The real MMR conspiracy

Spare a thought this morning for the tireless toilers at the Daily Mail. For at least three years, they have defied the Government and the medical establishment to warn parents about the risk of the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Here is just a sample of the headlines they used to alert the British public to the danger facing their children: "Fresh safety fears raised over MMR jab", "New MMR link found to autism", "MMR fears gain support", "MMR - risk of brain disorders?" They also enlisted an impressive list of supporters, including the columnist Melanie Phillips, the novelist Robert Harris and Cherie Blair's former style adviser, Carole Caplin.

Spare a thought this morning for the tireless toilers at the Daily Mail. For at least three years, they have defied the Government and the medical establishment to warn parents about the risk of the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Here is just a sample of the headlines they used to alert the British public to the danger facing their children: "Fresh safety fears raised over MMR jab", "New MMR link found to autism", "MMR fears gain support", "MMR - risk of brain disorders?" They also enlisted an impressive list of supporters, including the columnist Melanie Phillips, the novelist Robert Harris and Cherie Blair's former style adviser, Carole Caplin.

So what happened last week, when a comprehensive new study found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism? Naturally, I turned to my copy of Friday's Mail, expecting to see this tremendous piece of news - "Readers' children not at risk after all!" - blazoned on its front page. It wasn't there. Nor could I find it on an inside page, although the paper did find space to speculate about the contents of an Agent Provocateur gift box carried by Hugh Grant to a birthday celebration - a matter of considerable import, I admit, but not as urgent as the all-clear for a vaccine recommended for every child in Britain.

The news did turn up on the paper's website, in the form of a bald admission that the jab "is not linked to the development of autism in children", but the paper's executives were too modest to mention their long campaign to persuade us that precisely the opposite was the case. I can't say I'm surprised, for it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that the Mail's MMR campaign was that happiest of combinations - a health scare and a conspiracy theory rolled into one. In this parallel universe, where aliens have landed in Suffolk and the Bible contains hidden codes, the absence of hard evidence does not matter in the least. On the contrary, it indicates a massive cover-up, as Caplin explained in The Mail on Sunday: "It's been crystal clear that extremely powerful forces would like nothing better than to suppress public debate about the issue and discredit anyone questioning MMR." I hope Caplin's advice to Mrs Blair stuck to uncontroversial subjects such as which lipstick to wear. But Melanie Phillips was at it too, claiming that researchers were "allegedly bribed or threatened" not to have anything to do with Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist whose study started the scare six years ago.

Powerful forces are an essential component of conspiracy theories, whether they happen to involve British intelligence and the Duke of Edinburgh plotting to murder Diana, Princess of Wales - obvious nonsense, since they would surely have assassinated Princess Anne by mistake - or Mossad organising the attack on the twin towers, which is why 5,000 or so Jews supposedly did not turn up for work at the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. Some of the wackiest conspiracy theories have been given legs by the internet, where they do little harm as long as they are confined to claims that the moon landings were faked with special effects in a film studio.

The MMR scare does not fall into that category. In some parts of the country - I am tempted to say middle-class areas where the Daily Mail has lots of readers - take-up of the vaccine has fallen below 80 per cent. Few people in their 20s and 30s realise how nasty these diseases can be: I had measles as a child and was very sick indeed. In some instances it is fatal, which is why there needs to be compelling evidence to justify publishing a series of stories that might frighten parents into turning down the MMR vaccine. This was never the case - Wakefield's study was challenged by most experts and later shown to have serious flaws - but it provided a focus for the anger and guilt of parents with autistic children. That does not excuse the paper, which repeatedly demanded to know whom parents should trust to tell the truth about MMR. The answer, which has always been bleedin' obvious, is certainly not the Daily Mail.