t know everything that goes into cigarettes but I do know they are harmful.

 

And how do we now know that cigarettes are harmful? Because science has told us so, through painstaking, randomised, double-blinded, peer-reviewed trials that can be replicated by researchers throughout the world, thus forming a consensus based on evidence.

 

That same, rigorous methodology now tells us that modern vaccines are safe and that the results of studies by Andrew Wakefield and his ilk were, at worst, “contrived” and at best, “poor science”.

 

Nevertheless, the scientific method works and has presented us with real, replicable, evidence.

 

As a professional should I have been better prepared – YES – but the discussion took off in a direction I hadn’t expected when I received a vicious phone call from a Nurse I was utterly thrown. I won’t get thrown again.

 

The call you received was not vicious, the healthcare professional you spoke to was right. You were, and are, wrong. It’s as simple as that. You were not unfairly spoken to in any way.

 

I find it interesting that the vitriol that comes out of the pro MMR lobby is precisely why Allopathic medicine is struggling. Most of us who seek alternatives allow others their position but often the ‘others’ have a real problem allowing us ours.

 

There are no “alternatives” to evidence-based medicine. There is either medicine or quackery, science or fiction. You ask to be “allowed your position”, “what’s the harm?” is the question. Well, when you give an opinion, that can cost lives, to thousands of people over the air-waves, the cost can be measured in the lives of innocents.

 

The web site “What’s the Harm?” details over four thousand cases of people, mostly children, killed or injured because of “vaccine denial”. Read a few stories and answer your own question at this URL…  http://whatstheharm.net/vaccinedenial.html

 

Doesn’t change my mind though. The fact that I decided not to have my child jabbed was my decision alone. And it is a lonely decision. To be singled out and held totally responsible for a measles, mumps or rubella ‘epidemic’ is clearly ludicrous.

 

It is clearly ludicrous, until you reach an audience of thousands and encourage them, through example, to flout common sense and play roulette with the lives of their own and others’ children.

 

Single jabs on demand? Why is that a problem?

 

Injecting tiny babies with substances that may compromise their immune system needs to be looked at not shouted down.

 

 

There is no harm in the “one injection at a time” approach, except that it’s a waste of NHS time and money, and a wasted opportunity to fully vaccinate your child…

 

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia – Vaccine Myths

 

Myth1: Getting so many vaccines will overwhelm my child’s immune system

 

No doubt about it, the immunization schedule recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) can seem daunting. Your child can receive up to 23 shots by the time she’s 2 years old and as many as six shots at a singledoctor visit. So it’s not surprising that many parents have concerns about how vaccines might affect a child’s developing immunity and often cite these as a reason to refuse a vaccine.

 

But it should be the least of your worries. “Children have an enormous capacity to respond safely to challenges to the immune system from vaccines,” says Dr. Offit. “A baby’s body is bombarded with immunologic challenges – from bacteria in food to the dust they breathe. Compared to what they typically encounter and manage during the day, vaccines are literally a drop in the ocean.” In fact, Dr. Offit’s studies show that in theory, healthy infants could safely get up to 10,000 vaccines at once.

 

The bottom line: It’s safe to give your child simultaneous vaccines or vaccine combinations, such as the five-in-one vaccine called Pediarix, which protects against hepatitis B, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (also known as whooping cough. Equally important, vaccines are as effective given in combination as they are given individually.

 

http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp?id=81553

 

There is no truth to the fallacy that multiple vaccines for children “may compromise their immune system”.

 

We have already established that you have no idea what’s in a vaccine, and thus no idea of what you are talking about, so try and educate yourself before spouting such dangerous nonsense.

 

And I do not accept that my position, as a radio broadcaster, is irresponsible if I should choose to share my own personal dilemma.

 

No? Then look again at the “What’s the Harm?” web site. Look again at the four thousand plus, killed or harmed by vaccine denial, then deny that a broadcaster who reaches an audience of thousands has a responsibility to the truth, before sharing their own “personal dilemma” – like your audience is some sort of unpaid therapist.

 

I would like some of my critics to try and run a three hour programme.

 

What has that got to do with anything? Try and be a hospital doctor for just one shift, try and be a nurse for the same, try and run just one, well-designed, valid, replicable biological experiment, that can withstand peer-review, then whinge pathetically about how hard your job is.

 

I am interested in the debate not a witch hunt.

 

Then urge your employers to allow the use of the audio files of your broadcast to enable such a debate.

 

Should anybody from BAD SCIENCE read this I urge you to continue the debate, and if it gets too heated there is always the option of turning me off.

 

Jeni Barnett, Febrauary 5^th 2009.

 

There is no need for this debate to become heated. It isn’t really a debate. The facts are in, the case is closed. Vaccines are safe and there is no factual evidence to support a claim otherwise. 

Jeni Barnett spouting pure, unadulterated ignorance about the MMR Vaccine.

This entry has been pretty much written for me. I am a big fan of the Bad Science web site, Guardian column and the excellent book by Ben Goldacre.

Recently he posted on yet another example of the irresponsible, ill-informed, idiocy of the UK media and the anti-vaccination sheep, that flock behind a banner of ignorance that they do nothing to look beyond.

On this occasion, the ignorance being spouted was by UK radio presenter Jeni Barnett, and the hypocritical over-reaction to it by herself and her employers (LBC “News” Radio) was first reported here – Jeni Barnett MMR radio show.

