Excellent work Martin.

Cheers Anthony. That's a pretty brilliant blog you have there yourself actually, so I've blog-rolled you and added it to the Blogosphere feed. Always nice to see a high-quality British science blogger.

"This appeal to balance is patently ridiculous - by that line the BBC should be providing balance to 9/11 Truthers, Flat-Earthists, Creationists, and so on."
I used that argument and someone on the Bad Science forums actually pointed out who the BBC have linked to in the name of balance - the list includes:
The BNP and David Irving
Hizb ut-Tahrir UK
The Church of Scientology
Tamilnet
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc)

So according to my fellow forumite, the BBC link to people involved with holocaust denial, race hate, religious fundamentalism, brainwashing, terror bombing, kidnapping, and political assassination. Nice.

I still think that just because the guidelines allow them to link to JABS, it doesn't mean they impel them to do so. I have to admit, though, to a sneaking admiration for their totally hardcore free speech policy it may not be sinsible, but its egalitarian]. I just despair about the possible effects of the BBC linking to such evil people. Directing traffic to the BNP website and boosting their Google ranking is one such effect, directing traffic to the JABS website could result in parents recieving dangerous medical advice. I'm sure I could think of others.

Anyway - nice post Martin.

I agree you should somehow push this further, with the BBC Trust for example. The JABS site promotes itself as a support group for families with vaccine-damaged kids. In fact it is no such thing - all the articles are about the evils of vaccines. There is nothing about how parents with genuine concerns can get support or services for their children. JABS are merely a biased antivaccine pressure group, which should be pointed out to the Beeb. It is appropriate to link to JABS when they are the subject of the story, but not every time anyone mentions vaccines. This is what the Beeb (correctly) do with the BNP - they only link to them if they are the news story itself, and do not link to them every time the Beeb runs an item on immigration or asylum policy.

The JABS forum responses are indeed surreal, but I would not use these to try and justify anything, as JABS admin would say they have no direct control over what people post there (Indeed, they might point to the sensible posts of visitors like Becky Fizzeau and Occam as indicating their forum provides "balance").

Misrepresenting the BBC doesn't help

(a)

The BBC replied stating that "I am afraid that in the interests of balance we must link to JABS." This appeal to balance is patently ridiculous - by that line the BBC should be providing balance to 9/11 Truthers, Flat-Earthists, Creationists, and so on.

In a story about Wakefield and the MMR controversy, their guidelines force them to link to sites defending Wakefield and attacking MMR.

(b)

I'm pretty sure the BBC replied that JABS aren't a 'preferred source' in response to your query:

3)Any information relating to communication between the BBC and members of JABS over the use of JABS as a preferred source

Which implies some kind of relationship between the two organisations. I'm guessing there isn't one, and they are preferred over other anti-vac webpages, because JABS are the most prominent anti-vac organisation online. That may have been what you meant, but that isn't how I would have read it if I worked for the BBC.

(c)

Highlighting a selection of 'or' words is just plain misleading.

We offer external links from the BBC public service site and from the editorial pages of the commercial site, for example, to provide additional information, source material or informed comment. We should be seen to be impartial. BBC websites which cover controversial subjects or public policy matters should normally offer links to external sites which represent a reasonable range of views about the subject."

Reasonable? Informed Comment? A site run by people who encourage parents with sick children not to visit doctors, who believe that AIDS doesn't exist, and that vaccines are part of some vast government conspiracy is bloody reasonable?

Okay, JABS doesn't provide informed comment (unless we take 'informed' very literally), but it does clearly provide 'additional information' and additional source material to any story about Wakefield or MMR controversies, even if that information is wrong.

You are also taking the word reasonable out of context. The range must be reasonable, not the content.

(d)

The response I've had here, while shedding some light on how the BBC works, and how badly their lack of expertise on subjects can affect their coverage, is basically just a brush-off.

The BBC response explained their response. I don't think you've understood it. I think you need to find examples of the BBC linking to JABS on articles that aren't about Wakefield/MMR controversy, or find dangerous medical advice on the main bits of JABS, or get the BBC to rewrite their guidelines wholesale.

And DT, if the BBC link to JABS on any article about vaccines (not just about wakefield or other articles that discuss the controversy about MMR), why haven't these examples been sent to the BBC, or mentioned on the blogs linked to?

Ren.

a) The BBC links to JABS in general stories about MMR. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7392510.stm for a random recent example, in which JABS were actually approached to offer comment on a plan to exclude un-vaccinated children from schools.

b) I'm not sure what you're point is. I came to the same conclusion in the post. I phrased my request to cover as many angles as possible, for completeness - I wanted to see if there was any formal agreement, or if JABS had directly lobbied to have their link included. Examples like the story above - where JABS were directly approached for interview - made me wonder if they'd somehow been enlisted for the BBC's directory of experts, or some similar list.

c) The information is wrong or misleading, there is not a reasonable range of content, and on a health issue it's downright dangerous to send readers there with the implication that it is a trusted source. You're right that a lot of this is open to interpretation, but I don't see how this should include JABS.

d) The BBC response emphatically doesn't tell the whole story. There is no description of the process by which the health team arrived at the conclusion that JABS was a reputable source, particularly for general stories that weren't about the MMR controversy, such as the example above. JABS also do promote medical nonsense on their pages: http://www.jabs.org.uk/pages/mansfield.asp is a good example.

