Media bias and vaccine compliance
Having been a reporter for over 30 years I freely admit there is a media bias.
It's a bias in favor of conflict. (Picture from Alignmap, a patient advocacy blog.)
Of course that's not our bias. It's yours. Without conflict, you don't want to read what we write.
For instance, my recent piece on George Clooney sat ignored until readers saw the conflict in it. At last count it had over 17,000 page views, 10 times the average on this blog.
All weekend I have been wondering about a seeming contradiction. There are a ton of stories about considered non-compliance with vaccines, especially the MMR vaccines, which some activists have linked to autism.
But in fact compliance is at record levels. A recent study here in Georgia about why some kids don't get vaccinated shows the main reason is money.
When kids don't get vaccinated, germs run rampant. Cases of measles are rising. So are cases of whooping cough.
What has been going on? Reporters have been hyping a 1998 study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, claiming a link between vaccines and autism. Pediatrics found a direct link between the hype and non-compliance.
Despite the recent debunking of that study, parents recently won a lawsuit linking their daughter's autism to vaccines.
But which vaccine? The child in question received five vaccines in a single visit. The government's admission in the case is that the child had a "rare underlying metabolic condition" and her parents say her autism is now "mild to moderate" thanks to ongoing therapy.
But even assuming that a vaccine caused the autism (and this was a legal case, not a scientific experiment) the case has nothing to do with the original Wakefield thesis. Which has since been proven groundless.
Yet the conflict rages on, and now any rise in autism, in any community, is seized upon as evidence that MMR vaccines cause autism.
The good news is that the vast majority of parents trust their doctors, not the media, and not activists. And the reason for most non-compliance is easy to fix. Use money.
Yet I guarantee you will see a ton of media reports over the next six months linking MMR vaccines to autism, and non-compliance to fears of autism.
Facts may be stubborn things, but so is the media bias for conflict, and readers' desire for it.