replt from Channel 5 re MMR docu-drama

[Prester John]

I wrote to channel five expressing my concerns about mis representing the facts of MMR, damaging public health and asked if they would take responcibility for s drop in MMR vaccination uptake. Here is the reply:


Dear ********



Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding Hear The Silence.

Hear the Silence is not a ‘docu-drama’. A drama-documentary, as defined by the Independent Television Commission’s Programme Code, seeks to reconstruct actual events. The programme does not, as is made clear by the introduction to the film, which categorically states that it is a “dramatised account”. It is likewise clearly stated before the drama that the characters “have been merged or created for dramatic effect”.

We do take very seriously the question of potential health risks to children. Whilst you are right to raise this issue, it seems entirely disingenuous to try – as other detractors of the drama have tried to do – to lay the charge of scare-mongering at Five’s door, and prophesy that we are opening some Pandora’s box of plague and pestilence. There already exists a crisis in public confidence in the triple vaccine, take-up of which is now as low as 58% in some parts of the country. Since 1998, concerns about the safety of the MMR vaccine have been widely and repeatedly documented in the press – all completely irrespective of Five or anything we have broadcast.

The public urgently requires reassurance about the MMR, and it is the public health service’s responsibility to provide it – just as it is the media’s to ask questions as to its safety. The studio debate which immediately follows the drama does much to explore these issues in a factual context, and is hugely informed by the contributions of experts from both sides of the divide – a divide which clearly extends to senior doctors as well as parents and members of the public.

While we do not purport that this programme or the studio debate provide the certainties that parents seek, surely it would be better to attempt to resolve this issue once and for all, one way or the other.

Meanwhile, we would like to thank you for taking the time to write in with your concerns.

Thank you for your interest in Five.



Yours sincerely

 

[Prester John]

Please note that the contact details for the Five Duty Office are as follows:

Telephone: 0845 7 05 05 05

Text telephone for use by deaf people: 0845 7 41 37 87

E-mail: dutyoffice@five.tv

Fax: 020 7550 5678

 

[Rat]

I didn't watch the programme, or the debate following it. The whole subject winds me up something awful.

But the reply, on the whole, does seem to be fair enough. Channel Five did not, by themselves, create this controversy. Papers reporting inconclusive and speculative studies as fact started it.

Cheers,
Rat.

 

[Deetee]

Hear the Silence is not a ‘docu-drama’. A drama-documentary, as defined by the Independent Television Commission’s Programme Code, seeks to reconstruct actual events. The programme does not, as is made clear by the introduction to the film, which categorically states that it is a “dramatised account”. It is likewise clearly stated before the drama that the characters “have been merged or created for dramatic effect”.

snip/

There already exists a crisis in public confidence in the triple vaccine, take-up of which is now as low as 58% in some parts of the country. Since 1998, concerns about the safety of the MMR vaccine have been widely and repeatedly documented in the press – all completely irrespective of Five or anything we have broadcast.

Hmmm
Point 1. All the TV listings gave its details as a "fact-based drama". For Channel 5 to now try and dress up their offering as a fictionalised account is disingenuous.

Point 2. Just why do C5 think that the take up of MMR is as low as 58%?
And because its low, I guess that means its OK to pump out propaganda that drops it even lower then?!

Imagine if I said: "There is already a high rate of infection in UK hospitals, therefore I have no qualms in showing a film that implies washing of hands by medical staff is totally unecessary."

Makes good, logical sense, huh?