Thoughts on politics and life from a liberal perspective

Tuesday 14 April 2009

The Daily Mail is immoral

The Daily Mail is immoral.

There can be no other explanation for the fact that they are campaigning against the HPV vaccine in the UK and for it in Ireland as exposed by The Lay Scientist.

It is clear that they are doing whatever they think will sell the most newspapers in each country. In quite a lot of stories e.g. relating to politics where you expect newspapers to have an agenda and to pander to its readers prejudices, this would be fair enough. However in a case like this where they are dealing with a subject which affects people's health there is no excuse. If the weight of scientific evidence is for the HPV vaccine then they should report this in as straight a way as possible. If the weight of scientific evidence is against it then again they should report this instead. What they should not do is cherry pick arguments and data from one side or the other to suit an agenda tailored to increase sales of their newspaper.

The Daily Mail has a shameful record on MMR as covered in depth by the heroic Ben Goldacre and many others over the last few years. They should not be allowed to get away with blatantly playing games with the health of its readers, some of whom will trust what they read in its pages and may act upon this.

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