James Randerson and the Guardian’s Deus-ex-Machina

By John Stone

In ancient Greek tragedy, particularly that of Euripides, it was a frequent ruse in order to bring the play to a proper conclusion and sort out the plot, to lower an actor playing one of the gods from a crane (HERE ). I was recently reminded of this creaking mechanism in a Guardian blog by environment editor (and former New Scientist deputy news editor), James Randerson. Randerson was complaining about irresponsible neighbouring parents whose refusal to vaccinate their children had led to his 11 month-old daughter contracting measles and being unwell for a few days. Of course, he displayed all the lack of knowledge of the subject we have come expect from senior science journalists in the UK, and made all the ritual ill-informed comments about Andy Wakefield (HERE). 
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“The sorry MMR saga began in 1998 with a tiny study (since partially retracted) in the Lancet. Andrew Wakefield and his team described 12 children with both bowel and behavioural problems who underwent various blood tests, gastrointestinal biopsies and lumbar punctures. It was, frankly, a deeply unimpressive piece of science which came to the less than stunning conclusion, "Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine."

“Instead, Wakefield himself is now being investigated by the General Medical Council over the research, because of alleged breaches of medical ethics and financial conflicts of interest. But what followed was a prolonged and shameful journalistic episode, in which Wakefield's speculation and misinformation was spread via flimsy news stories and scandalous comment pieces.”