Congratulations to Brian Deer for winning the award for Specialist Journalist of the Year at the British Press Award s tonight. According to the judges,
“The winner showed outstanding perseverance, stamina and revelation on a story of major importance. It led to a tremendous righting of a wrong on MMR.”
In Deer’s acceptance speech there was thinly veiled criticism of the journalists who gave Andrew Wakefield a free ride for so long in as well as the suggestion that, in giving him the award, the British newspaper industry was acknowledging these past mistakes and had finally got it right.
“I’d just like to say that this award does have my name on it but in many ways I think this is an award for the industry as a whole. Because this is a story where some of us, some of my colleagues,our colleagues I think got the story wrong and became prisoners of their sources for over a long period of time. And I think this is an award for an industry that gets it right and an industry that I am very proud to be a party to.”
This is not the first time Brian Deer has won this award. He won the same award in 1999. It is interesting, in view of attempts to smear him as hireling of the pharmaceutical industry, that the Times reported
The judges were impressed by his investigations in the field of medicine, saying he was probably “the only journalist in Britain that polices the drugs companies.” Deer’s award wining articles in the Sunday Times Magazine, ranged from vaccine-damaged children to the hidden side effects of Viagra.
Prior to that in 1985 he had exposed fabricated evidence for the safety of contraceptive pills by a scientist employed by German drug company, Schering AG. His investigation of The Wellcome Trust in 1994 was followed by the withdrawal in the UK of a blockbuster antibiotic, Septrin, Bactrim, and the sale of the trust’s pharmaceutical subsidiary Wellcome Foundation. And, as if to show to his critics that he had not been bought off by big pharma in order to go after Wakefield, in 2005 he was hot on the heels of MMR manufacturers Merck over deadly side effects of the drug Vioxx.
So congratulations Brian. Hopefully you will not have to write about Wakefield and MMR again. But I am sure that there will be plenty of future wrongdoers in need of exposure to your “outstanding perseverance,stamina and revelation.”
Congratulations to Brian Deer for winning the award for Specialist Journalist of the Year at the British Press Award s tonight. According to the judges,
“The winner showed outstanding perseverance, stamina and revelation on a story of major importance. It led to a tremendous righting of a wrong on MMR.”In Deer’s acceptance speech there was thinly veiled criticism of the journalists who gave Andrew Wakefield a free ride for so long in as well as the suggestion that, in giving him the award, the British newspaper industry was acknowledging these past mistakes and had finally got it right.
“I’d just like to say that this award does have my name on it but in many ways I think this is an award for the industry as a whole. Because this is a story where some of us, some of my colleagues,our colleagues I think got the story wrong and became prisoners of their sources for over a long period of time. And I think this is an award for an industry that gets it right and an industry that I am very proud to be a party to.”This is not the first time Brian Deer has won this award. He won the same award in 1999. It is interesting, in view of attempts to smear him as hireling of the pharmaceutical industry, that the Times reported
The judges were impressed by his investigations in the field of medicine, saying he was probably “the only journalist in Britain that polices the drugs companies.” Deer’s award wining articles in the Sunday Times Magazine, ranged from vaccine-damaged children to the hidden side effects of Viagra.Prior to that in 1985 he had exposed fabricated evidence for the safety of contraceptive pills by a scientist employed by German drug company, Schering AG. His investigation of The Wellcome Trust in 1994 was followed by the withdrawal in the UK of a blockbuster antibiotic, Septrin, Bactrim, and the sale of the trust’s pharmaceutical subsidiary Wellcome Foundation. And, as if to show to his critics that he had not been bought off by big pharma in order to go after Wakefield, in 2005 he was hot on the heels of MMR manufacturers Merck over deadly side effects of the drug Vioxx.
So congratulations Brian. Hopefully you will not have to write about Wakefield and MMR again. But I am sure that there will be plenty of future wrongdoers in need of exposure to your “outstanding perseverance,stamina and revelation.”