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Friday 15 April 2016

BBC News refuses to report on MMR vaccine - Autism link

Any link between the MMR vaccine and the raging epidemic of Autism has to be a matter of serious concern, not least for parents who have to decide whether their children should have the vaccination. When a former Chief Scientific Officer makes these comments, it surely becomes a matter for national, indeed international concern.

  • that there has been "utterly inexplicable complacency" over the MMR vaccine,
  • that there are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and elsewhere, who have staked their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves,
  • that if it is proven that the vaccine causes autism "the refusal by governments to evaluate the risks properly will make this one of the greatest scandals in medical history".
  • that he has seen a "steady accumulation of evidence" from around the world that the MMR vaccine is causing brain damage, and the parents had a right to see the thousands of documents in had seen over the years pointing to this."
  • that he has had concerns about the MMR vaccine since 2001, stating that safety trials prior to the vaccine's introduction in Britain were inadequate,
  • when he points to the "explosive worldwide increase in regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease in children", and to the growing scientific understanding of autism-related bowel disease, which have convinced him that the MMR vaccine may be to blame.
  • that "clinical and scientific data is steadily accumulating that the live measles virus in MMR can cause brain, gut and immune system damage in a subset of vulnerable children."

These are just some of the statements made by Dr Peter Fletcher, formerly Chief Scientific Officer at the UK's Department of Health (see Daily Mail Online article, published 29th March 2016). I wrote about his comments in more detail in my blog, MMR and Autism. "One of the greatest scandals in medical history".

Well, I can now confirm that BBC News does not believe that these comments are sufficiently newsworthy to comment on. When I wrote the above blog, I made a complaint to the BBC that they had not covered his story. They have not upheld my complaint. The story is not sufficiently current, unusual, or of public interest!

That is no really surprise. During the last 15 years, the BBC has been at the forefront of British journalism that has refused to look at the performance of conventional medicine, at the reasons for the epidemics of chronic disease (including autism), in the harm that can be cause by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Instead, it is happy to toe the line of the conventional medical establishment - that all is well with the health services that dominate our NHS, and that good health is obtainable within the pills and potions we are being offered. Conventional medicine, they are keen to tell us, in winning the battle against illness and disease.

Yet it is not just the denial of the BBC that is worrying. It is the fact that they are not prepared to investigate the concerns that exist about conventional medicine, and the damage it can cause to patients. Therefore, I asked the BBC whether it felt any responsibility to answer some of the questions raised by Dr Fletcher's statement, namely,

  • "Why isn't the Government taking this massive public health problem more seriously?"
  • Whether it is true that "no one in authority will even admit it's happening, let alone try to investigate the causes." 
  • "Why the Government is not investigating it further".

Thie BBC's response to my complaint exactly mirrors a similar complaint I made to the BBC in September 2015 about their non-coverage the Dr Thompson affair, where there was an admission that research into the MMR-Autism link had been falsified in order to demonstrate that there was no link. Not even this interested the BBC!  But the story is covered fully in my blogs, "The MMR-Autism Controversy, and the dishonesty of Medical 'Science'", and "MMR Vaccine, Autism, and the silence and culpability of the Political, Medical and Media Establishment".

My purpose in making these complaints is not to change their attitude and approach to health matters. The BBC are no impartial, and they will not change until they are forced to change. They act as a spokesperson for the pharmaceutical industry, and will not question the government, NHS line.

The purpose of the complaints is to ensure that they are 'on record' as denying these links, and failing to investigate tor report on them. Millions of parents agree to vaccinate their children on the basis that they are safe. Their doctors tell them they are safe, the NHS tell them they are safe, and BBC News merely confirms they are safe through their disinterest, their failure to investigate, and their refusal to report.

In doing so they will become culpable of misinforming the public when the link is finally proven, and cannot be denied any more - which is surely coming closer with each new revelation, and with every child who becomes part of the autistic epidemic.

Then, BBC News will have to answer the real question. Why did you not report? Why did you not investigate? Why did you fail to inform the British public? Why did you not carry out your editorial guidelines about impartiality? Why did you fail to fulfil your statutory duties?

The unfortunate thing is we are uncertain how long we have to wait for this, how many parents will subject their children to dangerous vaccines, how much longer the BBC will continue to insist that we remain ignorant.

Unlike other parts of the mainstream media, the BBC has no shareholders, no links on their board with pharmaceutical companies (not that this should be an excuse for their silence). It is the licence payer who owns, and pays for the BBC. Most licence payers are, have been, or will become parents. And the BBC is not serving us well.