The Great DBH Rant

First up, it appears Ben Goldacre has received a letter from the LBC lot regarding some personal and abusive emails that Jeni Barnett has received. As Ben Goldacre puts it, don’t send personal and abusive emails to Jeni Barnett. It would not help. It portrays us as a bunch of thugs.

We’re not. We are rational people with common sense.

I will take this opportunity to unreservedly condemn those who felt it was necessary to send personal and abusive emails to Ms Barnett. However, given how this whole matter has been handled by both Ms Barnett and the LBC, I am not all too surprised as to the level of outrage this has caused.

Here’s more.

In an article in journalism.co.uk, Robert Common, Ms Barnett’s agent, provided an explanation was given as to why the blogposts and comments on Jeni Barnett’s website have been taken down:

“[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.

Oh hell no! Did they think that the comments were really deleted from human records for good? As the saying goes, “The internet never forgets”. The Quackometer and Quixotic Quisling as well as myself have the deleted blogposts and their associated comments. The statement that the comments “do not address the debate about the use of MMR…” is so far from the truth. My rendition of “the truth” would go something like this if I were Ms Barnett’s agent: “The truth hurts and that is the reason for taking the comments off Jeni’s website”.

Nevertheless, as I mentioned yesterday, I don’t believe hounding Jeni Barnett would do much good. If anything, it will eventually earn her a lot of sympathy votes from neutrals. She said something stupid, we called her on it, made a big deal out of it (it is a big deal, mind) but now is the time to let her go and turn the momentum this fiasco has generated into something which will actually make a difference, such as some activism as Ben Goldacre mentioned. The measles situation is not going away on its own. We should use this Barnett/ LBC fiasco as an example of irresponsible media reporting of healthcare issues.

One such thing to do is to drum up some support for this Early Day Motion, tabled by Norman Lamb, shadow health secretary of the Liberal Democrats, which deals with this issue:

That this House expresses its support for the use of the combined MMR vaccine; notes with concern the re-emergence of measles and the loss of life and long-term health problems which will afflict children as a result of the decline in the vaccination rate which followed Dr Andrew Wakefield’s now discredited research paper suggesting a link between MMR vaccine and autism; expresses its disappointment that ill-informed comments by presenters such as Jeni Barnett on her LBC radio show will continue to cause unfounded anxieties for many parents and are likely to result in some parents choosing not to vaccinate their children; recognises the right of Jeni Barnett as a parent to make her own judgement about vaccinations for her own children but implores her and others in the media to act more responsibly when making comments in the public domain; and further expresses its hope that in the future reporting the issue of MMR will be less sensationalist and more evidence-based.

The number of this EDM is 754. Please get your local MP to sign it. You can easily do so my sending your local MP an email via this website. I have sent the following message to my local MP, Gavin Strang:

Dear Gavin Strang,

Measles have become endemic within the UK once more and this is due to the low uptake of the MMR vaccine. The uptake of the vaccine is less than 80%, which means we have lost herd immunity for this disease, thereby putting the health of children at risk. The low uptake can be blamed on the MMR scare, which links the vaccine to autism. The original studies publicising these links have been widely discredited.

The overwhelming scientific evidence is that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Jeni Barnett, a radio show host on LBC 97.3, has recently broadcasted a show voicing her opinionated and ill-informed views against the MMR vaccine. Her show has a wide reach and for parents who have been undecided as to the safety of the MMR vaccine, Ms Barnett’s irresponsible (as well as factually incorrect) comments might well have tipped the balance against having their children vaccinated, thus contributing to the poor uptake rate of the vaccine.

Dr Ben Goldacre, a guardian columnist and junior NHS doctor, posted the offending clip on his website such that Ms Barnett’s irresponsible comments could be more appropriately discussed. LBC has since flexed their legal muscle, threatening Dr Goldacre with legal action if he did not remove the clip. He has since complied with their demands. It is clear that LBC did not want the factually wrong content of one of their show to be discussed.