This has been transcribed below, by the following excellent web sites…

Part 1 – Science Punk
Part 2 – The Lay Scientist
Part 3 – PodBlack Cat
Part 4 – The Skeptic’s Book
Part 5 – The Quackometer
Part 6 – Holford Watch

I apologise for the length of it, but please, read it, check what she says with real information sources based on the plethora of scientific evidence that shows her for the fool she is, blog about it and spread the word as far as you can Wikileaks, (follow this link); it is not hosted on this site. You can also listen to parts via YouTube here.

If it is removed from either of these locations, post a comment on this blog and I will post a link to where it can be located again.

The words I write and the transcript below just cannot convey the fervour of this dangerously ignorant mouthpiece of an even more ignorant herd.

At the end, she states that the “Department of Health frightens people”. Well people like her frighten me. She could very well cause deaths, not just one or two, but directly or indirectly she could cause very many indeed. She admits her ignorance, but it does not stop her…

Posted by Jeni in | 5 February 2009
http://www.jenibarnett.com/2009/02/mmr_and_me.php

I am not a scientist, I would not claim to be a scientist

When tested on the contents of the MMR vaccine I told the truth. I did not have the facts to hand.

Was I ill informed? Yes.

As a responsible broadcaster I should have been better prepared as a parent, however, I can fight my corner. I don’t know everything that goes into cigarettes but I do know they are harmful

As a professional should I have been better prepared – YES – but the discussion took off in a direction I hadn’t expected when I received a vicious phone call from a Nurse I was utterly thrown.

I won’t get thrown again.

I find it interesting that the vitriol that comes out of the pro MMR lobby is precisely why Allopathic medicine is struggling. Most of us who seek alternatives allow others their position but often the ‘others’ have a real problem allowing us ours.

Doesn’t change my mind though. The fact that I decided not to have my child jabbed was my decision alone. And it is a lonely decision. To be singled out and held totally responsible for a measles, mumps or rubella ‘epidemic’ is clearly ludicrous.

Single jabs on demand? Why is that a problem?

Injecting tiny babies with substances that may compromise their immune system needs to be looked at not shouted down.

And I do not accept that my position, as a radio broadcaster, is irresponsible if I should choose to share my own personal dilemma.

I would like some of my critics to try and run a three hour programme.

I am interested in the debate not a witch hunt.

Should anybody from BAD SCIENCE read this I urge you to continue the debate, and if it gets too heated there is always the option of turning me off.

Jeni Barnett, February 5th 2009.

If you want the truth behind the MMR vaccine debate, I’m not going to reprint it here, every decent evidence/science-based web site and their derivatives have got the story, check it out here…

NHS Blog Doctor – Jeni Barnett, MMR, Measles and Bad Science. Will she accept the challenge?

Sense About Science – MMR Vaccines

Science Based Medicine – Vaccines…
More Data on Vaccine Safety Amid New Outbreaks
The Alleged Autism Epidemic
Animal Vaccinations
Paul Offit takes on Robert Sears
The $150,000 Vaccine Challenge
Influenza Deaths
“I Reject Your Reality” – Germ Theory Denial and Other Curiosities
H. influenzae – it aint the flu, but it’s still pretty cool
Dr. Jay Gordon – “Anti-Vaccination”

And now the transcript…

DISCLAIMER: This is a transcript pulled together by the considerable efforts of a number of people (see above). There are some mistakes, so use it to scan the contents of the show, then listen.

The transcript cannot prepare you for the vehemence she expresses in the ignorance of her position.

[START OF TRANSCRIPT]

Jeni Barnett = JB

Introduction

JB: Now, it’s cold, it’s miserable, lots of us are snuffling, lots of us have got viruses, some of us will be affected by it, some of us won’t. Every single time we come round again to ‘measles epidemic’ or ‘infection rates rise in Europe” my first thought is: I’m an independent, individual human being, I have raised a biological child and two logical children. Sometimes their responses to things were worse than others, sometimes children around them had a response that was worse than mine, than my kids.

The fact is, the notion that we’re all the same, that you have to be inoculating children with this MMR jab, this debate is going to go on for ever and ever and always at the back of it, in my head is ‘hold on a minute, there’s a drug company that’s making lots of money out of it’. And I always get really anxious when I hear the you know now that we’ve got ‘Banishing measles from Europe in 2010 may have been dashed by poor vaccinations rates in a handful of countries’. you cannot have your cake and eat it. You cannot be putting rubbish and carp in food endlessly and looking at the rise of asthma and obesity and then turn round and not say look what’s happening with measles.

You have to approach the whole thing at the health of our children and the health of our society. Now back in the day (and that’s an expression I’ve learned from my [unclear] son), back in the day, children got measles, children got mumps. I’m not suggesting – I am not suggesting – that we got backwards where some children, where we have one in fifteen children die of it. And that one person in fifteen is the one we have to be looking at and wondering why and dealing with it. But if, as a human being, you decide you do not want to give your child a vaccination, you should, in a democracy, have that right to day no.

There are some children – whether you like it or whether you do not – that have a response to that triple jabbing that is not good for them. We have evidence, however much people say we don’t, we have evidence that if a child’s immune system is weak; my daughter was one of them, she was very asthmatic as a child, she could not have received that triple vaccine, she couldn’t have done it so I made a calculated decision that I didn’t want to go there. and it isn’t a decision that’s made easily, it’s a lonely decision, if you’re not part of the herd, if your’ not mooing with the other cows or baaing with the other sheep, if you wanting to stand alone, it’s a very lonely business standing under a tree in a field all on your own saying ‘I don’t want to do that’.

So I want you to phone me and tell me why you decided against the vaccine and how you’re coping with people saying ‘See! You’re the reason, you are the reason we haven’t banished measles’. I had that said to me by doctor in Canada: ‘You haven’t had your child vaccinated?

