Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Commercial vaccination provider told to stop misleading on their website

News is just in that Babyjabs.co.uk, the website of Dr Richard Halvorsen, a vaccine-critical GP, which promotes/sells single measles, (mumps) and rubella shots has been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority to stop using misleading wording on their website. The Babyjabs website has been claiming
"This means that the vaccine could be causing autism in up to 10% of autistic children in the UK - between 300 and 400 children a year. The vaccine strain measles virus has been found in the guts - and brains - of some autistic children; this research supports many parents' beliefs that the MMR vaccine has caused autism in their children".
The complaint claimed:
1. the claim "Most experts now agree that the large rise [in autism] has been caused partly by increased diagnosis, but also by a real increase in the number of children with autism" was misleading and could be substantiated.
2. the claim "the [MMR] vaccine could be causing autism in up to 10% of autistic children in the UK - between 300 and 400 children a year" was misleading and could be substantiated; and,
3. the claim "The vaccine strain measles virus has been found in the guts - and brains - of some autistic children; this supports many parents' belief that the MMR vaccine has caused autism in their children" was misleading and could be substantiated.
and three points of the complaint were upheld by the ASA after review of Babyjabs' long response. Read the reasoning here - it is interesting.

A quick look at the Babyjabs MMR web page today shows that there are still desperately promoting the MMR-autism link, citing the recent Italian MMR-ruling (Just the Vax passim), and emphasising MMR side effects, without comparing them to the complications of the disease (over 20% of measles patients in Merseyside were hospitalised). This is fear mongering at its best with the purpose of selling a part of the protection (mumps single vaccine has not been available in the UK for several years) that parents could get free on the NHS. Proponents of the single vaccines (often private doctors selling them) like to argue that offering parents the choice to get single vaccines will overall increase compliance and that they are just responding to parental requests. However, fact is that children on a selective schedule experience significant delays until full protection (if they are able to get all singles) and a sales site who meticulously lists all proven and alleged adverse vaccine events and concludes:
We do not offer the MMR vaccine at BabyJabs We are concerned that the safety of the vaccine has not been adequately demonstrated, and believe that the single vaccines are suitable alternatives that are equally – possibly more – effective and are probably safer.
 does not appear a "neutral provider" at all.

See also the excellent write up on Stuff and Nonsense who was the complainant...
 

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