Ms Barnett’s irresponsible comments as well as LBC’s actions on Dr Goldacre have been widely discussed and condemned, such as by David Aaronovitch of the Times newspaper as well as Stephen Fry. Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrats shadow Health Secretary has tabled a Early Day Motion (EDM 754) imploring Ms Barnett’s irresponsible broadcasting. I urge you to sign this EDM as it is important that a stop is put to irresponsible broadcasting in the media, particularly where public health is concerned.

Thank you very much for your time and if you require more information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Support this EDM! And please, channel your outbursts in a civilised manner. The media is great for spinning over-enthusiasm into thuggery. Let’s not give them an opportunity to turn the tables around on us.

This is too delicious to not use my lunch hour for blogging purposes. The outrage towards Jeni Barnett’s ill-informed and irresponsible advice against the MMR vaccine was originally confined to the blogosphere.

Well not anymore. The Times has this report on Ms Barnett’s on-air drivel and the subsequent legal chill on Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science by Ms Barnett’s employers – LBC. David Aaronovitch, from the Times, is rooting for Ben Goldacre, from the Guardian, a rival newspaper. Respect! After weighing up all that has happened, as well as going through some of the transcripts of the hour long drivel, he closed the article with the following.

That’s why I’m passionately for Goldacre, and why I find myself wondering whether we can file a class action against LBC for permitting a presenter to inflict her preposterous prejudices on her listeners, to the detriment of someone else’s kids.

If there is indeed going to be a class action against LBC, count me in!

Aside from this outrage reaching the mainstream news, Ben Goldacre also seemed to have acquired some celebrity muscle. Stephen Fry, who needs no introduction, has somehow come across Dr Goldacre’s misfortunes regarding LBC’s actions and has called upon his many followers on the social networking site, Twitter to support Dr Goldacre. He left this comment on Dr Goldacre’s Bad Science page showing his support.

stephenfry said,

February 10, 2009 at 1:29 am

The fatuity of the Jeni Barnett woman’s manner – her blend of self-righteousness and stupidity, her simply quite staggering inability to grasp, pursue or appreciate a sequence of logical steps – all these are signature characteristics of Britain these days. The lamentable truth is that most of the population wouldn’t really understand why we get so angry at this assault on reason, logic and sense. But we have to keep hammering away at these people and their superstitious inanities. We have to. Well done you and well done all you supporting. I’ve tweeted this site to my followers. I hope they all do their best to support you. Publish and be damned. We’ll fight them and fight them and fight them in the name of empricism, reason, double blind random testing and all that matter.
Love

Stephen xxx
http://twitter.com/stephenfry

I wonder if he will put some “Quite Interesting” facts about measles and MMR on his show. That’ll go a long way to educate the masses about the importance of vaccination.

And finally, before I sign off and scoff down my lunch, Jeni Barnett has removed both blog posts (MMR and Me & Bad Scientists) from her website. Is that a retraction? I am still waiting for an apology. Nevertheless, I am chalking this down as a win.

*Update*

And it gets better. There is going to be an Early Day Motion in Parliament on Weds 11 February 2009 tabled by Norman Lamb, which will criticize Jeni Barnett and her by now very well known verbal diarrhoea on the MMR vaccine:

“Suggesting that the MMR vaccine is dangerous in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary is massively irresponsible and could put children’s lives at risk.

“This kind of scaremongering has had a serious impact on public health in the last decade.

“Cases of measles have risen dramatically in the last three years. Jeni Barnett’s remarks could potentially affect the take-up of the vaccine, and I invite her to come with me to meet with a leading expert to learn more about the risks and advantages of vaccination.”

Yes, she needs to be educated.

I urge all of you reading this to ask your local MP to sign the Early Day Motion. The easiest way to do this is to go to TheyWorkForYou and locate your local MP. The Early Day Motion will appear on 11 February 2009.