Even the attempt to provide balanced reporting of events, and especially very complicated sets of facts can become biased.
Someone decides that measles/mumps/rubella vaccines cause autism. Case studies of seven kids who showed symptoms of autism four months after getting vaccinated are collected and reported. The guys who publish the report are doctors, and the studies are published. Now that is factual reporting. Slim facts, and lots of reporting, but no intent to mislead.
Someone else looks into it. They find that a statistical analysis of people who did get vaccinated over one decade show the same rates of autism as people who did not get vaccinated. This guy is a doctor too, he publishes. Folks who sell vaccines push the publication of this data, because it supports their long held belief that their product doesn’t cause autism. Now, is that a bias in reporting?
A bunch of folks who have autistic children get together on the Internet and collect reports of their children’s experiences, reaffirming the contention of the original doctor. There are several hundred of these folks, and some of them have pretty carefully kept records. Is this biased reporting?
A statistician examines records from eight countries, and finds that countries which have higher rates of autism have much more standardized testing and diagnostic standards for autism, and coincidentally also have higher rates of implementation of vaccination programs. His report says the statistical facts reflect reporting far more than they reflect facts about the disease. Is that biased reporting?
California passes a law requiring that the element of vaccines most often cited as a possible cause of autism are withheld from all vaccinations used for children. That law is implemented primarily because of the intense public interest in doing something to help the children. A few years later, another doctor, another published study, and it turns out that there is no statistical evidence that the absence of the ingredient caused any change in the rate of autism. In addition, a separate study shows many more children not being vaccinated than in previous years, and those children have the same rates of autism as well.
All of this is reported in the media, although the original study of seven children is referenced equally in all the subsequent media reports, not mentioning that all but one of the original doctors listed in the first report have withdrawn, and repudiated the conclusion. Yet in every major report of the controversy, the original conclusion is repeated. Is this biased reporting?
A group of doctors in Denmark make use of the forty years of records available in their country, following 40,000 children included in that database, twenty thousand who are recorded as being diagnosed with some syndrome currently defined as part of the “Autism spectrum” and another twenty thousand chosen because they have no such diagnosis. A thorough analysis shows that vaccinations occurred at the same rates, and over the same times in the children’s lives in both groups. On a television special, data from this report is presented by a television commentator, followed by an interview with the remaining author of the original report, who reiterates his study, and is not even asked if he did any follow up on his original data. Is that biased reporting?
A report is filed by a doctor from the World Health Organization based on a three thousand case study done in several countries in Europe. The study finds that populations that forgo the use of vaccines do have fewer children who are diagnosed with Autism spectrum diseases. The doctor points out in his conclusion that the number of cases in unvaccinated children is less than among vaccinated children but the actual number is lower than the difference between the number of children in the unvaccinated population who died of measles, mumps, and rubella, and the numbers in the vaccinated group. This report is published on the Internet, without the death statistics. Is that bias?
A television investigative reporter reports on the air that the Doctors who repudiated the original study had all done business with the company that provided the vaccines both before and after the report was created. The sole holdout was not doing business with the company either before or after the report. He does not mention that the holdout doctor was not a pediatrician, and never gave immunizations as a part of his practice. The other doctors were all pediatricians, and most of them continued to practice after participating in the report. Was that bias in reporting?
The drug companies paid many thousands of dollars to support and publish the studies after the first one. Was that bias in reporting?
You don’t need a villain, you don’t even need an idiot. People don’t want to hear a dry statistical report that a forty year old medical practice actually does what it was intended to do, and doesn’t have any risks that were not understood forty years ago when it was decided that seven deaths a year from vaccinations was better than 15,000 deaths a year from measles, mumps, and rubella. But tell them that doctors are knowingly killing seven children a year, and you can get some viewers.
Tris (a highly biased reporter.)