I shouldn't be having to write this blog. We shouldn't still be having to see news stories about measles outbreaks in 2013. We have an effective, relatively safe vaccine which should have massively reduced the incidence of this potentially fatal or life-changing disease. But no, here we are in the midst of an outbreak which is starting to reach scary levels. The first fatality has been reported, in 25 year old man, although it hasn't yet been confirmed that measles is the reason for his death.
So why is it still one of the main topics of conversation at the moment? Well I'm pretty sure you're aware of the truly awful, entirely discredited research by the now-struck-off the register Andrew Wakefield. If anyone is unsure about whether or not its unfair to think of Wakefield as a nasty piece of work, remember that he was struck off because of 4 counts of dishonesty and 12- yes, 12-counts of the abuse of developmentally challenged children. Its been 15 years since the publication of his "elaborately fraudulent" paper which suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism- and yet still to this day a dark cloud of fear surrounds the big scary needle that evil big pharma and nasty doctors want to inject into innocent children.
A quick history of events goes thus: Wakefield's paper is published in The Lancet---> Wakefield's paper is picked up by the media---> all hell breaks loose---> Children aren't vaccinated---> Wakefield's paper is discredited---> media continues panic-mongering--->Children still aren't vaccinated--->Other research says MMR isnt associated with autism---> media continues panic mongering---> Children still aren't vaccinated---> Measles outbreak---> media continues panic mongering ---> Wakefield denies responsibility ---> media denies responsibility. And that pretty much brings us back up to date.
So, are the media right to deny any responsibility? Are they hell, and there's evidence to prove it. Anecdotally, I found myself a few months ago having a lengthy, in-depth conversation with a customer about whether or not his first child should be vaccinated. "I thought it was all sorted out and was rubbish" he said. "But then I read about it in the Daily Mail and they said it was proven." Luckily it was quiet, and I had a chance to spend some time with him, discussing the problems with the Daily Mail report, the original research, and the risks of not being vaccinated. "Oh", he said: "we hadn't thought of the fact that measles might be dangerous." He left hopefully feeling reassured, but concerned that his girlfriend still wouldn't believe him and wouldn't want to vaccinate their child. One of my best friends isn't vaccinated, because his Mum read the seemingly terrifying stories in the press and refused to allow him to have the vaccine. As a result he caught measles, and german measles, (and whooping cough too), bless him. This got me wondering about whether or not there is good, hard evidence that the media is to blame.
In short, the answer is yes, a bit. In a telephone survey of the parents of 177 children who hadn't had the MMR vaccine, fear of side effects was the most common reason given, and the most common source of information was the media. Another study found that parents were more influenced by the fear of harm from the vaccine than fear of harm from measles itself. In another, parents seem to have thought that the information on vaccines given to them by healthcare professionals was poor. A qualitative study again found that parents did not rate science or evidence as important factors when making a decision about whether or not to vaccinate their child.
All of this leaves us with an unfortunate dichotomy. We healthcare professionals usually deal in science and evidence- and so we should, as this provides us with the safest and most objective method of treating patients. But it seems like this is a currency that the general public not only don't often deal in, but on occasion actively reject.
Yes, vaccines have risks associated with them, but these risks are nowhere near as bad as the risks of the disease itself- its a simple case of harm reduction. If your teenager is going to have a drink, would you rather that they had one glass of wine at the dinner table, in your house where they are safe, or a bottle of vodka on a street corner in an area surrounded by drug dealers and murderers? Wouldn't you rather give a small, highly controlled dose of a disease in a vaccine than take the risk of your child getting the whole, dirty, nasty disease itself? It does seem that the potential for harm of the disease itself can be forgotten in the decision making process.
So how do we go about changing this? I have no idea, to be honest. Its amazing to me, and quite mystifying, that one utterly rubbish- and rather cruel-piece of research can still- 15 years later- hold so much weight over the safety of children. Is it the misguided fear of a poorly understood condition in autism, or the terror of big pharma, or an unquestioning faith in what the papers say? It seems to me that all we can do, as health care professionals, is continue to attempt as much as we can to give rational, evidence-based advice to our patients. We can improve our communication skills, but i'm not convinced that we will ever be able to truly "win" the good fight if the media continues on with such atrocious health and science reporting. 15 years on and some of the newspapers still insist on calling him "Dr" Andrew Wakefield, when he is very demonstrably no longer a doctor. They use scary photos of massive needles, and continue to give space to the idea that MMR can cause autism, when all of science and rationality disagrees. They reach for emotional language at any opportunity, pitting devastated parents against the picture of a cold, uncaring healthcare profession that they paint. We can try as much as we like to convince our patients on a one-to-one basis, but its like trying to take a drink from a firehose with such irresponsible reporting reaching millions of people every day.
The short answer here is that the blame for the current measles outbreaks lies in all sorts of places. ITs a comedy of errors, but not a very funny one. But, it seems clear to me that the media in particular needs to sit up and realise the harm that it is reaping on a daily basis.
Hxxx
