Yes, so cost-effective, in fact, that I am sure herd immunisations could be handled by a suitably muscular voluntary sector combined with a free market in access to medicines. But people shouldn’t be compelled to have something injected into their bodies for the convenience of the state.

“Out of interest would you say it was ok for the government to spend money on persuading people of the benefits of MMR (say through an advertising campaign).”

I would certainly view that as the much lesser of many potential evils but I would be tempted to suggest that a government advertising campaign might further undermine the case now since it is hardly a trusted information source!

I do not know exactly what the answer is. Journalists maintain no qualifications that they can be meaningfully stripped but perhaps their monopoly on outrage is being undermined by blogging at the moment. My hope is that more decentralised information will lead, at least eventually, to a more informed populace. I think teaching a more general understanding of medical science and the scientific method (basically the traditional way that sciences were taught in schools) might help the public sphere generate a better instinct for sniffing out bullshit that occasionally does get into the media and even into the scientific community.

We also have to understand the ground rules. Parents are responsible for their children, including evaluating the risks of things like vaccines. Some will make crap choices and others will make selfish choices on behalf of their children but they have that right - most will choose not to when they realise what harm they can cause their children. Or they’ll do silly things like pay for each vaccine seperately - moderately foolish but still right.

One of the arguments that wasn’t, I feel, made at the time was that even if Andrew Wakefield was spot on, the risk would still have to be weighed against the (individual) risks of measles, mumps and/or rubella. I think there’s a good argument for teaching basic statistics in school.

Nick @ 3 - the point of vaccinations is that less money is spent. Immunisation is cheaper than handling an epidemic,

Questionthat @ 4 - no, people who really do know better are suggesting that parents should immunise their children - GPs, for instance. There’s no question of compulsion

Planeshift @ 7 - a campaign to put the facts, yes.

I agree with you that forcing vaccines on people is wrong,

However out of interest would you say it was ok for the government to spend money on persuading people of the benefits of MMR (say through an advertising campaign)?

Also, given that lives are now being lost because of the ignorance of journalists, what about also holding the newspapers concerned to account for their scaremongering - in what sense can they be meaningfully held to account?

That is sad because despite GPs everywhere encouraging MMR use, millions of parents didn’t believe them because of something they read in their newspaper.

That is an awful position for society to put GPs in. They need to be held in the high esteem that their expertise deserves. When it comes to making medical decisions about their family, parents should consider their GP the first and most important port of call.

So does anyone have any suggestions as to how we restore that instinct to trust GPs?

I am very concerned a the prospect that the government would hand out dispensations to people with a “religious” conscience (as opposed to what? Fear, justified or not, for their child’s health?), dangerously reinforcing a divide between the rights and respect given to those who believe in (one particular sort of) God and those that don’t. With that in mind, how is this proposal liberal, either of the right or left?

I would prefer it if people treated this as a social issue rather than a political one. The science has, in so far as anything can be conclusive in science, been settled. The quacks need to be hounded from their positions where they get to disseminate misinformation, held in contempt, and sued for malpractice and fraud when appropriate. But the argument for vaccines should be won on the basis of “it is good for you and it is good for your neighbour” rather than “because we say so, and we’re the government!”.