Following my complaint to the Press Complaints Commision about the dubious vaccination 'articles' in the Guardian recently (see my post 09-01-10), I have received the reply I feared:

Dear Mr Watson

Thank you for your email
The Press Complaints Commission does not deal with complaints about advertisements published in newspapers or magazines. These are covered by the British Code of Advertising Practice, which is overseen by the Advertising Standards Authority at Mid City Place, 71 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6QT. I am forwarding your letter to the Authority which may be able to help you.
Further information about the PCC can be found on our website www.pcc.org.uk .
Yours sincerely

Simon Yip

I wait, without baited breath, for the Advertising Standards Authority to give their reply.

I followed a link from Google News titled A doctor's view: 'The MMR vaccine was a godsend'.

I was initially annoyed at the usual lack of insight displayed in this set of myopic pro-vaccination articles, but became alarmed when I realised that it was in fact a strange Guardian / NHS 'advertorial' feature.

Although the articles are written in standard Guardian style journalism, and dressed up to look like news articles, I can't decide if this is inept NHS advertisement or more sinister calculated pro-vaccine propoganda. Either way I decided it warranted further action....

I have made a formal complaint to the ASA because as an advert it uses misinformation and emotion to pursude parents on a topic that should be based on honest information. And I also made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission because as a piece of journalism it is misleading, inaccurate & distorts the issues, and failure to distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture & fact.

By the way, I am not anti-vaccination, or a vaccine-denier, but rather a vaccine sceptic.

Anyway, here are some of the main points I made in my complaint to the PCC:

The Guardian/NHS collaboration feature is a strange hybrid of 'advert' and journalistic 'news'.

The indication that it is in any way an advert is only shown in very small print, which is easily missed and does not make clear which part is an advert and which journalistic comment. As the articles appear under google's news search they are given an air of journalistic independence. Which are they? Advertising or Jouranalism? or a bit of both?

The feature consists of five pages including an article from a doctor and one from a parent (both are Guardian Journalists). Unlike most Guardian articles there is no comment section for public debate, instead at the bottom of these articles is a link to the NHS site. Furthermore, there are no commercial adverts on these pages, instead all the adverts are for the NHS.

Many people reading these pages will assume they are legitimate, independent journalistic articles. Especially as they have guardian.co.uk at the top of the text area, and the NHS adverts where normal adverts would appear.

In the section Your Free Guide to Childhood Immunisation, the Guardian fails to give any reference to adverse effects, side effects or other risks associated with the vaccination. This is unacceptable as these medical procedures have some risk and it is the duty of those promoting them to display these.

Throughout the articles the terms 'immunised' and 'vaccinated' are conflated as if they are interchangeable. They are not. Vaccination is the medical procedure. Immunisation is desired effect. It is widely understood that vaccination does not always 'take' so may not lead to full or even partial immunity, so it is incorrect to imply that vaccination guarantees immunity. This important fact is not reflected in these articles. Throughout the articles it is implied that full vaccination confers immunity to the disease. However, vaccines often fall out of use, e.g. the WHO no longer recommends the BCG and it has been dropped from the UK vaccination schedule, because it does not immunise individuals or the community effectively, despite previous claims that it did.

In the Key Facts section the statistic is given: "In 1987, the year before the MMR vaccine was introduced, 86,000 children caught measles and 16 died in the UK."

By not giving any of the linked statistics (e.g. the number of measles cases in the years following the introduction of MMR) an impression will be created in many peoples mind that the MMR reduced the nunber of cases to zero! I suggest this is the deliberate intention of the article.

A further point of deception is the implication that we did not have any protection before the MMR, however children received the single measles vaccine prior to 1987, which makes the quoted statistic close to meaningless. As these facts are well known to anyone who studies vaccination it would appear that the journalists involved in these articles have conspired with the NHS to mislead.