You’re-’ he left me in the kitchen! He blamed me for the whole measles epidemic.

0-8-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3 Why didn’t you have your child vaccinated, how are you coping with the fact that people don’t like you for it, how do you like it when you are, when the study is documenting that 12,000 cases of European measles in the two years spanning 2006 and 2007 means that we are one of the handful of countries in Britain that are not doing it right. Well maybe, maybe there are all sorts of other figures that have been withheld from us, and I don’t know what they are because they’ve been withheld!

Measles is a contagious infection caused by a virus. Measles was once common but because of immunisation it’s now fortunately becoming very rare. I want to know from some kind of expert what measles is and what is in the vaccine, and why people have a reaction to it, and really my question is: what is wrong with childhood illnesses? Is it – to hark back to the first hour – because we don’t have parents at home looking after the children? What’s going on? Is there something wrong with having mumps, is there something – you know is it – most people aren’t that one in fifteen.

So if you did not have your child vaccinated, why?

0-8-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3

Text me if you decided against having that triple M, and are now dealing with people saying ‘you are responsible for the rise in measles’. Text me on 8-4-8-5-0. We are living in the 21st century, we have running water, most of us have running water, most of us live in better situations than we did when I grew up – I grew up in two rooms with rats and mice in the east end of London. I can remember it.

And DON’T email me in – there’s a guy who emails me in to say ‘Oh you just want to be part of the east end’ no, I grew up in St Marks St, thank you very much, born in Mile End Road, and when I go there now I look at it and think blimey that’s my birthright and thank God for that I like it. my feet are rooted in the east end even though my parents were rehoused – rehoused – in council housing, social housing that welfare state looked after us poor little immigrant Jews. And we were sent to this lovely house and there we have it.

Asthma runs in my family, asthma runs in my husband’s family so my daughter was not inoculated. I, however, have talked to many people over the years – 22 years I’ve lived with my daughter – and over the years many many people have said the same thing, that when we were little, chicken pox, you took your kid to get the chickenpox, you made sure your child was near somebody who had it. My brother got mumps, he lived to tell the tale. I don’t know if we had measles.

I was sitting next to Nick Owen on the settee at TV AM when his children were incubating rubella which is measles, and I was pregnant! Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be using science and medicine to make everybody healthy, but there’s an obsession now with trying to sanitise absolutely everything, and if your child’s immune system is strong enough it will fight and it will grow and it will be strong.

Too many antibiotics and now we have MRSA and superbugs.

I’m not an expert, this is what I have observed, phone me: 0-8-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3.

If you chose to stand under the tree in the field outside the herd. Tracey in Olympia talk to me…

Tracy the homeopath’s call

JB: Phone me, 0-8-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3, if you chose to stand under the tree, in the field, outside the herd. Tracy in Olympia, talk to me.

Tracy: Hi Jeni. Yes, I’d like to totally agree with you the fact that immunisation is totally unnecessary, especially in this day and age when hygiene has changed so much since how it used to be.

I have 4 children. The oldest being 12, the youngest being 3. [Infant noises.] You can probably hear in the background right now.

JB: Don’t talk to me, just talk to her for a second.

Tracy: [Soothes child.] My eldest is 12, my youngest is 3, none of them have ever been vaccinated, immunised. And they’re all very healthy children. They don’t have any auto-immune diseases. They don’t suffer asthma, eczema. I just think [vaccination] is total abuse of the immune system.

JB: Now, now, now. I want to do this slowly because you’re going to have people phoning in saying you’re utterly irresponsible. Twelve years ago when you had your first baby, why did you not have them inoculated?

Tracy: It started off, I went on a short course about, it was a choice, making a choice about vaccination. And it was run by a homeopath.

JB: But why did you go on that course in the first place?

Tracy: Because I had a feeling inside, I inherently knew, that it must be wrong to be putting toxins and poisonous material into a young baby’s body.

JB: Right.

Tracy: It’s as simple as that. Mercury, formaldehyde, you know – live viruses that are cured (?) in monkeys’ kidneys. How can that be right for your child?

JB: Now, are you, by any stretch of the imagination, described as a crank by your friends?

Tracy: No. They all know me too well now.

JB: So, when you made that decision, and when I made that decision 22 years ago, it is about the loneliest decision you’re ever going to make.

Tracy: Oh, absolutely! Even your family, you’ll have people standing up saying, “Why? Aren’t you being irresponsible?”. You’ve got the doctors, you’ve got the health authorities…You know you’ve just got to take the bull by the horns and confront that on a daily basis.

People at the school would frown upon me as if my child was in some way was gonna infect their child by not being vaccinated.

But I’m a very strong-willed person anyway. And from what I learned from my first son being born I decided, yeah, I want to take this further, and investigated it a bit more and went on to college and trained to become a homeopath.

JB: Really?

Tracy: Yes. It all came from initially just thinking, “Do I want to so this?” and it all started with that very first thought. And you know what? The more you investigate it, the more you find out about it. And anyone, right now, this moment in time can go on the internet, they can go on sites. They can find out the dangers of vaccination and make their own informed decision.

I’m not saying that for everybody it’s going to be as straightforward and as straight cut as I was able to make that decision myself. But I just knew, from the beginning, that it was the wrong thing to do.

JB: This is fascinating.

Tracy, let me ask you this. When measles-if there’s a case of measles at the kids’ school, or if there’s a case of mumps or chickenpox-what do you do?

Tracy: I say, “Great! Come on kids – let’s go get it”. Because children get childhood diseases for a reason. It’s to boost their immune system so that later on in life when they come into contact with those diseases, it doesn’t affect them so severely. And that is why they are called childhood diseases.

