• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Merged Website told not to advertise that MMR causes up to 10% of autism

jdc324 said:
I noticed yesterday that the MMR page now has a 404 error and the website has been substantially amended.

Looks like those follow-up complaints have made a difference.
Click to expand...

Yay! I had a letter to say they'd received the complaint, but haven't heard anything since. A quick look around the site doesn't seem to show anything particularly unreasonable now, just some actual figures about the risks of single vaccines vs. MMR. I haven't actually checked the figures, but they don't seem too unreasonable - twice the risk of one side effect and "more commonly" for a couple of others. Given that MMR replaces three vaccines, pointing out that there's only twice the risk actually seems more like an advert for MMR than for their own services.
 
Cuddles, I agree that the single jabs don't look as attractive anymore but Halvorsen didn't use the best available evidence for disease and vaccine complications. They appear cherry-picked to decrease the rate of complications from the disease and increase the rate of complications from the jab.

Este
 
Estellea said:
Cuddles, I agree that the single jabs don't look as attractive anymore but Halvorsen didn't use the best available evidence for disease and vaccine complications. They appear cherry-picked to decrease the rate of complications from the disease and increase the rate of complications from the jab.
Click to expand...

My point was simply the babyjabs site is now actually a better advertisement for MMR than for their own services. Essentially what it now says is "MMR carries a certain risk. If you come to us instead, we'll double that risk and won't give you one of the vaccines.". It doesn't matter what data they're using or who's cherry picked what, from a purely PR point of view their advertising really sucks.

Mojo said:
New ASA adjudication: http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2012/10/BabyJabs-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_204913.aspx
Click to expand...

I was sent a copy a couple of weeks ago, but apparently they're kept confidential until officially published so I wasn't allowed to mention it. It's interesting that while they upheld the complaints, they didn't actually bother investigating them in detail because the adverts are apparently illegal anyway. I wonder how they missed that the first time.
 
Cuddles said:
My point was simply the babyjabs site is now actually a better advertisement for MMR than for their own services. Essentially what it now says is "MMR carries a certain risk. If you come to us instead, we'll double that risk and won't give you one of the vaccines.". It doesn't matter what data they're using or who's cherry picked what, from a purely PR point of view their advertising really sucks.
Click to expand...

Yes, I re-read and can see that now; thanks for the clarification and your work to stay on these scammers. They don't even have the mumps single jabs. I wonder why it is there are mumps outbreaks now. :rolleyes:

Este
 
Estellea said:
They don't even have the mumps single jabs. I wonder why it is there are mumps outbreaks now.
Click to expand...

Well, in fairness to them that's because there actually isn't a mumps vaccine licensed for use in the UK, only the combined MMR jab is allowed.

In less fairness to them, I also happened across this page:
http://www.babyjabs.co.uk/baby_vaccines_prices.htm
I make that over £1500 for everything, not including consultation fees. Most of those vaccines are free on the NHS. Those that aren't free for everyone are usually available to those in high risk groups who actually need them.
 
I can't be that charitable cuddles; if they are going to proclaim that single jabs are safer then shouldn't they at least have the single jabs?

In less fairness to them, I also happened across this page:
http://www.babyjabs.co.uk/baby_vaccines_prices.htm
I make that over £1500 for everything, not including consultation fees. Most of those vaccines are free on the NHS. Those that aren't free for everyone are usually available to those in high risk groups who actually need them.
Click to expand...

Wow that's quite a racket.

Este
 
I looked at Halvorsen's / Babyjabs's alternative schedule in 2010: http://jdc325.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/the-truth-about-vaccines-alternative-schedule/

For a girl, the cost would total £1637 at these prices and for a boy, the cost would be £1542 (excluding the mumps vaccine which is listed as “unavailable” at the time of writing).
That is the cost purely in terms of the money parents would need to spend. However, the real price to be paid might be in terms of illness, hospitalisation, or serious complications arising from infection with a vaccine-preventable disease.
Click to expand...
Comparing it to the NHS schedule, I reckoned that the diseases kids would not be protected from would be mumps (no vaccine available), rubella (girls only, age 12), measles for a couple of months (15 vs 12-13), Hib for two months, pneumococcal infection for five months, and polio for sixteen months.
 
A different clinic making almost exactly the same claims has also just been told off by the ASA. Except this time they weren't just making the claims, but trying to cash in on the recent measles epidemic caused by people like themselves scaring people away from getting vaccinated.
 
Medicine has come such a long way since its paternalistic days. Patients are now more active than ever in their own medical management. The Internet has allowed people to research their own conditions and symptoms. In some way this is good as traditionally it had been difficult to learn about even simple conditions such as hypertension.

However, there are people who now treat doctors as the "person who do as I say". Many patients now come to doctors not with problems but with requests.

"Doctor I have been having headaches. I went on Google and realised that I also seem to have nausea, vomiting, double vision, erectile dysfunction, too many fingers, too little toes ........ I think I have a brain tumour. Please get me an MRI."

Doctors exist to be consulted for their expertise not to perform random requests.

In the case of the vaccine arguments it's "doctor when I was streaming midnight steamy videos I came across a former playboy model who says that vaccine causes Autism! Don't vaccinate my babies!" It's fair enough. People get scared easily when it comes to their own health or health of those they love. But doctors exist so you can receive up-to-date evidence regarding these questions. The amount of misinformation on the Internet ...... Need I say more?

- Vaccine causes Autism.
- Drugs are just the "Big Pharma" way of getting your money.
- Diabetes can be cured with acupuncture.
- Cancer is curable with sound therapy.

When will the madness stop!
 
sophia8 said:
He's the owner and founder of Babyjabs, which is a private vaccination service. Yes, just like ex-doctor Wakefield, he terrifies parents into buying his stuff. He's a real medical doctor, but has also practised acupuncture for 20 years. The rest of your questions can be answered on the Stuff and Nonsense blog - the writer of which made the original complaint to the ASA.
Click to expand...

So, when Dr. Halvorsen is a real doctor and he runs the Babyjabs site, why not level a complaint with the General Medical Council, with the two ASA verdicts in hand?
 
sophia8 said:
He's the owner and founder of Babyjabs, which is a private vaccination service. Yes, just like ex-doctor Wakefield, he terrifies parents into buying his stuff. He's a real medical doctor, but has also practised acupuncture for 20 years. The rest of your questions can be answered on the Stuff and Nonsense blog - the writer of which made the original complaint to the ASA.
Click to expand...

ddt said:
So, when Dr. Halvorsen is a real doctor and he runs the Babyjabs site, why not level a complaint with the General Medical Council, with the two ASA verdicts in hand?
Click to expand...
Interesting thought, that one. I don't have an awful lot of faith in the GMC given some of the cases I've read about (Donegan and Myhill spring to mind).
 
I wrote about the latest judgement (on the Children's Immunisation Centre's advertising) here: http://jdc325.wordpress.com/2013/08...dvertising-is-misleading-and-unsubstantiated/

Found their sources of evidence interesting...

  • their complaints log
  • Italian court case
  • a newspaper report
  • data in the form of a graph
  • the internet
  • Dr Walker
Click to expand...
Something else that may be of interest is that their vaccines are apparently unlicensed so they should have to comply with various conditions on providing them. According to the MHRA, there needs to be a 'special need' for an unlicensed medicine and there must be no equivalent licensed product available: http://www.mhra.gov.uk/Howweregulat...ence/Medicinesthatdonotneedalicence/index.htm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom