But I just saw a graph of reported measles cases in the last 10 years. Scary. However, I also saw a chart of meningitis cases since the various vaccines were introduced. Just brilliant. Check this out –

Since the Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b) vaccine was introduced in 1992, cases of this disease, which can cause meningitis, have dropped by 99 per cent from about 800 cases a year to a record low of 12 cases last year in children under five. Since the Meningitis C vaccine was introduced in 1999, deaths from the disease have fallen from as many as 79 to an average of less than one death a year. In the two years since the pneumococcal vaccine was introduced, it is estimated that over 900 serious cases have been prevented.

We're winning that one, and there's (hopefully) more good news to come with another vaccine.

Sorry, this is all a bit serious. Stuff about coffee cups next week, promise!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the doctor’s… http://rly.cc/UbRmM

I just can’t quite articulate fully why this annoys – enrages me – so.  For a start – we’ve been through this.  There is nothing, nothing, to link the MMR jab with autism.  Just fuck-all.  As a nation, we’re settling back down in our chairs and surveying the mess we’re in thanks to the wilful scaremongering of, specifically in this case, the Daily Mail[1].  Herd immunity is on the line, thanks to hysteria, uncertainty and misinformation.  Sure, it must have been hard for parents at the time, blah blah but fuck it.  A little bit of reading on the actual *facts* might have given you pause for thought – Wakefield’s findings were based on a minute sample and drew conclusions which were, frankly, mental.  These autistic children were given the MMR vaccine, and then they were diagnosed with autism?  What?  People with cancer, AIDS and male pattern baldness were also given the MMR vaccine… was it responsible the for those, too?  Do you see how easy it is to jump one way or the other on this?  Ugh.  Anyway, disregarding my unscientific analysis of the situation, the evidence is overwhelmingly against MMR being responsible for autism.  It just isn’t.

And so when someone like Oprah can allow someone like Jenny McCarthy airtime to spread the same hysteria, uncertainty and misinformation which is actually – and here I’m going to go all Daily Mail on your asses, like it or not – KILLING BABIES, well, shit.  It gives me the rage.  Freedom of speech is all very well, but as a wise man once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

I hope America does its research, and doesn’t let this one in.  But you know it won’t, just like we didn’t..

[1]Not just the Mail, of course, but hooboy, they’re the biggest, worstest culprit in this one.