The only reason children get really, really ill and perhaps, you know, suffer serious side-effects are if: a) their immune system is not strong enough to fight off the virus, or b) they are being suppressed by drugs or in some other way. Suppressant drugs or given too much antibiotics or…

JB: Now, now, you see, Tracy. People will hear what you’re saying and they’ll say, “It’s all right for you”. As you’ve (quite rightly) said, your kids-Thank God, touch wood and I’m touching it as we speak-they have run through this. But you are saying it is an individual decision, aren’t you?

Tracy: Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I would never, even in my job, I would never say to people, “You mustn’t do that”. I would give them the facts and say, “This is what I’ve come across. Go on these websites-and there are thousands out there-do your own investigations, don’t take my word for it. You know, everything I say, it may be my truth, it may not be yours. But you must investigate it yourself and don’t take the easy way out”.

I’ve had doctors ringing me at home. I’ve had Health Visitors having angry conversations with me. And now, what I say to those people-whose minds I’m not going to change anyway-that’s fine-I just say, “That’s my choice I’m making and I am making an informed decision”. And every parent has the right to make an informed decision. Unfortunately, not many people do want to do that.

JB: Tracy, I think that with you inspiring them they may jolly well want to after that.

Fantastic. 2:15 and [going to travel segment].

JB: You just heard from Tracey, four kids, became a homeopath on the back of thinking of whether she should have her first child immunised.

And this is on the back of us being the ‘Dirty Land’, really. We are the dirty land of Europe; a new study has documented that we are now up there with the best of the them, with more cases of measles than we should have. They wanted to banish measles from Europe by 2010.

“There are many other ways of doing it, rather than jabbing people! And I am a responsible parent!” This is from Kay (that was the mail address) – “my son was fully immunised with MMR; I did not let my younger daughter have the MMR booster. They have been fine until this summer.

My fully immunised son got the mumps, mildly and everyone thought that my daughter would get it worse – guess what, she didn’t get a single symptom! Interesting – that the doctors did not know what to do with the mumps, it had been so long since they’d seen it – they had to look up in their computers or in the manuals to answer my questions about incubation or staying out of circulation.”

Now, you heard what our young homeopath said – you’ve always got to hear two sides, you’ve got to make an informed decision – your children will not be the same as anybody else’s children. But I can remember my brother getting mumps and him getting swollen glands and him being given jelly and ice-cream and I can remember running around and NOT getting mumps! And I can remember my mother saying ‘we’ve got to be careful, because he’s a boy and you know what happens with mumps …’ – I didn’t know what happened with mumps, who knew? Something to do with the testicular region, well, I didn’t know.

But the fact is that the more we sanitise society and the more we become absolutely – what’s the word – hypocritical about stuff – you cannot support letting our children run riot and not converse with each other and not play and all the other stuff that we’re doing… and then get up in high dudgeon when we don’t put drugs into their body!

Stick the kids out running in air, ban cars on the road, make them have six hours a day PE at school give them an hour every single day where they’re running around playing rounders and walls and not just – a few! My daughter’s beautiful boy Nathan, he’s a footballer and he gets an infection and he falls over – he gets better, because he’s always running and jumping and doing star-jumps or whatever you do!

We have to look at the source of this, and it’s not good for you – you listened to that clip from Nick Ferrari’s program – if you scare-monger, people don’t know how to make clear decisions about some things.

Do you want your kids to have an inoculation or don’t you? Don’t make people feel guilty if you make the decision that they don’t want to have drugs put into them; when I was out in American, eighteen months ago, the only cases of polio that were coming across were the ones where the children had the polio vaccine. And most doctors who were out in the States were not letting their children have it! What does that say to you?

It’s empirical! Empirical wisdom! Experience! 0-8-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3 How do you make decisions on behalf of your children?

John in Epsom doesn’t say what she wants to hear

John in Epsom – talk to me.

John: Afternoon Jenny. I’m not a medical expert, but I listen to the radio and I listen to LBC – I listen to your competitors quite a lot. Every single medical expert that you’ve ever had on LBC, always said MMRs are a good thing and all the evidence against them have been refuted.

JB: …yeah.

John: So?

JB: Does that make it right??

John: Well, yeah! I pretty much think it does, actually! Yeah!

JB: How come?

John: Well, you sound like… when you say ‘My four kids, this ladies’ four kids’ – you sound like one of those people who say ‘My Aunty Flo lived to be a hundred and ten and she smoked a hundred cigarettes a day’! There’s always going to be someone, but in general…

JB: Uh, but wasn’t Aunty Flo ALLOWED to do that?

John: She was, but would she have done it and would you have let her do it, and would the world been happy for her to do it, if we knew now…

JB: What we knew then?

John: What we know now?

JB: But that’s precisely why I didn’t want my kids and my granddaughter and I don’t know what Zowie’s choice is going to be, but that’s precisely because we do know what we know now, that I don’t want to go anywhere near drugs! I’m sixty in eight months time and people ask if I’ll go on HRT – no! Do I want plastic surgery? No! But the media and the drug companies would like to make me unusual!

John: Do you not feel that all this information that’s out there, it is being weighted in a certain direction…

JB: Yeah, to frighten us!

John: No, not to frighten us – look there’s this fellow who was on James O’Brian’s program this week, who’s written a book called ‘BAD SCIENCE’…

JB: Right.

