[makomk]

The mainstream media here in the UK have also been misleading people into thinking sites like Facebook are to blame for a measles vaccination crisis they themselves created. About two decades ago the entire British press repeated bogus claims by a certain Dr Wakefield that caused a massive dip in MMR vaccinations, and now that gap in vaccinations is in danger of creating a measles epidemic. Sites like the BBC blamed this on antivaxxer communities on Facebook, quoting childhood vaccination statistics out of context to make it sound like there'd been a massive dip recently when in reality the percentage of kids getting their MMR vaccines in the UK had hit an all-time record high in 2017 and barely dropped since.

[jl6]

Was it obvious at the time that Wakefield‘s claims were bogus, or did that come out after the initial media panic? I don’t blame non-scientist reporters from believing an apparently-credible study, but I would blame them if they continued to push the debunked position after consensus had debunked it. Clearly the current Facebook groups have no such excuse.

[ChrisSD]

The full extent of Wakefield's abuses didn't come out until later but it was clear at the time that the research did not support Wakefield's claims. Even if you ignored the methodology and simply accept the study's results, what it found was that the measles virus was present in the guts of 12 children with autism. This does not support the conclusion that autism is caused by the MMR vaccine (nor that the single vaccine Wakefield was promoting would be better). And indeed is too small scale to suggest much of anything except perhaps more research. At the press conference Wakefield was the only researcher suggesting MMR should be stopped.

The Private Eye and the Daily Mail were the ones to take the story and run with it. Turning it into a political "Wakefield vs. The Establishment" fight, rather than a scientific one.