[bpsdb] The following is part of the transcript of Jeni Barnett's now infamous MMR phone-in show on LBT radio. This is part of a joint endeavour, and parts 1,3,4,5, and 6 will be posted on other blogs imminently. I'll be providing links when I have them.

Please feel free to leave comments. I've Fisked it myself - you can see my comments in italics.

The Full Transcript:
Part 1 - Science Punk
Part 2 - The Lay Scientist
Part 3 - PodBlack Cat
Part 4 - The Skeptic's Book
Part 5 - The Quackometer
Part 6 - Holford Watch

The Audio (Not Hosted Here):

- - - - - - - - - -

Part 2 - Tracy the homeopath's phone call.

JB: Phone me, 08456060973, if you chose to stand under the tree, in
the field, outside the herd. Tracy in Olympia, talk to me.

TIMESTAMP 7:00

Tracy (T): Hi Jeni. Yes, I'd like to totally agree with you the fact that immunisation is totally unnecessary, especially in this day and age when hygiene has changed so much since how it used to be.

I've blogged about this myth before. Regardless of hygiene and modern healthcare standards, the fact is that Measles remains a very dangerous disease, and in outbreaks in America and Japan many children have ben hospitalized or worse. The idea that Measles is "not dangerous" is ignorant - an ignorance that comes, ironically, from the success of vaccination campaigns in this country.

I have 4 children. The oldest being 12, the youngest being 3. [Infant noises.] You can probably hear in the background right now.

JB: Don't talk to me, just talk to her for a second.

I found this very patronizing to be honest. Early on in this show it seemed to highlight a sort of casual arrogance, ordering another mother how to tend to her child. For me it set the tone for what followed.

Tracy: [Soothes child.] My eldest is 12, my youngest is 3, none of them have ever been vaccinated, immunised. And they're all very healthy children. They don't have any auto-immune diseases. They don't suffer asthma, eczema. I just think [vaccination] is total abuse of the immune system.

I'll refer back to this in a moment.

TIMESTAMP 8:00

JB: Now, now, now. I want to do this slowly because you're going to have people phoning in saying you're utterly irresponsible.

12 years ago when you had your first baby, why did you not have them inoculated?

Tracy: It started off, I went on a short course about, it was a choice, making a choice about vaccination. And it was run by a homeopath.

Because homeopaths - who want to make money providing you with alternatives - are clearly an unbiased source. This is one of the greatest achievements of Alt Med - making people believe that they are a charity rather than a cut throat industry with little effective regulation.

JB: But why did you go on that course in the first place?

Tracy: Because I had a feeling inside, I inherently knew, that it must be wrong to be putting toxins and poisonous material into a young baby's body.

Because gut feelings are way more important than evidence. And deliberately infecting them with measles is perfectly reponsible and risk free.

JB: Right.

Tracy: It's as simple as that. Mercury, formaldehyde, you know - live viruses that are cured (?) in monkeys' kidneys. How can that be right for your child?

Why shouldn't it be? This is simply a logical fallacy, an appeal to absurdity.

JB: Now, are you, by any stretch of the imagination, described as a crank by your friends?

Tracy: No. They all know me too well now.

JB: So, when you made that decision, and when I made that decision 22 years ago, it is about the loneliest decision you're ever going to make.

Tracy: Oh, absolutely! Even your family, you'll have people standing up saying,

TIMESTAMP 9:00

"Why? Aren't you being irresponsible?". You've got the doctors, you've got the health authorities...You know you've just got to take the bull by the horns and confront that on a daily basis.

Or, rather than ignoring the advice and expert opinion of all of these people on the basis of a "feeling", you could actually take a proper look at the evidence.

People at the school would frown upon me as if my child was in some way was gonna infect their child by not being vaccinated.

But I'm a very strong-willed person anyway. And from what I learned from my first son being born I decided, yeah, I want to take this further, and investigated it a bit more and went on to college and trained to become a homeopath.

Ah right. So let's get this right. You make money from being a homeopath - or in other words, you have a commercial interest in attacking medicine in order to make money. So the guest portrayed as a "concerned mother" is in fact a business woman.

JB: Really?

Tracy: Yes. It all came from initially just thinking, "Do I want to so this?" and it all started with that very first thought. And you know what? The more you investigate it, the more you find out about it. And anyone, right now, this moment in time can go on the internet, they can go on sites. They can find out the dangers of vaccination and make their own informed decision.

Yes... unfortunately, what you read on the internet isn't necessarily true. For example, I learned today that Nobby Stiles once sang with Pink Floyd, that a small blue pill would make my penis 15 inches long, and that Flight 1549's descent into the Hudson was in fact a government conspiracy.

I'm not saying that for everybody it's going to be as straightforward and as straight cut as I was able to make that decision myself. But I just knew, from the beginning, that it was the wrong thing to do.

Ah, the classic alt-med disclaimer - "but I'm not really offering medical advice, I'm just... y'know... saying.

TIMESTAMP 10:00

JB: This is fascinating.

Not the word I would use.

Tracy, let me ask you this. When measles-if there's a case of measles at the kids' school, or if there's a case of mumps or chickenpox-what do you do?

Tracy: I say, "Great! Come on kids – let's go get it". Because
children get childhood diseases for a reason. It's to boost their immune system so that later on in life when they come into contact with those diseases, it doesn't affect them so severely. And that is why they are called childhood diseases.

And that is why you are an irresponsible, child-endangering idiot. I cannot begin to fathom the stupidity of a person who believes that carefully managed doses of an attenuated virus are somehow more risky than exposing your child to a full blown case of the measles. Measles is dangerous. It is dangerous for healthy children. It is dangerous for all children. To deliberately make your child ill could well - and should be - considered a form of child abuse.

The only reason children get really, really ill and perhaps, you know, suffer serious side-effects are if:
a) their immune system is not strong enough to fight off the virus, or b) they are being suppressed by drugs or in some other way. Suppressant drugs or given too much antibiotics or...

Utter nonsense. Measles can and does strike perfectly healthy children, with potential complications including brain damage, or death. This idea that Measles doesn't affect healthy children is simply fantasy.

JB: Now, now, you see, Tracy. People will hear what you're saying and they'll say,

TIMESTAMP 11:00

"It's all right for you". As you've (quite rightly) said, your
kids-Thank God, touch wood and I'm touching it as we speak-they have run through this. But you are saying it is an individual decision, aren't you?

Tracy: Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I would never, even in my job, I would never say to people, "You mustn't do that". I would give them the facts and say, "This is what I've come across. Go on these websites-and there are thousands out there-do your own investigations, don't take my word for it. You know, everything I say, it may be my truth, it may not be yours. But you must investigate it yourself and don't take the easy way out".

The truth is not relative, neither can it be established through an afternoon on Google.

I've had doctors ringing me at home. I've had Health Visitors having angry conversations with me. And now, what I say to those people-whose minds I'm not going to change anyway-that's fine-I just say, "That's my choice I'm making and I am making an informed decision". And every parent has the right to make an informed decision. Unfortunately, not many people do want to do that.

There is nothing "informed" about people making decisions based on lies and misinformation. Parents listening to this crap will not come away better informed - it will reduce their ability to make rational choices. That it was is so insidiously nasty about this broadcast - that a person who admits that she knows next to nothing about MMR is in a position to start handing out unsubstantiated medical advice to thousands of listeners.

JB: Tracy, I think that with you inspiring them they may jolly well want to after that.

Fantastic. 2:15 and [going to travel segment].