Media flubs it again re: MMR?

An 18-month-old Cheltenham, UK boy who was found dead in his crib 10 days after receiving his MMR shot (and whose parents claim the vaccine caused his death) was found, upon inquest, to have died from reasons apparently unrelated to the vaccine:

Delivering his verdict the coroner said George’s case had several features in common with other deaths that had been described as sudden unexpected death in childhood.

Mr Crickmore added: “The MMR vaccination did not cause or contribute to George’s death.

“George’s death was a natural illness or disease process which ran its course but the specific illness or disease cannot be identified.”

We tend to think of SIDS/SUDI as something which happens to infants under a year old, though there have been cases in the 1-2 year old age group (our rabbi’s 16-month-old granddaughter died in a similar manner last year; to the best of my knowledge, she hadn’t gotten any vaccines recently).

The parents remain unconvinced, which on some level is understandable. That doesn’t explain why the media is reluctant to publicize the coroner’s findings, at least according to Ben Goldacre (whose piece also contains information about a new study from Denmark regrading MMR vaccination and the risk of asthma). Though Goldacre’s concern may have been premature – there were a few local papers who did report the coroner’s verdict, as did the BBC, the Sun (which is the equivalent of the American National Enquirer, is it not?) and Goldacre’s own Guardian.

So maybe the media’s not as bad as it used to be…parts of it, anyway.

The usual suspects, natch, are crying conspiracy:

Jabs spokeswoman Jackie Fletcher said: “The process was compromised because it was a David versus Goliath situation and David didn’t have a strong slingshot.

“The legal representation for the family was unable to match that of the vaccine manufacturer’s resources.”

*sigh*