Another of the feature articles titled MMR A Mother's Storyby Jo Payton uses 'personal views' as a vehicle for conveying an unbalanced, one sided, emotive and non-scientific position that reinforces the misinformation in the more 'factual' sections. It appears to be written purely to support NHS propoganda rather than as a proper piece of journalistic enquiry as it contains no analysis or balancing views.

An examlpe of the failure of this piece to distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact is the statement that "People don't think it's a serious disease, but there were two babies in hospital with measles at the same time as my son, and they suffered brain damage." This is uncorroborated fear mongering, and mearly anecdotal. For example, how different would the impression be if it turned out that these two babies had been previously vaccinated yet had sill contracted measles? With no proper information we are left to the crude emotional implications.

Jo quotes the same misleading statistic as given in the five key facts section, saying: "The most compelling statistic, as far as I was concerned, was that in the year before MMR was introduced, 86,000 UK children caught measles and 16 died." - again no thought or analysis is given.

As an interjection here to illustrate the point, below is a graph showing the deaths due to measles in the UK over the last 100 years or so:


it is quite clear that the main reductions in measles deaths happened well before the introduction of the measles vaccine. Any claim for the vaccine's effect is dwarfed by the declines before mass vaccination. Many commentators attribute these declines to improvements in hygine or the spread of naturally aquired immunity in the population. So how much benefit can really be attributed to the vaccine programme?

Continuing with my complaint to the Press Complaints Commission...
It is well documented that false positive reporting of a disease occurs when vaccine coverage is low, and false negative reporting when vaccine coverage is high - hence the statistics supporting the efficacy of vaccines tend to create a 'self-fulfilling prophesy' (I can supply widely available data to support this if you wish, much of it published in the news media in the past).

Good journalism should reflect these weaknesses in the data, to protect all of us from unnecessary medical intervention, and to ensure the 'salesmen' (NHS/drugs companies) supply good sound information.

The section titled A doctor's view: 'The MMR vaccine was a godsend' by Dr Tom Smith is really no less emotional or uncrittical, but appears to rely on the White Coat Effect - "afterall he should know, he is a doctor", but the fact that his article fits so well into the promotional structure of the feature as a whole demonstrates he is not being impartial.

His use of terms like 'debunked' and 'no credible scientific evidence' are non-scientific and overstate the case. As all scientific research and hypothesis are contingent (scientifically we can never say anything for certain).

Dr Smith's article seeks to create the view that the science of vaccination is settled, and anyone who thinks differently is part of an 'antivaccination' lobby. This is prejudiced, and attempts to stifle legitimate public and scientific debate.

In the House of Commons Health Committee report 2005 'The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry', there is criticism of the way that Pharmaceutical Industry publishes promotional (advertising) material designed to look like peer reviewed articles. This Guardian / NHS advertorial feature is similarly designed to appear as something it is not - as a set of independent journalistic articles.

Another misleading statement Dr Smith makes is: "As it is so infectious, your child will most likely catch measles if he or she is not immunised."

This is not a balanced or credible statement. Over the last 20 years Approx 5% of the child population has gone unvaccinated, but it is clear that nowhere near all of these have gone on to get measles.

The quote that the vaccine has been "Thoroughly tested" for safety is dubious. To my knowledge the research is mostly carried out by the vaccine manufacturers, who have a vested interest. The Health Committee report (mentioned above) cast serious doubt on the relationship between the NHS and the Pharmacetical industry. In the report's summary the committe states "An effective regulatory regime to ensure that the industry works in the public interest is essential. Unfortunately, the present regulatory regime is failing to provide this." The Guardian appears to be distorting the issue by supporting uncritically the NHS/pharmaceutical interest. They do not appear to be supporting the public interest identified by the select committee.

It is a pity that whilst attempting to correct the damage done by Dr Wakefield's dubious scientific studies Dr Smith falls into the very trap that Dr Wakefield did - excessive promotion of a conclusion that goes beyond the scientifically established facts.

Finally, I am concerned that the hybrid advertisement/newspaper article is an attempt to fall outside the jurisdiction of both the ASA and the PCC. Please take this into account in considering this complaint.