Nothing to do with us: Measles in Wales

The recent measles outbreak in Wales occurred near Swansea. The local newspaper in the area gave publicity to the autism-MMR vaccine hoax, and may have been behind the area’s relatively poor vaccination rate. Tammy Boyce’s Health Risk and News: The MMR Vaccine and the Media described an examination of the Swansea MMR uptake rates:

Mason and Donnelly (2000) examined coverage of the MMR /Autism story in the local Swansea paper The South Wales Evening Post (SWEP) and compared the Swansea MMR uptake rates with the vaccination rates across Wales. Since 1997, coverage of the MMR vaccine in the SWEP has primarily challenged the safety of the triple jab and supported Wakefield’s theories. Many stories, predominatly written by one journalist, covered the experiences of parents who claimed their child’s autism was linked to MMR vaccine.  Mason and Donnelly found the MMR uptake in the Swansea area declined by 13.6% compared to 2.4% in the rest of Wales, ‘a statistically significant greater decline in the distribution area of the SWEP ’. They admit their conclusion cannot claim a causal relationship but they do suggest the newspaper ‘has had a measurable and unhelpful impact over and above any adverse national publicity’.

The newspaper concerned does not make the link between its reporting and reduced MMR vaccine uptake, when reporting the recent outbreak. On August 24th, 2007 the paper was reporting that the low uptake rates for MMR vaccine were a ticking time bomb.

SWANSEA is facing a ticking health time bomb, GPs have warned.
They say unless more mums and dads make sure their youngsters are protected by the MMR jab, the city could face a measles epidemic.
Latest figures show thousands of schoolchildren are being placed at risk because they are not fully protected by the MMR vaccination.
Health chiefs say around 10,000 youngsters aged under 15 are not completely covered because they have not had the full course of treatment. For the vaccine to be effective, children need two jabs. The injections should then protect youngsters from measles, mumps and rubella.
However, uptake in Swansea is among the lowest in Wales.

This can hardly be a surprise to the paper, since less than a month earlier the paper had published an article called “Doctor calls for truth on vaccines” (July 30th 2007) which provided free publicity for Dr Richard Halvorsen. The following extract will allow you to play “anti-vaccine” statement bingo:

Dr Richard Halvorsen, raises his concerns – warning that the Government “misleads us about vaccines”.
Author of a new book, The Truth About Vaccines, he claims that UK children are being used as “guinea pigs” and given “unnecessary” jabs for illnesses such as mumps, and a vaccine for whooping cough which has been “ineffective” in stamping out the illness.
Halvorsen is a GP who has spent five years researching vaccination.
He said: “Vaccine programmes are not the magic bullet cure that they are claimed to be, and bombarding children with a cocktail of vaccines could be causing some serious health problems, with hundreds if not thousands of children adversely affected every year.”
Dr Halvorsen points out that a child is supposed to have 25 vaccines by the time they are 15 months old.
“There remains uncertainty whether the growing number of childhood vaccinations is contributing to the rising numbers of children affected by asthma, diabetes and other immune related disorders,” he claimed.
[...]
“I have been told that there is no one study that can disprove that MMR may cause 10 per cent of autism cases in this country in susceptible children. Studies can show that MMR does not cause all autism.

The Mason and Donnlly paper cited by Boyce is here:

Mason, BW and Donnelly, PD (2000) ‘Impact of a local newspaper campaign on the uptake of MMR vaccine’, Journal of Epidemiological Community Health, 54: 473-474 [ link ]

Seven years after warnings about their reporting on MMR vaccine, SWEP continued to publish dangerous nonsense about vaccines.