The Quackometer

(Following from my earlier post today: Jeni Barnett and Irresponsible Broadcasting

In which we learn that Jeni has half an 'ology' and that Jeni learns that the flu jab does not protect your from colds - they are different diseases

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START TRANSCRIPT: JENI BARNETT, LBC RADIO, MMR VACCINE SEGMENT.
RB - Doctor Rob

JB - Jeni Barnett

RB: Good afternoon Jennie

JB: Good afternoon sir.

RB: The very last point that you made, the answer to that is that it's a geopolitical thing, it's got nothing to do with the facts of medicine and measles and how measles affects individuals and indeed how the vaccine affects individuals.  Let me give you just a few very basic facts for your listeners.  My background, I'm quite happy to
tell you what I do, I was a paediatrician for a while and then I became a GP, I also do some acupuncture and some complementary medicine so I'm [unclear] to most arguments and can listen to most points that I can during my day.  And the facts of measles are that most people's experience of measles if their gets measles is that it's a

*TIMESTAMP 05.00*

mild illness, gives them fever and a rash and mum has to take a few days off work to look after their child, and they get better.  That's because that's what happens with most children with measles. Some children however, get very very very serious complications of measles and because the measles rate in the UK is lower - although is now on the increase - most people's experience is of the mild illness.  All
you need to do is meet one family whose normal child, they took the decision not to vaccinate their child, they got measles, and they got a devastating complication such as inflammation of the brain which we call encephalitis, or they died, then your opinion changes.

JB: Not necessarily.

RB: Well it may change your-

JH: But you see Rob let me just-

RB: A different level to your-

JB: It's a different level, I completely take what you're saying, but I can counter that with: 'Gave my son MMR, and then watched him

*TIMESTAMP 06.00*

shut down for a week as autism took hold, went from chatty little boy to no speech at all, now lives in his own world, I live with guilt' - that's from Paul.  Now I can counter an emotional argument-

RB: Of course I completely appreciate that and people are, and still are, very worried about the links between MMR and even though as Jen, one of your listeners said 'Every GP who comes on the phone says all of that evidence has been disproved', it still lingers as a concern, and I meet parents every day who are concerned about that, and it's very hard to dispel that.

JB: What do you same to them though, what's your advice?

RB: Well I think, what I take them through is the facts that I started off this conversation with.  The other fact I just want to tie in and I know you're busy-

JB: No!, you can talk.

RB: Is that vaccination, with vaccinations, some children don't respond to a vaccination, so some people phone up and they say 'Look my child's had this vaccine and still got measles.'  That's because of the science of the vaccine, after one vaccine of MMR about

*TIMESTAMP 07.00*

90% of children will mount a response to protect them from measles. After the booster - so the second vaccine of MMR - that figure goes to about 95-96%.  That's about 4% children who've had both doses who'll still be vulnerable.

 
JB: But there are those [unclear] and if you were [unclear] are you sneezing?!

RB: Yeah; I'm still here.

JB: God bless you darling, gezundheit, how lovely to have you sneezing on air.  If you were my doctor, and I brought in my daughter, I would want to know what side effects there were of these things, and then I would then have to make my decision based on that, wouldn't I?

RB: Well of course, of course, the other-

JB: And that's what I think- go on.

RB: The other complicating factor [unclear] vaccine is that, if you're [unclear] is, as you said through your show, you can make an automous informed decision for yourself once you're over sixteen.  One your making for your child is a completely different thought process, isn't it?

*TIMESTAMP 08.00*

JB: Well absolutely, but Paul has said-

RB: [sneezes]

JB: God bless you again my darling, you're sneezing [unclear]

RB: Yeah, everyone's given me a cold, people cough in my face and I get a cold-

JB: But you see there's a point, I'm going to ask you something here.

Have you had the flu jab?

RB: Yes I have.

JB: And still you've got the cold?

RB: I've got a cold but I haven't got the flu, I'm not in bed unable to get out for a week.

JB: But why-

RB: That vaccine protects you from influenza, it doesn't protect you from colds.

JB: You see, I, would there ever be, I mean you say that you give acupuncture and you give all sorts of complementary things, why is measles, in the 21st century, such a hot topic?

RB: Because, I think one of the problems Jennie, the honest [unclear] is that people like - because the measles, mumps and rubella comes as one, people think about each of the individual diseases.  Now rubella really is only a problem in early pregnancy,

*TIMESTAMP 09.00*

as you talked about on your show, and mumps, OK, it can lead to some complications for boys, with their testicles if they get involved, but measles is the one that really does kill.  And it does kill children, and it's just because the numbers in Western Europe and the States and Australia are lower that we don't see this so often.  And in fact a few years ago there were children dying in Ireland of measles, I think there were two children, died in Ireland.

JB: And what causes measles?

RB: Measles is caused by a virus, and it's spread by coughing, it's spread by sneezing, it's spread by close contact-

JB: So let me ask you this, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I want to squeeze it out of you, if it's viral, if childrens' immune systems are strong-

RB: [sneezes]

JB: God bless you again!  If it's a viral thing and childrens' immune systems are strong, what's the problem?

*TIMESTAMP 10.00*

Is it because our childrens' immune systems are now so shot that they cannot deal with an ordinary childhood illness?

RB: I don't believe that to be true, you have three children in a class, one gets a cold, and that child sneezes in his class, over his two classmates, one of them may get a cold and one of them may not, but all three of those children are perfectly healthy, that's just the nature of disease.

JB: I didn't say that though. I asking you as a medic, and you've got an -ology, and I've only got half an -ology,

RB: I have got an -ology [laughs]

JB: [laughs] and an allergy, it sounds like too - if all three  childrens' immune system were very very strong, they would deal with it differently, wouldn't they?  Who's done that test?  Who's done that scientific test?

RB: Well I can't quote you a scientific paper about that, but it's an observation, isn't it, that people seem to think that a sanitised country, and the sanitised parts that we live in, is weakening children, that's why there's more eczema,

*TIMESTAMP 11.00*

there's more allergies and this kind of thing, it's a theory, it's not-

JB: It's not science-

RB: You can dig out papers to prove that, you can dig out papers to disprove that, but that's the same with modern medicine, that you have to weigh it in the balance, and my ending argument really would be, it's a numbers game, and the numbers are that most children who get measles will get over it, a very few minority get very serious
complications.

JB: That's what needs to be said, and I bless you, Dr Rob in Bermondsey, and actually, he has to go because we're going to Travel.

END TRANSCRIPT

Labels: Jeni Barnett