It's the truth Jim - But not as we know it.

How the media (in this case the BBC) misdirect, even as they present the facts. The main 6 pm UK BBC News on Monday the 16th ran the story of Dr Andrew Wakefield who raised questions over the safety of the Measles Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine.

He is in trouble with the UK General Medical Council (GMC) over the matter and is up on charges brought by them of acting ‘unethically and dishonestly’. Something he and his colleagues strenuously deny.

The background is: He, together with two colleagues, published a research paper in the Lancet in 1998 that raised the possibility that the new MMR vaccine was linked to both autism and the bowel disorder Crohn's disease.

The Government and medical establishment have repeatedly rejected the suggestion that there was any increased risk to the new vaccine.

Now regardless, of the merits, or not, of the current case, for the moment let’s look at the BBC reporting of it. Really look at the way it was put together.

The BBC report showed a graph indicating the drop in the take up of the MMR vaccine against an increase in the incidence of measles and explained it in these terms, the strong implication being that Dr Wakefield and his colleagues had been responsible for what amounted to almost a measles epidemic and a child had died. Practically a mass murderer then…

I shall not go into the careful phrasing of the propaganda report, that suggested that there could be no question the vaccine was not safe as houses and had a certain hint of ‘scientific consensus’ about it in a massive body of evidence.

They even trotted out a Mother (and indeed, who should know better?) who told us all that her G.P. (General Practitioner, or Dr) had ‘assured her the MMR vaccine was perfectly safe’. Much more convincing than all those parents who had turned out demonstrating in Dr Wakefield’s favour.

It may be the BBC were only repeating what they had been told. In that case the researcher in this case may also be interested in purchasing some attractively fancy looking shares in a Bolivian gold mine I can make available to them at short notice - as soon as the ink has dried.

The fact is those who had concerns about the new joint vaccine had wanted to ensure that the previous single vaccines continued to be available for parents to request, precisely in order to avoid any risk of epidemic.

It was actually the Government and the medical establishment that made it almost impossibly difficult to obtain the single vaccines and effectively forced parents to choose between the new MMR vaccine, or no vaccine at all.

Despite strong campaigning from parents to be able to choose, in August 1999, the government de-licensed the single measles vaccine and banned the widespread importation of the vaccine into the UK. Such a fine example of patient choice and the free market in action. Some parents who could afford it even took their children abroad to be vaccinated using the single jab.

After that, the old vaccine was and may still be, available in this country - but only if parents were able to persuade a doctor to organise importation "for personal use", then administer it, even if newly unlicensed, in the face of massive official disapproval.

In 2001, the heavy guns of the World Health Organization (WHO) waded in, issuing a fatwa statement, "strongly supporting the use of MMR vaccine on the grounds of its convincing record of safety and efficacy."

It may, or may not, be relevant that a significant number of members of the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, two Department of Health committees responsible for reviewing the safety and efficacy of the MMR vaccine, are reported to have had links with companies that manufacture it including some as actual as share holders.

One could also be forgiven for thinking that if the authorities had ever really been concerned about the possibility of an increase in the number of cases of Measles they would have allowed parental choice between the original viable alternative and the MMR vaccine, rather than trying to bully them with an all, or nothing, choice.

So, that rise the BBC mentioned in the number of measles cases, can be squarely laid at the door of the government and the medical establishment for effectively banning any alternative to MMR.

That is what the BBC failed to mention and by doing so is effectively actually covering up. A work of art using only actual facts, Jo Goebbels would have been proud.

Talk about show trials and rewriting history to suit. It all has a certain worrying familiarity,

Can the BBC be trusted?

The BBC has finally gone a step too far. I have generally defended it against those who call for it’s abolition but I now feel less inclined and the reason?

The controversy over the manufacturing of a ‘tiff’ between the queen and photographer.

Anyone of moderate intelligence will find it very difficult to accept that cutting various clips together out of chronological order to manufacture a story could in any way be an accident. Someone somewhere in all probability knew exactly what they were doing.

It appears in this instance an independent production company called RDF Television actually edited the trailer. If the BBC don’t permanently publicly disassociate themselves from the company, all of it’s directors and anyone who worked on the editing of the documentary then they can only be seen as ambivalent towards honest reporting.

Then there is the controller of BBC1, Peter Fincham. Apparently being supported by the BBC hierarchy. There was something quite unpleasant in the way he stoked things in the first place smugly suggesting that the Queen had "lost it" and walked out in a "huff".

It seems they have also done something similar to Gordon Brown. Apparently they are also planning to produce some sort of dramatisation concerning Paula Yates life, now she is not here to defend herself. A documentary is one thing, but making stuff up to spice a story up, as the appear to be planning is beyond the pale.

There is also the matter of the BBC ‘5 Live’ website carrying anti-Semitic comment apparently based on or originating from “The Talmud Unmasked”, a core anti-Semitic text written at the end of the 19th Century by Justin Praniatis.

The comment goes: ”Zionism is a racist ideology where Jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths. This is found in the Talmud.

It also claims the anti-Semitic ’Baba Mezia’ propaganda is true.

the BBC feel this is ok
Apparently justifying it with “we have decided that it does not contravene the House Rules and are going to leave it on site”.

The BBC is supported by a special Tax Televisions called the licence fee.

It is staffed by people who are largely unrepresentative of the country as a whole. The staff having a profile that is more urban, left wing, younger and does not match the mix of the population it serves racially either. This would not really be desirable in a private broadcasting company. It is unacceptable in a publicly funded one.

The only justification the BBC ever had was the Reithian public service ethic that educated and provided honest, objective and unbiased news reporting. The BBC used to have a worldwide reputation for doing that. It has largely lost it.

If the BBC can not get it’s own house in order - and it looks very much as if it can, or will, not then the government needs to step in and reshape it, root and branch.

That or stop forcing the population to subsidise this cuckoo in the nest through taxation.

BBC Pushes Anthropocentric Global Warming Theory

The self admittedly politically biased BBC is pushing the anthropocentric global warming theory again, with the built in assumption that it is a done deal. Even cold weather in the summer seems to be “evidence”.

Louise Batchelor of BBC Scotland said:

“only a handful of scientists now doubt that we're seeing a long-term trend and that humans are responsible for Earth's increased atmospheric temperatures.”

It is questionable if a string of cold years could shake the faith of this new religion's adherents now.