Dr Ben Goldacre is one of the folks I follow on twitter. He's a tireless campaigner against medical misinformation and bad science. Recently, Ben took an LBC Radio presenter to task, in no uncertain terms, over lies about the MMR vaccine.
Of course, because Ben needed to use a recording of the show in question to sufficiently illustrate the idiocy, LBC has set loose the legal attack dogs. The claim? Copyright.
They're not disputing that Jenni Barnett is a lying troll with no understanding of science, regurgitating idiocies about vaccination to an audience likely to contain credulous idiots. No, LBC is suing over copyright.
I suspect they may also have a revenue/beancounting issue. You see, while their shows are available free-to-air, they charge for podcasts. Meh, who cares? You can get the whole episode for free, from here. I did.
They're certainly not worried about credibility, or just in squashing criticism, otherwise they wouldn't have picked a fight with the internet. Then again they could just be incredibly stupid. After all, Scientology picked a fight with the internet and look where that's got them.
Hot on the heels of this announcement, BBC News online published this piece:
Rise in measles 'very worrying'
In which it is noted, and I quote:
The figures come as a report from the World Health Organization on a measles outbreak in Germany in 2006, in which two children died, found 80% of those who had caught the infection were unvaccinated.
Yes, lack of vaccination kills children.
So, key takeaways:
- Ben could use assistance, especially if you're a lawyer in media law
- Jenni is a mendacious lying bitch who claims to care about children while encouraging listeners to put them at risk of death or serious harm
- LBC can go get fucked for trying to stanch the flow of life saving information through lawsuits
If you can help, contact Ben via his website, or on Twitter.
posted @ Friday, February 6, 2009 2:50 PM