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The Times





Does this mean Andrew Wakefield should be tried for Manslaughter?

He Bloody should.

Malc

Fuck me, what a cock. Why would you do that?

What a colossal shithead.

Though pretty much everyone reputable came out immediately and trashed the story in the first instance. I remember looking in to it a few times and being utterly nonplussed as to why people were stopping the vital immunisations. Sadly, it was just because The Sun etc published stories as scare stories sell papers.

Mrs Grim... and I got the Grimlet done - did anyone avoid giving their kids the MMR jab because of this?

Stupid people.

Tony Blair and Mrs Tony Blair, ISTR.

In fairness, I think they made no comment over that.

Which, I think is quite correct.

<Ben Elton> He's murdered enough babies in Iraq so one more won't make a difference. </Ben Elton>

A little bit of politics for you there.

I didn't have the MMR because I was allergic to it. I ended up having to have each innoculation separately.

? It didn't exist when we were kids.

It was introduced in 1988, so I would've been six then. At what age do children normally have it?

Initial dose at 1 year then booster at 3-5 yrs. Not sure if you would have the booster if you'd never had the initial.

Hmmm, I'm confused then.

This'll make that case against Ben Goldacre disappear then

It's fucking ridiculous the number of fuckwit righton parents in London who didn't have the jab because of this report - I think inoculations were down 25% across London.

Not really, because it leaves open the glaringly likely possibility that Mrs Tony Blair, in all her new-age mystical freakery, decided not to do it.

Correct would have been to say "Yes, we did, because there's nothing to be afraid of".

edit: a quick search reveals -


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 033338.ece

Remember when there was that problem with eggs, and beef, I forget which and some bloke/woman got his daughters on telly eating eggs/beef?

I thought that was undignified, the Blair's silence, was, on the whole not.

Not us. All the jabs. Jab jab jab.

We saw kids with whooping cough and measles in the hospital, poor bastards. The doctors said they were seeing more and more cases. It's due to declining levels of immunisaiton generally, not just MMR - but the MMR broo-haha seems to have created a mistrust of all immunisations. Plus our area is full of stupid hippies. So the herd immunity goes down and the most vulnerable kids (i.e. those too young to be immmunised) tend to suffer. So, basically, people who don't get their kids immmunised are babykillers. Yes, that's right. I said it.

Also - remember that Tony Blair refused to say whether his kid had had it? I bet he didn't get them done.

A blogger I follow wrote about this last week, albeit talking more about Ben Goldacre than this latest revelation. Here's a shocking graph:

Still not got that "Read all the posts" achievement, then?

Post first, read second. My thoughts are more important.

Well, okay then, I'll take that bet. £20 says he did get them done.

OK - but the required proof is a signed letter from Tony B addressed to you saying that he did.

As a bonus achievement said letter must also contain an apology for being an insufferable cunt.

Who from? You, Grim... or Tony Blair?

I had it done last week as I missed it as an adolescent.

So how many newspapers will publish an apology for their part in all this when they follow up on the story?

Well, the letter's from Tony B so....

Nice try though

A small one on page 9 or something

John Selwyn Gummer. BSE.

That's a good point to bring up, but to be fair it's a bit of a different case. There was a public scare about BSE, and indeed it was out of proportion to the eventual risk, but it *was* a real and uncertain risk at the time (not just hippy scaremongering), and an easily avoided one at that. People did not need to be cajoled into ignoring the facts in the crass way that that was done (no doubt on behalf of his farming and meat industry pals), and he was rightly ridiculed.

The Blairs, if they had had their child vaccinated in line with all reasonable medical advice and, would have been able to come out with a statement to that effect which would have been vastly reassuring for the worrying types of islington, and the press would have stopped stirring it up as well. But they hadn't, so they couldn't.

I can only work with the material I'm given. I'd give myself an A-.

What's happened to the millions of us who should be crippled and dead from vCJD, anyway? I've eaten all sorts of shitty "meat"* all my life and I'm alright.

* Like those sausages from the freezer section filled with stabilisers because cold just isn't good enough - I loved 'em.

Refusing to comment on whether you've had your kids vaccinated means that you believe the story, and think that the risk is too high. When the PM does this, it's hardly surprising that the rest of the country did the same. Blair fucked the cause of immunisation in this country that day, and it'll take a long time recovering.

Exactly

No-one's ever going to see my post at the bottom of the last page, are they?

Also: "Immunise your kids or we'll immunise YOUR FACE."

I thought it had a 13 year incubation period or something, so we're due a massive spate round about... now, actually.



It can't be stated strongly enough that people who don't get their kids immunised (unless it's for medical reasons such as allergy or similar) are selfish fucks who are putting other people's kids at risk, and should be stabbed in the genitals repeatedly after being made to spend 300 consecutive nights locked in a ward with children with whooping cough.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH IT'S MEATOGEDDON!

It's something like a 30 year incubation period. So you're alright *now*.

You're not allowed to give blood in Ireland or the US (I think) if you lived in the UK when the risk was present.

So it is the PM's fault that the Doctor wrote the report.

I would be worried if the report was true, and might have asked for the seperate jabs..

Be a good plot for a Zombie movie wouldn't it?

No, it's his fault for making the situation worse by implying that it might be.



It wasn't true though, and the body of medical opinion at the time said it wasn't true, including Blair's Chief Medical Officer person.

Don't be silly. It's the PM's fault that the nation believed the report.

so basically, he has to put being a PM before being a parent?

I think Blair can be blamed for this one. He had the opportunity to say that his kid had had the MMR, and didn't do so. It was a straightforward question which he ducked.

You cannot blame people from drawing the inference of "no" from any other answer than "yes".

For a guy who wheeled out his family at just about every opportunity, it was a huge misstep.

But if he did not have teh MMR should he have said too?

He should have explained why he was going against the overwhelming majority of the evidence, including that of his CMO, yes. But he did neither, because he's a bellend of some considerable pedigree.

Yeah, he does. Because decisions like this affect the welfare of 10million+ kids, and that's a damned sight more important. Also, he has access to the highest funded medical research bodies in the country - if he believed that one report, he's a fucking dick.

Still, even if he had said "No, we have not given our son the MMR, and this is why not", that would be better than avoiding the question.

I sense thet no matter what the ex-PM did. You chaps hate him, and he would be in the wrong.

By saying no comment, people should have made there own mind up.

Is easier to take notice of one report than damns somethign than 200 reports that praise. I mean the side effects (now know as false) were quite extreme,

Hm. I, like Mr Chris, thought it was more like 13.

Of course there's only one way to answer this question.

What? People were clamouring for reassurance that their children wouldn't become autistic - what sort of reaction do you think 'no comment' is going to get.

"Hey, Kovacs, go swim in that lake."
"Are there sharks in there?"
"No comment."

We've already said what he could have said that we'd have been happy with, or did you not read those posts?



Christ on a bike, are you really that naive? He knew that's not what would happen, as would any faintly sane and intelligent human being.



Thank fuck you're not a doctor or a scientist, then!

See the article I linked - at the point when it was front page news every day, and he was being questioned about it, the kid *hadn't* had the jab, presumably because cherie was into crystals and homeopathy and that, and they believed the scaremongering.

So he couldn't really say "yes" at that point even if he wanted to. They quietly got it done later, a lot later than normally administered, I guess after being browbeaten into it by advisers.