What the viewing public were not told, and what I only found out three years
later was that in fact Adam Morrish, having apparently been exposed possible
measles as a child was then definitely given two doses of MMR including a
booster dose in 1990, but that his parents “intuition” was that the MMR “was not
a relevant factor in his condition”. Mr Morrish did however confirm that he had
not withheld the information from Sarah Barclay and the Panorama team. They had
simply chosen not to make any reference to that crucial fact and to leave the
public with the impression that this boy’s catastrophic condition “illustrated
the dangers of natural measles.”
When challenged with the fact that this key omission was both unprofessional and unscientific, Sarah Barclay simply twisted the letter of challenge to say that it would have been wrong to “state that Adam had got SSPE from the vaccine”. This had not been asked of her of course. The point was quite simply that this boy’s condition could well have been precipitated by the fact that he was given MMR and it was therefore wrong to neglect to give this information to the public in a programme, which was allegedly about parents’ choice.
Andy and I watched the documentary with a deepening sense of unease. The ending was compelling. The father of poor David Morrish told us about the perils of choice: He did not tell us about his son’s MMR.