John: …and he went on about all the things – like, your previous lady was a homeopath, and with all due respect, the guy talking about BAD SCIENCE was talking about all kinds of things that people regard as remedies, and this guy who is a doctor was laughing at the, um…

JB: [interrupts] Listen, let me put this to you…

John: …the lack of evidence…

JB: John, let me put this to you – there’s a good point and I take your point. But let me put this to you – my nan, if you had an ear infection, would have put salt in a sock, heated it up, somehow (she didn’t have a microwave), put it behind your ear and good golly, Miss Molly, that ear infection would slow down in some way.

Now, there’s not a lot of science in it, but it blooming well worked!

John: You don’t know that there’s a lot of science in it Jeni?

JB: No, but what I’m saying is that

John: It might be down to heat on the back of the ear…

JB: … of course it is! But you said it yourself, John, scientific evidence and the media, we all weigh things in a particular way, so that we come up with the answer that we want to come up with – if you are funding a vaccine as a drug company, you are going to want to frighten people into having to take it! Because somebody wants to make the money out of it! And it’s all about – it’s all about economics.

And I’m delighted that you listen to LBC, it’s wonderful, because it means that you are listening to both sides.

‘Bad Science’? Absolutely! And you know, Darwin was born a hundred years ago this week and there’s a lot of people who thought Darwin had it wrong.

Things change, John!

Amanda in Hayward’s Heath

Amanda’s in Hayward’s Heath, talk to me, Amanda….

JB: Amanda, talk to me.

Amanda: Hello! Um, I’ve got eight children,

JB: Mazel-tov! Are you still sane?

Amanda: No! Anyway, and I started off, young, about twenty – did all the things you were supposed to do and presented my daughter and she had all her vaccinations and my second daughter had all her vaccinations. Then my son was born and he reacted very badly to the first, and what I think then was the double or triple jab.

Um, so he then didn’t have any more, although he did then have the MMR, well, he did have some more, but he didn’t have any more Whooping Cough. He then had the MMR, um… and then when he was three he was diagnosed with autism. And so I got quite involved in vaccines, because I wasn’t sure, um, my paediatrician was quite sure that it was the cause of the autism, but I mean, I didn’t know.

And from then on, I decided not to have my children vaccinated – I just thought ‘better be on the safe side’ – I mean, my paediatrician thought it was great, my GPs weren’t; they were always very unhappy that I didn’t have them vaccinated.

JB: Why, why though, that the GPs won’t take on what the paediatrician did??

Amanda: I don’t know! I mean, my paediatrician is great, she’s a very holistic paediatrician – she was the of big chief consultants at a hospital down on the south coast, so she’s a very good paediatrician, but she very much believed in … in just sort of holistically looking after the child. Um, she didn’t like giving drugs for things if you didn’t need it.

JB: But you know, people do throw ‘guilt things’, at you, don’t they? They must say to you ‘all right, for you, Amanda’.

Amanda: Um…

JB: How do you cope with that?

Amanda: Well, yeah, they probably do, um, … the main thing I found is that my eldest who has everything, she actually had a really bad case of Whooping Cough, about two years ago. And we did get quite a lot of things thrown at us then but she was the one who had been vaccinated. None of my other children picked it up.

JB: Now what would you say – I mean, it’s not my job to say to people ‘don’t do it’, it’s not my job to do any of that. But you’re allowed to have your say. What would you say to people as a mum of eight little lives that you’re deeply responsible for? What would you say to people who are in two minds about it?

Amanda: Um. Well, I would never recommend having children vaccinated, and people think I’m very strange. But all my younger children who have never been vaccinated have been very, very healthy. Um, the youngest had measles, um, now three months ago. And he was fine, he wasn’t very well for about a week, ten days – and then he was fine, and none of my others picked it up. So, I think they must have a certain amount of natural immunity – and I’m far, far happier for them to have developed that ‘natural immunity’ – than to be constantly filled with artificial substances.

JB: Well, thank you so much, my darling, that was Amanda in Hayword’s Heath.

“I was just listening to your show, if people took the time to look at what’s in vaccines, they would think twice about giving them to their children. As well as not being a hundred percent effective, they also have cancer-causing agents.

“Also a child’s immune system takes approximately two to three months to fully get up and running from birth. Also, if we look at the countries that have the highest population vaccinated, you will notice that they have the most allergies. I’m not totally against immunisations, but we should be giving children at least a year to develop their own immune system to deal with the onslaught.”

I didn’t say that – I wish you’d given me your name? There’s a third way, says somebody else who’s nameless: “Why don’t we allow children to have the jabs individually?” Why not? It’s half-past two!

[Sound bytes + introduction for next guest]

I’ve just got one or two announcements, and there are many of you who want to talk about this measles thing – I get so impassioned about it, because I think it’s about freedom – and I think that self responsibility for your body and children and health is top of the list! You know, early to bed, early to rise, makes you HEALTHY, wealthy and wise! The four-square of life: health, wealth, love, and perfect surface expression!

Where do you go from there? About being healthy – and YOU have to make a decision, don’t you, on behalf of your children! It’s the WORST decision you’ll have to make – should you / shouldn’t you! It’s alright when you’re making it for yourself – but I want you to tell me, why you think we have to have this measles jab and why I’ve got several things I’m going to read out in a minute, why you think it’s not necessary!

And I’ll be talking to a doctor in a moment, and somebody who is pro-jabs, I just have to make two announcements…

[More sound bytes + advertising for a band and an event announcement]

Geraldine from Hampstead

Geraldine in Hampstead, thank you very much for holding the line, you are absolutely pro the jabs, are you?

GH: I’m not absolutely pro or anti anything, but before I talk about that can I say I think you radio show is wonderful but isn’t it a little irresponsible to read out a text from somebody you don’t know at all?

JB: I keep saying! You know-

GH: Let me finish.

JB: Go on.

