It is interesting that despite the accusations of conspiracies and non-stop torrent of dubious material published on anti-MMR/anti-vaccine sites, concerning named individauls such as Ben Goldacre, Brian Deer, David Salisbury (Head of immunisation), and even myself at times, it is the anti-MMR side that seems to resort to law.
Wakefield attempted to use libel law to silence Channel Four, Brian Deer, and even the Department of Health, and failed. Now Ben Goldacre has received threats from the legal team of a Jeni Barnett, a TV personality I was previously unaware of. She released a torrent of ill-informed nonsense about MMR vaccine on LBC radio, which Ben Goldacre posted on his blog as an audio file. She has now forced the file off Ben’s site with the help of her legal team on copyright grounds (although it has now appeared on wikileaks).
Even without listening to it, you can get a feel for her views from her website:
I am not a scientist, I would not claim to be a scientist. When tested on the contents of the MMR vaccine I told the truth. I did not have the facts to hand. Was I ill informed? Yes.As a responsible broadcaster I should have been better prepared as a parent, however, I can fight my corner. I don’t know everything that goes into cigarettes but I do know they are harmful.
As a professional should I have been better prepared – YES – but the discussion took off in a direction I hadn’t expected when I received a vicious phone call from a Nurse I was utterly thrown. I won’t get thrown again.
[...]
Injecting tiny babies with substances that may compromise their immune system needs to be looked at not shouted down.
So, we know why she didn’t want it widely circulated. She admits she didn’t know what she was talking about, but still decided to spout off nonsense. Note the use of the old myth that vaccines are compromising the immune system. And the comparison of MMR vaccine with cigarettes is priceless, given the fact the harm they cause was found in epidemiological studies. The same type of study that the anti-MMR lobby dismiss as useless when they are used to show no link between autism and MMR vaccine.
On the plus side, her decision to run to her lawyers to suppress her interview, willl have exactly the opposite effect Alisher Usmanov found, when he attempted to use libel law to suppress discussion of his prior criminal record. His action led to a multitude of blogs linking to the story.
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That was mildly entertaining. But then I read this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7872541.stm
and I’m no longer laughing.
Looks like fair use to me.
So, we have another ill-informed anti-vaccinationist who now joins the ranks of J. B. Handley, who had to retract a good portion of one of his cyber-squatting websites, Andy Wakefield, Kathleen Seidel, et al.
When will these people realize that they no longer control the flow of information and cannot stop the tsunami of widespread propagation of information that occurs in the blogosphere? Do they not realize that an attack on one blogger is considered to be an attack on all bloggers (exepct for Kirby and Olmsted, who had to be shamed in responding in Kathleen’s behalf)?