Facebook accused of reviving junk MMR science

FACEBOOK is putting children’s lives at risk by reviving spurious MMR claims, the UK’S health chiefs have said.

The anti-vaccination sites, which promote the fake science that caused a surge in measles cases as well as conspiracy theories about other vaccines, appear at the top of searches when parents use Facebook to find information about the MMR vaccine.

Andrew Wakefield, the discredited doctor behind the fraudulent research linking the MMR vaccine to autism, features prominently on the sites with his film Vaxxed, in which he accuses the US government’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention of a coverup over the risks.

Unlike Google, which filters out antivaccination sites to promote guidance from the NHS, government or World Health Organisation, Facebook’s searches appear to be based solely on their most popular and active sites irrespective of whether they are peddling false information.

Prof Helen Stokes-lampard, the chairman of the Royal College of GPS, said it was “deeply concerning” that Facebook was carrying posts that spread “false and frankly dangerous ideas” about not just MMR but other vaccination programmes, too.

“The consequences of publishing misleading information is a genuine risk to the public’s health — you only have to look at the widespread panic and confusion that was caused by unfounded claims [by Dr Wakefield] linking the MMR vaccine to autism in the Nineties,” she said.

It meant a “sizeable cohort of twentysomethings” were unprotected from potentially life-threatening diseases with a surge of more than 600 measles cases in England this year alone, a disease “we were on the brink of eradicating and which can have life-changing consequences”, she added.

Measles cases in England are set to quadruple this year, fuelled by an antivaccine movement that, researchers say, has gained momentum through social media platforms such as Facebook.

Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health, demanded urgent action by Facebook, saying its own research, due later this year, showed parents were more likely to see negative and often-inaccurate messages about vaccinations on social media than positive ones.

In a statement, Facebook said it opposed misinformation on its site but tried to strike a balance between free speech and people’s safety. It added that it aimed to demote material such as anti-vaccination comment in people’s news feeds.