I appreciate the criticism though, and I don't want to sound dismissive. JDC and myself have independently spent a lot of time looking at this. I'll be writing to the BBC trust, and I'll be bearing these sorts of issues in mind.

You sound much less dismissive than I did (which wasn't my intention either). I don't work for the BBC but I spend an inordinate amount of my time dealing with regulations. I think this is an argument you will struggle to win on the terms you are going to argue it.

(a)

Exactly. That story is about the MMR controversy. The starting point is the need to increase vacination % because of Wakefield. It has a sub-section called 'Fears of MMR'. It quotes Jackie Fletcher. JABS is a very logical link in this context given the BBC's guidelines.

(b)

It was actually the bit I didn't quote - squaring the circle and mapping to JDC's response. I think there isn't not circle to square - they are two separate lines of 2 separate issues. The BBC response sounds (to me) like they took preferable as a suggestion that they preferred JABS to the GMC position. That is the bit I think has gotten confused - they weren't lying, they were answering a different question.

(c)

Sorry, to clarify: It says 'reasonable range of content' not 'range of reasonable content', i.e. I think it is the variety of websites linked to that has to be reasonable, not the content of those websites.

(d)

The guidelines are politics not science. JABS aren't linked to because they are right, they are linked to because they offer the 'other' viewpoint on the MMR controversy - JABS don't need to be reputable. The BBC articles (re: JABS) aren't credulous - the specific link refers to the debunked evidence.

The article you have linked to (as I said in (a)) is definitely within the guidelines. It is a political response to problems (at least partly) created by Wakefield.

And that medical advice is nonsense, but I think it would be difficult to argue that it is dangerous nonsense.

Firstly, Jackie Fletcher is JABS.

a) To my mind, the article is not about the MMR controversy. It's about a current plan in 2008 to make sure that all children are vaccinated. It references the 2001 controversy, but it's not about it at all. I think it's incredibly tenuous to suggest that the article requires them to not only cite JABS, but go to Jackie for comment, given the fact that the debate is long since over, and especially since there is already an opposing viewpoint providing balance, from a reputable doctor. If you're going to say that this article is "about" the MMR controversy, then where do you draw the line? Is every story mentioning MMR from now until the end of time "about" the MMR controversy?

b) Ah, I get what you're saying now. That's certainly not what I intended. Still, even if they did misunderstand that, I don't think it makes much difference to the rest of the post.

c) Again, this could be interpreted several ways, and perhaps that's the problem here. The guidelines are, frankly, quite vague. I still believe though that if we take in combination the language there, the wording used in other policy guidelines, and the general remit of the BBC, the link is unacceptable in theory.

d) The problem here is that the BBC are creating bias, and there is a precedent for this in global warming. Some fringe groups criticized the BBC for giving little time to global warming deniers. The BBC responded that given the overwhelming scientific consensus, giving significant time to denialists was unnecessary. Actually thanks for bringing this up and making me think of that - that's a good precedent to refer to in a complaint to the Trust.

I appreciate your general point, that it may be hard to make the case under existing rules. But the BBC Trust exists specifically to handle complaints like this, where people feel that existing BBC policy is flawed or inadequate, or that the BBC is failing in its duty.

At any rate, even if a complaint fails, it's got to be worth a try... It's better than just sitting around, bitchin' on my blog.

I guess the issue is making an argument that is as hard to dismiss as possible.

We just have (a) and (d).

I know Jackie is JABS, but the article was about a response to low take up of MMR. The primary reason for that low take up is (generally cited as - I don't know what impact immigration/culture has) Wakefield. The move to ban children from schools if they don't get MMR is *clearly* an attempt to coerce people into vaccinating their children. I think it is clearly linked to the controversy (every time I say that phrase I feel like a creationist).

Here are two links for MMR stories that aren't about the controversy, and don't link to JABS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7398180.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/6980398.stm

(d)

Good. I suppose my devil's advocacy response would be was the GW issues about the content or articles rather than links? The MMR stories often give a voice to JABS, but they all seem to reference the debunked evidence of Wakefield. I don't know (I haven't looked) whether this is directly comparable.

On a) Yes I do see what you're saying completely. Again though, we're on a slippery slope - any article about the MMR vaccine is bound to mention previous controversy, so where is the line?

The links you provide are an interesting example. The Scotland report actually does refer to the debate in order to provide context, just as the piece I linked did. "Take-up rates of the jab dropped in the late 1990s after a controversial 1998 study linked it with autism. However subsequent reports have questioned the original study." It doesn't mention JABS there, which basically just demonstrates that there's no need to keep making the link to them, let alone requesting comments. The BBC has a comprehensive section on the MMR debate, so why not simply link back to that?

On a "how the BBC works" note, it's interesting that the two links you found are local pages, rather than pages under the control of the health editor. I haven't checked, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is local to that particular team.

On d) I need to find that example myself, since I should be clear I'm quoting from memory. There was an item on News 24 - one of their pieces where the editor comments on policy - which discussed it in-depth at the time.

This is great. Not all parents of autistic kids (such as I am) appreciate JABS 'work'. I hope you have success.

Thanks, I really appreciate your comment. I'd like to write a bit more about autism in general in the future, as it's a subject that I feel touches on all sorts of other issues in the application of science in the 21st century.

I wasn't familiar with your site before, but it's really excellent - I'll be having a browse through it later, and I'll add it to the blog roll here. Many thanks.