Immunisation

I guess from just hearing both sides of the story and also hearing about the fact that this was a very small sample size I think that really made me doubt that if, because the thing is, the MMR has been taken by children not just in England but, you know, in so many countries in the whole world I mean, if you think about how many children have taken it, it must be millions if not billions of children who've had it and so if you compare that with twelve cases then I just didn't think that was and I guess, I guess Radio Four was quite, they did show both, both arguments, so I just a, and maybe as well the papers that made such a big fuss about it are not really the papers that I read and maybe not as reputable.
 

Again I think because I'm in research I always treat media representation of health results with quite large scepticism [laughs]. So, you know, the media like to get hold of, this idea, this difference between absolute risk and relative risk they, they deliberately play on that. It was like when the pill scare came out and they said, you know, that the risk of thromboembolism was, the relative risk was, I don't know what it was, it was about twice or something if, it, on this pill rather than that pill, but they didn't say that the absolute risk was still tiny and actually still smaller than it, it would be if you were pregnant. And, but you know, what happened was that all these women got pregnant as a result. So they, you know, that sort of, whole representation of risk they, they deliberately play about with that. And I always find whenever you read anything that you know anything vaguely about in the papers you always realise how many sort of [laughs] how biased it is or, well, that it's coming from a certain angle and certain things aren't' So I, I don't think, I'm not so swayed by stuff in the media. 
 

So I think it is very, very, very important here and everywhere else to educate people, to inform them. Not misinform them, which is what the media usually does. If you buy a tabloid, they just care about selling papers, and the best way to sell them is to shout horrible stories, you know, and, and pick the one in a million case where something went wrong, instead of stressing that the other 999,999 actually didn't have any problems and were protected, yes. The media are always using sensation to sell. But on the other hand you are the parent, you have your child to look after and you want the best for your child. You shouldn't listen to sources of information which are not the right ones. And I think if, if we don't know much about something, we should go and ask the right people. There's always your GP, your health care or a nurse that can give you the information you require, can actually, not just tell it to you but give you access to documentation, where you can make your mind up by yourself without just listening to it on TV or on tabloids. So I think it's very important to educate people the right way, to give them the proper information. And, yes, even then people are still reluctant to do that well it's very difficult. But I think in this case of the MMR vaccine there was a lot of misinformation, which led to people having these problems.
 

Father' I think it, the way it appeared to us was that there, there was obviously the generalised story, which is, 'MMR is completely safe' and, and given the data set that's been examined that's probably a valid conclusion to, to draw. And so that's the one that everyone put across. And every time it's reassessed and they said, 'New survey says that it's completely safe' they're examining the same data set. What they don't always recognise or, and they certainly don't put in their editorials or whatever, is that actually that data set doesn't include certain children. And when you include those children there's, there's more of a concern. But obviously, you know, when you're trying to get herd immunity, you're trying to take everyone to take a vaccination, you won't necessarily put all the bad points in because you, you want everybody to take it as, as much as possible. So-

Mother' I think we felt that there'd been a lot of gloss -

Father'  Yes

Mother' -  put on it. There wasn't acknowledgement that there are some children who should not be vaccinated, even though obviously the pharmaceutical companies say that themselves, that, you know, whenever you see anything about MMR on the television or whatever it, it's always put with a certain spin, and that, you know, parents who don't vaccinate are selfish and, you know, you're silly to have concerns.