GH: – to say that the vaccinations have cancer-causing substances. Because you will scare new mothers.

JB: Well no no listen-

GH: You don’t know who wrote it-

JB: I don’t, well absolutely not, but it’s an articulate email and I do – you’re absolutely right Geraldine and I think people have to give their names, but she was – whoever has written it was the second person to say it. You heard a homeopath saying, if you go to the same, if you go to a website you will find exactly what this email has been written. But I take your point, I don’t know that it’s irresponsible but I take your point. Anyway please continue.

GH: OK the only other thing I wanted to say I think it’s a luxury, it is a luxury that people can not vaccinate their children because the majority do.

JB: Absolutely, I’ll give you that.

GH: I have friends who’ve had polio, because they weren’t vaccinated, I have friends who’s children died of whooping cough, in Eastern Europe, because there were no vaccinations, these are very nasty illnesses.

JB: Are you a medic, Geraldine?

GH: My husband’s a medic, my daughter’s a medic and my grandfather was a medic. And the only other thing I wanted to say was it’s not the drug companies, of course the drugs companies are pushing it, it’s the doctors, it’s the GPs, who see the children that aren’t vaccinated, that do catch the illnesses.

JB: Do you see – I find this fascinating – is this a mindset? I don’t come from medicine, you do, I don’t like anything to do with allopathic medicine, and you don’t have an issue with it. Now do you think it’s a mindset that cannot be changed?

GH: I think that science has proved more children survive childhood since the vaccinations have been enforced. Strongly. I’m sorry for the children that do get whooping cough because they were vaccinated and the seventh one that wasn’t vaccinated didn’t get whooping cough. But I do think that modern medicine saves lives. And I repeat what I said: I think it is a luxury of the few, the middle class few – and I couldn’t be more middle class if I tried – it’s a luxury of the middle class few to enjoy homeopathy and all the other things that are wonderful!

JB: Yes but why-

GH: – but alongside regular medicine. And it-

JB: Yes that’s right and I think that it has to be complementary, and I think that debate has to continue, because if we’re looking at countries that aren’t as luxurious as ours – what do we do with them?

GH: But children are dying! From whooping cough and measles, or going blind-

JB: But that’s actually Geraldine, my problem, with the hypocrisy of it. If [feedback] – ooh, are you there?

GH: Yeah, I’m here.

JB: If the medical profession absolutely cared, it would be sending drugs freely to countries where they need it. If we’re having to pay for these drugs, it’s not an altruistic thing that’s happening.

GH: No, it’s not, I’m talking about this country.

JB: Yeah but I’m talking about the notion of a drug-fuelled world, where if we’re going to be using drugs, and if some of them are better than others, and some are beneficial and some aren’t, why isn’t it free?

GH: Because big business isn’t free. Because that’s the real world. Sadly, it’s wrong, I think 100% it’s wrong; but it’s not free.

JB: OK, thank you very much, and I’m taking Geraldine’s point, do you know what I might not read out your emails ever again unless you give me your name. I think she’s made an absolutely important point and I don’t want to scaremonger.

Just give me an initial, say who you are, and then Geraldine, she’s put her finger on it, she’s absolutely right.

Rob in Bermondsey, please speak to me.

“Dr. Rob” who loses a bit of credibility in my book, by admitting he performs acupuncture…

ROB: Good afternoon Jennie

JB: Good afternoon sir.

ROB: The very last point that you made, the answer to that is that it’s a geopolitical thing, it’s got nothing to do with the facts of medicine and measles and how measles affects individuals and indeed how the vaccine affects individuals. Let me give you just a few very basic facts for your listeners.

My background, I’m quite happy to tell you what I do, I was a paediatrician for a while and then I became a GP, I also do some acupuncture and some complementary medicine so I’m [unclear] to most arguments and can listen to most points that I can during my day. And the facts of measles are that most people’s experience of measles if their child gets measles is that it’s a mild illness, gives them fever and a rash and mum has to take a few days off work to look after their child, and they get better.

That’s because that’s what happens with most children with measles. Some children however, get very very very serious complications of measles and because the measles rate in the UK is lower – although is now on the increase – most people’s experience is of the mild illness.

All you need to do is meet one family whose normal child, they took the decision not to vaccinate their child, they got measles, and they got a devastating complication such as inflammation of the brain which we call encephalitis, or they died, then your opinion changes.

JB: Not necessarily.

ROB: Well it may change your-

JB: But you see Rob let me just-

ROB: A different level to your-

JB: It’s a different level, I completely take what you’re saying, but I can counter that with: ‘Gave my son MMR, and then watched him shut down for a week as autism took hold, went from chatty little boy to no speech at all, now lives in his own world, I live with guilt’ – that’s from Paul.

Now I can counter an emotional argument-

ROB: Of course I completely appreciate that and people are, and still are, very worried about the links between MMR and even though as Jen, one of your listeners said ‘Every GP who comes on the phone says all of that evidence has been disproved’, it still lingers as a concern, and I meet parents every day who are concerned about that, and it’s very hard to dispel that.

JB: What do you say to them though, what’s your advice?

ROB: Well I think, what I take them through is the facts that I started off this conversation with. The other fact I just want to tie in and I know you’re busy-

JB: No!, you can talk.

ROB: Is that vaccination, with vaccinations, some children don’t respond to a vaccination, so some people phone up and they say ‘Look my child’s had this vaccine and still got measles.’ That’s because of the science of the vaccine, after one vaccine of MMR about 90% of children will mount a response to protect them from measles. After the booster – so the second vaccine of MMR – that figure goes to about 95-96%. That’s about 4% children who’ve had both doses who’ll still be vulnerable.

