Banking

Well, the bank holiday weekend is being ushered in with thunderstorms. It’s really a continuation of the UK summer that sees the Friday preceding the Bank Holiday weekend flooded out with torrential rain and howling wind. But this is Britain, isn’t it? And - if we’re honest - this is how a lot of our summers turn out.

The media, of course, will waffle on about global warming and the met office getting it all wrong, but when you’re a grown-up and you’ve learned that the media is not to be trusted - about anything - then you know that this is simply a normal British summer.

The media have a lot to answer for; they’re responsible - at the least - for misleading people about virtually everything, but they go further than that; they’re directly responsible for the deaths of children.

Let me explain.

Some years ago, the media - TV and the newspapers - allowed themselves to be duped by Dr Andrew Wakefield, when the individual in question decided to publish ill-conceived, massaged and mis-informed research about the MMR immunisation. They brayed about this long and hard, because it sells papers and gets people watching TV. That thousands of parents believed this rubbish and withheld the MMR vaccination from their children leading to the greatest measles outbreak in decades with serious potential and long-term health issues for the children involved, leading to brain damage and - in some cases - death - seems not to worry the media outlets one jot. They, of course, have taken care to cover their backs and only use words like ’alleged’, but this does not relieve them of the responsibility which they face. One man - Brian Deer - from the Sunday Times - has exposed Wakefield for the duplicitous individual he is; but this is little consolation for the hundreds of children damaged by a lack of MMR vaccination. It is possible, of course, to argue that parents should have been more aware; that they should have examined the details of the case and not believed the likes of the Mail or GMTV, and that they should have exercised some intelligence where the media are concerned. But for some, that’s not easy. And some will never recover.

The lesson, however, is very simple: if something makes a big splash in the media, then your initial reaction should always be to say - “I don’t believe it.” Read the details with care, then confirm - confirm - confirm the information from at least three different sources. Only then should you ever accept that something might have a grain of truth, somewhere, hidden within. There’s a very good reason evidence is necessary in academic research; it’s to stop people like Wakefield. But more importantly, it’s to stop what’s happening to kids right now.