May 26, 2003
There is a controversy in Britain as to whether a combination children’s vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) is more dangerous compared to single vaccinations for each of the diseases. The Department of Health, and the vast majority of scientific research, suggests that MMR is safe, although there have been some studies that show a link between the vaccine and autism.
In a recent survey, about half of the respondents (53%) felt that since the media gave equal time to both sides of the debate, that there was as much evidence to support the dangers of MMR as there was to support its benefits. The survey also reported that nearly half of those questioned felt that the media should hold back on research that points out dangers in health matters until that research is confirmed by further studies.
At a time when Mad Cow and SARS are present in Canada, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether how much of the seriousness of these diseases are real, and how much is the result of media coverage. There is no solution to the problem--the media can’t be expected to downplay the effects of SARS and Mad Cow; especially in light of the daily briefings given by authorities.
The National Museum of Iraq is blaming the media for giving the impression that most of the museum’s 170,000 pieces were looted after the fall of Baghdad. According to museum staff, many of the items were hidden prior to the war; a procedure that was used during the Iran/Iraq war in the 80s, and the first Gulf War. Museum sources said that reporters went to the institution, saw the empty shelves, and assumed that all the items had been looted. It is estimated that only a few thousand, or hundreds, of the museum’s pieces were stolen.
Landsberg Backtracks
Michele Landsberg, who wrote a column in the Toronto Star about journalist Barry Zwicker entitled "Conspiracy crusader doubts official 9/11 version" and was subjected to a National Post editorial entitled " Michele Landsberg Loses It", responded to the Post’s attack in her May 18 column. The basis of her second column on the subject was that she was merely asking questions, and those questions are not going to go away.
In a rather odd sentence in her subsequent piece, Landsberg states: "I fully expected to be labelled a ‘conspiracy theorist’ after interviewing Vision TV’s Barry Zwicker, and writing about his challenges to the official version of what happened at the World Trade Center." To begin with, the title of her original column was "Conspiracy crusader doubts official 9/11 version", the crusader being Barry Zwicker. Later she wrote that "And if you call him (Zwicker) a conspiracy theorist, call me one, too, because I agree with Zwicker when he says, ‘I don’t know exactly what happened, but something smells very fishy.’"
Landsberg, or whoever wrote the headline of her May 11 column, was the one who labelled Zwicker a conspiracy crusader. And then Landsberg said that if he is one, which according to the column, he is, then she is one too. Now she’s blaming the National Post for calling her what she said she was in the first place.
It was Landsberg, not the Post, that first lumped her "questions" about 9/11 into the same category of holocaust deniers and those who think that the moon landing was staged on a Hollywood set.
No wonder Toronto’s in such bad shape..