JB: But there are those [unclear] and if you were [unclear] are you sneezing?!

ROB: Yeah; I’m still here.

JB: God bless you darling, gezundheit, how lovely to have you sneezing on air. If you were my doctor, and I brought in my daughter, I would want to know what side effects there were of these things, and then I would then have to make my decision based on that, wouldn’t I?

ROB: Well of course, of course, the other-

JB: And that’s what I think- go on.

ROB: The other complicating factor [unclear] vaccine is that, if you’re [unclear] is, as you said through your show, you can make an automous informed decision for yourself once you’re over sixteen. One your making for your child is a completely different thought process, isn’t it?

JB: Well absolutely, but Paul has said-

ROB: [sneezes]

JB: God bless you again my darling, you’re sneezing [unclear]

ROB: Yeah, everyone’s given me a cold, people cough in my face and I get a cold-

JB: But you see there’s a point, I’m going to ask you something here.

Have you had the flu jab?

ROB: Yes I have.

JB: And still you’ve got the cold?

ROB: I’ve got a cold but I haven’t got the flu, I’m not in bed unable to get out for a week.

JB: But why-

ROB: That vaccine protects you from influenza, it doesn’t protect you from colds.

JB: You see, I, would there ever be, I mean you say that you give acupuncture and you give all sorts of complementary things, why is measles, in the 21st century, such a hot topic?

JB: Because, I think one of the problems Jennie, the honest [unclear] is that people like – because the measles, mumps and rubella comes as one, people think about each of the individual diseases.

Now rubella really is only a problem in early pregnancy, as you talked about on your show, and mumps, OK, it can lead to some complications for boys, with their testicles if they get involved, but measles is the one that really does kill.

And it does kill children, and it’s just because the numbers in Western Europe and the States and Australia are lower that we don’t see this so often.

And in fact a few years ago there were children dying in Ireland of measles, I think there were two children, died in Ireland.

JB: And what causes measles?

ROB: Measles is caused by a virus, and it’s spread by coughing, it’s spread by sneezing, it’s spread by close contact-

JB: So let me ask you this, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I want to squeeze it out of you, if it’s viral, if childrens’ immune systems are strong-

ROB: [sneezes]

JB: God bless you again! If it’s a viral thing and childrens’ immune systems are strong, what’s the problem?

Is it because our childrens’ immune systems are now so shot that they cannot deal with an ordinary childhood illness?

ROB: I don’t believe that to be true, you have three children in a class, one gets a cold, and that child sneezes in his class, over his two classmates, one of them may get a cold and one of them may not, but all three of those children are perfectly healthy, that’s just the nature of disease.

JB: I didn’t say that though. I asking you as a medic, and you’ve got an -ology, and I’ve only got half an -ology,

ROB: I have got an -ology [laughs]

JB: [laughs] and an allergy, it sounds like too – if all three childrens’ immune system were very very strong, they would deal with it differently, wouldn’t they? Who’s done that test? Who’s done that scientific test?

ROB: Well I can’t quote you a scientific paper about that, but it’s an observation, isn’t it, that people seem to think that a sanitised country, and the sanitised parts that we live in, is weakening children, that’s why there’s more eczema, there’s more allergies and this kind of thing, it’s a theory, it’s not-

JB: It’s not science-

ROB: You can dig out papers to prove that, you can dig out papers to disprove that, but that’s the same with modern medicine, that you have to weigh it in the balance, and my ending argument really would be, it’s a numbers game, and the numbers are that most children who get measles will get over it, a very few minority get very serious

complications.

JB: That’s what needs to be said, and I bless you, Dr Rob in Bermondsey, and actually, he has to go because we’re going to Travel.

[More sound bytes and travel news before the discussion continues]

JB: It’s 10 to 3. The body is a really delicate organism. The tiniest bit of something can make you go weird. A little tiny bit of caffeine and you can be running up and down the stairs.

A little bit of potassium sor…I don’t know-whatever they put in these drinks-can make you itch. The body is a finely-tuned animal. We are animals.

Obi in Richmond was looking at his sister’s London County Council Public Health Department Immunisation Record Card from 1966. Between 2 and 4 months of age, she was injected for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

2 to 4 months of age. 8 weeks.

That little, tiny body was injected for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

Between 6 and 8 months, she was injected for poliomyelitis.

15 months, diphtheria again.

16 months, the smallpox test.

5 years, diphtheria, tetanus and poliomyelitis.

“So, my question is”, says Obi, “When did the immunisation for the measles and mumps start? I know that I had an allergic reaction to whooping cough as a baby, so I had no further jabs, not even the BCG at Secondary School. It’s all government spin”, says Obi. “Children don’t need the triple jab.”

And Helen says, “If there’s such a fear of measles epidemic because of lack of take-up of the MMR, why don’t they make it easier to have the jabs individually? That way surely more children would be vaccinated. There seems to be an agenda for reaching a target to wipe out measles by a certain date but at what cost to individuals?”.

She concludes, “It’s so difficult for young mums now. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. It’s such a minefield and you have to live with the consequences of your decision whichever way you vote”.

And I think that the reason you fill up my telephone-there are no calls being able to come in at the minute- is because you’re phoning is because there isn’t a definitive answer.

There is no absolute answer.

As a parent, whether you are male or female, you have to make a decision based on your family history.

I took my daughter who kept getting ear infections when she was a kid and one of the doctors said to me, “If you do not give her an asthma spray, and do not do this, that and the other, she will die within a week”. You don’t say that to a young mum, well, I was an old mum but she was only a little person.

