Lies, damn lies and NHS statistics

By Chris Wheal

March 13, 2024

NHS exaggerated that one third of British kids were unprotected

Adolf Hitler’s propaganda whizz Joseph Goebbels famously said: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” 

Healthcare and vaccine professionals have come up against a big lie from anti-vaxxers, repeated across social media, that many people came to believe. One of the biggest was that the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was dangerous. 

Sadly, NHS England has been caught out with its own counter lie, exaggerating the number of children unprotected from measles due to being unvaccinated.

The big lie

In 1998, the now discredited and struck-off Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulent article in the Lancet that suggested the MMR vaccine caused autism in children. This big lie spread fast and provoked a spiralling decline in vaccination around the world, leading to widespread outbreaks of measles. Measles remains a problem, with outbreaks in the UK and cases in Ireland. 

In January this year, NHS England said 3.4 million children under 16 in the UK were unprotected against measles. This was repeated in Parliament and reported in the media. Health minister Maria Caulfield used it in the House of Commons as did Lord Markham, a health minister in the Lords. The NHS put it on social media and it was retweeted by other government departments.

The idea was that the bigger the number, the bigger the scare factor, the more they might convince the unvaccinated to get the jab. But it was a lie. And it was repeated.

Fact-checking organisation Full Fact has been challenging the NHS on this all year and this week published a damning report. Full Fact managed to get the NHS to amend its statement within a few days of publication. The 3.4 million children were “unprotected or not fully protected,” it said. But Full Fact knew that wasn’t true either.

How the vaccines work

Many of the children have received one jab of MMR but not the second. One jab protects 95% of those who have it. Two jabs protects 99%. Because there is no way of knowing if the single vaccination has provided the protection, everyone is given two jabs. But 95% of those with a single jab would have been protected.

Then there was record-keeping. Many of those with a single jab could have had the second jab but not had it recorded. Many of those with no recorded vaccinations may have received at least one and possibly both jabs. And some kids are given protection from their mother naturally.

To top that, the number was a worst-case scenario estimate of how many people the NHS might need to invite for a vaccination. It was what the NHS now describes as “management data” and, as Full Fact has shown, does not match any official statistics. 

The numbers game

The 3.4 million figure would be one third of children yet NHS vaccination data suggests only 9% of the youngest age groups are not vaccinated and only 5% of older children. And NHS England’s own database, its Master Patient Index, has a higher population than the Office of National Statistics.

As Full Fact reports: “Official data on two-year-olds and five-year-olds shows that MMR uptake in England has not fallen below 82.7% (for two doses) or 88.2% (for one dose) at any point since 2009. And it would need to be more like 66% across all children if about a third had missed at least one dose.”

Propaganda

It’s a shame the NHS feels the need to tackle the lies of anti-vaxxers with lies of its own. It’s no way to build trust in vaccines and faith in the system. The truth must out.

What do you think? Was it a ‘white lie’ for the greater good or should the NHS stick to the truth. Have your say.