A talented broadcast journalist of the utmost integrity? The furore caused by Jeni Barnett’s irresponsible and ill-educated foray into matters medical has still not died down. Indeed, due to Jonathan Richards' inability to deal with the problem, it is now being considered at the highest level. Ear...

Stifling freedom of speech in London The debate between Ben Goldacre/Jeni Barnett has taken a turn for the worse. It seems that Jeni Barnett has received a number of personally abusive emails and is upset. LBC, oddly, has contacted Ben Goldacre to complain. As I said earlier, abusive ad hominen atta...

Jeni Barnett, the LBC radio presenter at the centre of the Goldacre/LBC case, has received ‘hundreds of extremely personal and abusive comments,’ her agent, Robert Common, confirmed to Journalism.co.uk today. “[The comments] do not address the debate about the use of MMR and that i...

Smallpox is an acute contagious disease caused by variola virus, a member of the orthopoxvirus family. Smallpox, which is believed to have originated over 3,000 years ago in India or Egypt, is one of the most devastating diseases known to humanity. For centuries, repeated epidemics swept across cont...

Ben Goldacre has recorded this interview with Journalism.co.uk, following initial coverage of the LBC/Jeni Barnett row last week. Read extracts or listen to the full interview at this link for ‘Goldacre’s Law’ explained; the doctor’s view on television (it’s too rude to...

So, Guardian’s Media Monkey reports a funny URL on an Express story entitled ‘Danger from Just 7 cups of coffee a day’: “(…) mention this after catching sight of the URL at the top of the story, which ends with the immortal phrase ‘utter-cock-as-usual’”...

Oh Dear! I fear I am going to get in trouble for this one. I have never had a flu immunisation. OK, I don’t have any of the high risk conditions like asthma and COPD and so on but I am a "health care worker." Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: "It'...

MMR and autism have become indelibly linked in the public consciousness. What about MMR and asthma? A study in the December 1st American Journal of Epidemiology asks if there is an association between receiving the MMR vaccine and asthma in early childhood. 871,234 children were examined; researcher...