Deer stalking and MMR
Private Eye (London) December 10 2004
Sir,
Bitterness oozes from every line of Private Eye’s attack on me (Eye 1120), essentially for my having the temerity to expose the facts that lurk behind a campaign by Private Eye and certain other publications to generate aggressive, cheap, copy by knocking the MMR vaccine.
The Eye attacks me for my Channel 4 Dispatches documentary of November 18, which revealed some of the embarrassments at the heart of an effort by a small group of nameable individuals who have tried to damage public confidence in MMR. This follows similar attacks on me in Private Eye earlier this year after my Sunday Times journalism led to the retraction of published claims of a possible link between MMR and autism.
In neither case did Private Eye attempt to contact me – perhaps for the purpose of asking for my evidence, or, heaven forbid, getting my response to what it proposed to publish.
If Private Eye won’t engage with a journalist, perhaps it might engage with the concerns of the parents who featured in our programme: one couple whose daughter died horrifically from measles; and another who mistakenly blamed themselves for their daughter’s autism, after being led to believe by media such as yours that it may have been their own decision over vaccination that was responsible for her disorder.
There can be few subjects laying a greater responsibility on those who seek to intervene with apparent authority. If Private Eye can’t engage with evidence that, in my opinion, shames its reputation, it’s time it joined its former allies in certain newspapers, and if not apologise for its role in the MMR scare, then at least move on.
BRIAN DEER
Twenty Twenty Television, London NW1.
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