Not so long ago I worked with a woman who, returning to work after maternity leave, declared her baby would not be receiving the MMR jab because she knew it caused autism.
This pernicious and oddly British myth has been persisted by an ill-informed LBC Presenter, Jeni Barnett and when Ben Goldacre of the Bad Science blog published a 20 44 minutes excerpt from the 3-hr show to illustrate the stupidity and ignrance of the anti-vaccination crowd he was hit with a legal threat from LBC’s lawyers.
The story’s gone viral and now the Streisand effect kicks in. Full transcripts are appearing all over the web and Wikileaks has the mp3.
Goldacre says,
It is my view that Jeni Barnett torpedoes her reputation in that audio excerpt so effectively that little explanation is needed
and I can’t disagree.