Please do not read if easily offended
The MMR 'controversy' really annoys me. Would people rather have measles back? A few middle class whingers who can't accept that some kids are not going to be perfect combined with a dodgy doctor and a media that doesn't appear to understand basic scientific concepts, and suddenly its panic in the streets time.
There is no evidence that MMR causes any problems. Its this simple, if you give all kids MMR, you're giving it to some who would have developed problems whether or not they'd had the jab. As it happens MMR is given at around the same time when certain conditions (eg autism) start to become apparent, but this does not mean there's a causal link.
The real problem is that we live in a culture where people believe that somehow they've got an inalienable right for bad things not to happen to them. This tendency is magnified when it comes to people's children. From refusal to accept that their little darlings are scumbag vandals and arsonists, to the refusal to acept that some kids die and get injured and its just an accident, you see the same pattern.
In the case of MMR, we see the same middle class whiners who feel that someone has to be to blame for their trophy kid isn't going to be something they can boast about like the house and car, at work. Its giving into this lobby that's given rise to the sour joke that the difference between diagnosis of dyslexia and moderate learning difficulties is dependent on property values.
And as for this crap about choice, MMR is given because its the most effective method of protecting kids against really viscious diseases. It might not fit into the paradigm of the me generation, but this is one of those times when you're up against brute fact, and your denial of this is putting others at risk. Believe it or not, the majority of doctors want to prevent disease, and have kids of their own. What motive would they have for supporting MMR if it wasn't the safest thing we've got for immunisation?
Similarly, most scientific research is accurate, and many things are well understood by science. Some so-called Forteans might not like this to be the case, but it is after all the whole reason that we can be arguing 'here'. What motive would there be for researchers covering up adverse affects from MMR?
However, we can easily see the interlinked motives of the publicity hungry doctor who started this, the ever more trivial media, and the vultures offering single jabs on the private. They're the ones benefiting from this whole farce.
I'd like to be able to say that I'm sorry if I've offended anyone, but this is an episode of such stunning cutural idiocy that I really don't care.