LBC's Jeni Barnett on the MMR jab

The preposterous prejudice of the anti-MMR lobby
The campaigners were always irrational. Yet the paranoia persists and children's lives are more at risk than ever
David Aaronovitch
Last week there was a bust-up in blogland. I'll explain later why it matters, but for now I'll just give you the bones of it. On one side was the author of the Bad Science blog, Ben Goldacre, who is an invaluable persecutor of the anti-scientific and wilfully inexpert.

On the other side was the warm, friendly broadcaster, Jeni Barnett, whose most substantial incarnation currently takes place on afternoons on LBC, a London local radio station, where she hosts a phone-in.

Goldacre was so annoyed about the January 7 edition of Barnett's show, dealing, among other things, with MMR and vaccination, that he posted the whole of it as a clip on his own website, where it acted as a sort of audio chamber of horrors to appal his readers. A few days later the lawyers for LBC contacted Goldacre and told him that he was infringing their copyright and must remove the clip forthwith, or else.

Goldacre was now anger squared. This is not about LBC or Jeni Barnett, he wrote. This is about one perfect, instructive, illustrative example of a whole genre of irresponsible journalism that drove the media's anti-vaccine campaign for ten solid years, with serious consequences for public health.
Goldacre's accusation is important. Last week ended with new figures for measles cases in the United Kingdom, showing that over the past decade we have managed the interesting - and almost unprecedented - trick of reintroducing into this country a disease that had more or less disappeared. A few children will have died as a result and some others will suffer serious long-term health problems. These figures correlate to the drop in parents giving their children the MMR vaccination. And that drop, more controversially, may be seen as the consequence of a panic about MMR that began around 2001, peaked in 2002-03, and still - even after the discrediting of the claims about the supposed link between MMR and autism affects vaccination rates today.

Unable to listen to the withdrawn audio clips, I settled for some of the transcripts of Barnett's phone-in as posted on various websites...AND THIS REINACTMENT


from the folks at www.thebigcigarette.com

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Jeni
• Barnett
• MMR
• LBC
• Ben
• Goldacre
• The
• Big
• CIgarette
• thebigcigarette.com

[gredrup]

Im loving the Welsh accent...not sure which one is better the man or the woman though!

[dormant111]

Nice one. Of course the original one is still accessible here on youtube and I urge everyone to listen to it while it's available. Enter Jeni Barnett into the search function.

[psrpippy]

Why did you not put the proper audio tape on here instead of this stupid reinactment. I have always found Jeni Barnett to giver balanced and fair interviews.

[MckenneyFilmsInc]

This vid is crap

[supershinystoat]

Jeni Barnett is a complete moron. She only got the job on LBC because she's friends with the batty man there who hired her. She is unprofessional, stupid, and insulting to Black and Asians by PATRONISING them.

[hexstaticleon]

this vid is crap.

jeni barnet is amazing. i love her even if she is ...err....25+ years older than me haha !!!

listen to her show everyday :)

big it up to Jeni Barnet :)

[82mozn]

oh dear silly woman.

[kewellish]

Actually, she's an ignorant arse!

[2bywater2]

Sorry, where do you think Jeni Barnett is from? Also, she never forced anyone to be opposed to conventional medicine, she just doesn't use it. The pharmaceutical companies are money grabbing idiots.

[ecouriercouk]

leave Jeni alone, she is delightful..

[sagahammer]

The "man" is actually Jeni Barnett but why is she talking in such a silly voice and daft Pseudo Septic accent. OK she's stupid but that's no excuse.