Since I had asthma and my mother in law died of asthma and I’ve told you this before, that doctor didn’t take into account where I was coming from. I required him to look in my child’s ear and give me some indication of what was going on so I could make an informed decision.

Yasmin in Chelsea – is the nurse JB refers to as “vicious” in the blog post above. I fail to see the bits where she was vicious, but whatever, she’s transmitted a programme full of misinformation and downright garbage, so what’s a blog post?

I, however, am not like Yasmin in Chelsea. You would – what would you have done in that situation?

JB: And I think that the reason you fill up my telephone-there are no calls being able to come in at the minute- is because you’re phoning is because there isn’t a definitive answer. There is no absolute answer.

Yasmin: I’m just wondering how much longer your programme is on air. Because I give hundreds of MMR vaccines and all the work that we do in general practice is probably being undone by your programme in 15 minutes and I think it’s very irresponsible.

JB: Why. [Indistinct]

Yasmin: It doesn’t seem to be based on any facts. I’m very sorry to hear that your child had autism but if you…

JB: My child. Yasmin – [not] my child – somebody else’s child had autism.

Yasmin: Somebody else’s child, I’m very sorry to hear that. But if they read the Wakefield study in the Lancet in 1998, Dr Wakefield actually said that he didn’t prove an association between MMR and…

JB: Well he wasn’t really allowed to have his say, was he, Yasmin. He was kinda…

Yasmin: I think he was. I think he said it recently in court.

JB: But you’re not…

Yasmin: I think he’s being tried for medical negligence. I think that your programme is extremely irresponsible. You’re talking…

JB: Ah, let me just ask this…Let me ask you this before you go on with that.

How, if you are so certain that your MMR jab is correct, how can 15 minutes on LBC 97.3 rock what people are thinking?

Yasmin: Well, you’d be surprised. And at the moment we are expecting a measles epidemic and it’s because of people like Ken Livingstone and people like yourself.

You talk about young mothers who have a very difficult decision to make and, I agree, they do, and I spend a lot of time talking to them. But people like you don’t really make it any easier for them.

And you were just talking about somebody with an ear infection. I’ve been talking to somebody I know who had a child who woke up with the contents of their ear on the pillow and that was down to the rubella virus.

So you really need to think about what you’re doing here and why you’re doing it.

JB: Well, you see, I could argue, Yasmin, that you have to think about it, too. I’m allowed…

Yasmin: I do, every day.

JB: And so do I, as a parent, and that’s what I’m saying.

Yasmin: I’m a parent. And one of my children has had 3 doses of measles [sic. Possibly meant MMR – I have heard the MMR vaccine injection referred to as “measles” by nurses and doctors as a form of professional slang – The Milligan] and there’s no problem with it. You could have a hundred doses of measles [sic. Possibly meant MMR] and it would do nothing.

[Yasmin and JB talk over each other]

JB: But why give them the vaccine if they get the measles? I never can understand that.

Yasmin: We don’t give vaccines to children who have had measles. They need a combined vaccine of measles, mumps and rubella.

If they have one dose the studies show that they possibly need to be revaccinated within a couple of years to make sure that that protection carries on for life.

JB: Do you not think, though, that as a parent, I am allowed to make a decision about what I put in my kid’s body?

Yasmin: Yes. And do you not think that a parent whose child has cancer and is having chemotherapy and has a much lower resistance to things like measles, mumps and rubella, has a right for their child to go to normal Primary…

JB: Absolutely, absolutely.

Yasmin: A normal Primary School. But because there may be one child in the class, such as yours, who is lucky to have the immunity, that child might get measles, mumps or rubella and die.

JB: Yasmin, my daughter did not have decent immunity which is exactly why I did not have her inoculated.

Yasmin: We don’t. We wait until your child is well and fit enough to give the MMR.

JB: But I don’t want my child to be fiddled with with all sorts of stuff that’s in a vaccine. Now why…

[JB and Yasmin talk over each other]

Let me finish.

Yasmin: Could you tell me what’s in the vaccine? What do you think is in the vaccine?

JB: No, I can’t.

Yasmin: Then how can you make a decision for your child? You’re taking about parents having to make decisions for the child but if you go into any secondary school, which I have done, we’ve been asked to vaccinate kids against MMR, they all say they want it.

If you’re deny immunisation then you’re denying health to your child and other children.

JB: No, no, no. My child is absolutely strong and healthy in many ways…

Yasmin: Then you’re one of the lucky ones aren’t you? If your kid had chemotherapy…

JB: Listen, listen, listen. Yasmin will you stop…Stop.

Yasmin: You’d want your child to be protected, wouldn’t you?

JB: Stop being so dramatic about it. If you

[JB and Yasmin talk over each other.]

Yasmin: You should think about what you’re doing in this programme. You’re doing a lot of damage. A lot of damage.

JB: Well, maybe. I don’t think so.

Yasmin: You don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t even tell me what’s in an MMR vaccine so you shouldn’t be talking about it.

JB: Well, I can get it…Shall I get it off the internet, Yasmin?

Yasmin: Yeah, get it off the internet, from a reliable source, the such as the Department of Health

JB: Really?

Yasmin: and then I might listen to you, yeah.

JB: The Department of Health frightens people.

Thanks, Yasmin, for your call.

I think it’s quite interesting. When I was told I had a high blood sugar, I was told in that room I had diabetes. I don’t have diabetes, I have high blood sugar. My blood sugar’s normal now but they frightened me. Which is what people like Yasmin does.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

This ignorance is broadcast to a lot of people. The DoH doesn’t frighten me, but the idiot Barnett scares me a lot. Thankfully my three kids have been vaccinated, and with every passing day, I vaccinate their minds against people like her.