Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of the scare story

The news that the sudden death of Natalie Morton was almost certainly nothing to do with the HPV vaccination broke last night. Not late last night. Not so late that stories couldn't be changed in the meantime. It's worth remembering that when you see what they printed today - and what's still up on their websites. It's worth keeping that in mind when you consider whether they actually care about the facts of the situation or whether they're merely interested in perpetuating a scare story.

The BBC, for example, play the story very straight:

A girl who died shortly after being given a cervical cancer vaccine had a "serious underlying medical condition", an NHS Trust has said.
NHS Coventry said the vaccination was "most unlikely to have caused the death" of Natalie Morton, 14.
She was given the Cervarix jab at Coventry's Blue Coat School on Monday and fell ill a few hours later.
The government said its national cervical cancer immunisation programme should continue.

However certain these conclusions seem, there is one ray of light for the scaremongers, and it's this:

"We are awaiting further test results which will take some time," she said. "However indications are that it was most unlikely that the HPV vaccination was the cause of death."

Some postmortem tests do take a long time to be processed, so it will be a while before it's absolutely certain the HPV jab had nothing to do with the girl's tragedy. So that strand of doubt can be used, if you want to whip up a frenzy of panic, and irresponsibly demonise a perfectly safe vaccination. But who would want to do that?

Chaos - really? Despite the initial findings? How on earth can the Mail spin that into being somehow chaos? Well, you get quite a way into the story before the findings are revealed. Chaos and fear go before facts:

The cervical cancer vaccination programme is in chaos today after the death of 14-year-old Natalie Morton.
Ministers insisted the scheme must go ahead and refused officially to suspend it.
But many health trusts are cancelling vaccinations due over the next few weeks while they investigate whether vaccine stocks are linked to the dose given to Natalie, who died on Monday hours after receiving the jab.
Initial post mortem results suggested the schoolgirl had a serious underlying health condition which meant it was 'unlikely' the vaccine had caused her death.

See how the death is linked to vaccination all along, with the vaccine stocks that were given to her, despite what we learn in the fourth paragraph. To the Mail, those findings change nothing - it's still full steam ahead with the panic, regardless of the truth of the situation.

And there's the headline on the Mail front page at 9.30am today, deliberately mistrustful of the evidence they've been given. Look at the layers they put around the story - the health trust (evil State apparatus) claim (this is what they're saying, folks) that Natalie could (that's could, not almost certainly did) have died from something other than the jab. Ah, if only the Mail were so careful with the way they dealt with press releases from MigrationWatch or the Tax Payers Alliance, rather than simply printing them as if they're cast iron facts! But then, when the facts don't suit your agenda, you have to try and distance them from your narrative, don't you?

The URL for the story is quite revealing, by the way. As ever with the Mail, it gives you a steer into the way the story was originally prepared. But this time it reveals something else:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216942/Cervical-cancer-vaccine-programme-chaos-death-schoolgirl-14-hours-jab.html

The schoolgirl died hours - yes, hours - after having the jab. Now I don't know about you, but if she'd died seconds after having it, then there might be cause for real panic and concern. Minutes would still be alarming and would be the kind of thing that would spark a genuine need to investigate the vaccinations and ensure they're safe. But hours afterwards...? Lots of things happened in the meantime to the poor girl. She probably ate dinner - why not link that with her death? Why must everything go back to the vaccination? What is the Mail trying to do here? No wonder, though, that they changed the URL - how dare they put in something which emphasises how distant her death was from the vaccination! Keep the panic in, don't take it away!

The local health trust in Coventry, which made the announcement, would give no further details to the nature of the problem.

As is right and proper with patient confidentiality, of course. But look how it almost appears the trust is being secretive, given what the Mail says.

It remains unclear whether Natalie's condition alone was to blame or whether it was a particular reaction when combined with the vaccine.

And so the Mail clings on to what little it has left, determined to keep the momentum behind the scare story. HPV is the new MMR for the Mail - a new way of exploiting parents' fears over their children and bashing the evil State for injecting our kids with DEATH because they're PROMISCUOUS and therefore deserve to die. I read somewhere (and I've forgotten where, so apologies to you if it was you) a very good blogger saying the Mail had made a 'mistake'. Which I can't agree with. This is no mistake. There is no error here. This is all calculated and deliberate.

Meanwhile, the graphic on the BBC's report goes like this:

No wonder the Mail doesn't like the BBC, when it refuses to play along with the ramping-up of fear and plays stories like this straight down the line, almost like a real news outlet rather than screeching fear despite knowing its agenda is almost certainly based on suppositions which are crumbling away.

So there you have two ways of dealing with the same story. Press ahead with your agenda of fear and hysteria, or put one terrible and tragic death into context - context not only of what actually happened to this one poor girl and her family, but the wider picture of reactions to the jab. One of those approaches is news. The other isn't.

And look, the Mail must be so proud of itself for having achieved its goal of spreading fear and panic. Look at this reaction to the story:

Job done! I bet they're patting themselves on the back at a tremendous success for their fearmongering there. Well done to you all.

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