another MMR scare story

My first instinct on reading this story was here we go again: a fresh round of journalism that refuses to recognise its own role in pushing spurious claims about the safety of the MMR vaccine. The debate "won't go away" because awesomely poor journalism refuses to give up on its favourite scare story and exercise a minimum of credulism.

It's reassuring - but not that surprising - to find that the internet is already way out ahead of this recent batch of hackery. Orac at Scienceblogs writes:

David Kirby's there in full force, making up numbers about mitochondrial disorders as he's been doing all along. There are also credulous references to Jenny McCarthy and the "Green Our Vaccines"/"too many too soon" toxin gambit, to the horrible monkey study by Laura Hewitson complete with quotes from an interview, and other vaccination canards. All in all, it's horrible journalism.

Incidentally, this is The Telegraph: expect the Daily Mail's screeching version in a matter of days.

More later this week when I've had a chance to read up.