MAIL them! Channel 5 management e mails

[Guest guest]

MAIL THEM AND THANK THEM FOR THEIR BRAVERY AND QUALITY PROGRAM

and IF YOU WANT IT IN YOUR COUNTRY, email them and see what they say..........

Sheri

channel 5 in the UK is who aired the original drama on MMR and Wakefield on

Monday - 9 pm, 15 December

This list is from at

http://www.whale.to/vaccines.html

http://www.five.tv/

Dan.Chambers@...; paul.leather@...; tracey.oconnor@...;

nick.milligan@... ; jane.lighting@... ; nick.dear@...;

marielouise.pumfrey@...; louise.plank@... ; angela.wright@...;

jeff.ford@...; chris.shaw@... ; ian.russell@...;

corinne.hollingworth@... ; Marie Louise Pumfrey; Alison Brodie;

;

Corinne Hollingworth, Controller of Drama corinne.hollingworth@...

Jane Lighting - Chief Executive jane.lighting@...

Nick Milligan - Deputy Chief Executive & Director of Sales

nick.milligan@...

Dan Chambers - Director of Programming Dan.Chambers@...

Leather, Head of Press paul.leather@...

Colin - Director of Legal and Business Affairs

Marie Louise Pumfrey, Head of Drama Publicity

Louise Plank, Head of Factual and Features Publicity

Alison Brodie, Factual & Features Publicist

, Events and Press Office Manager

, Press Assistant

Five's Director of Legal and Business Affairs, at colin.campbell@...

Jeff Ford, Managing Editor jeff.ford@...

Shaw, Senior Programme Controller (News, Current Affairs and Docs)

chris.shaw@...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1098369,00.html

Calls to axe TV drama on MMR

Doctors say Channel Five film is inaccurate and could cost lives of

children, but programme-makers stand firm

Matt Wells and Boseley

Wednesday December 3, 2003

The Guardian

Channel Five is facing demands to pull the plug on a hard-hitting drama

favourable to the disputed view that the MMR jab may be linked to autism.

A former colleague of the scientist at the centre of the row claims the

programme will endanger children's lives by fostering doubts about the

triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella.

But t son, who stars in the film, yesterday called for the

government to stop " patronising " the parents whose concerns she portrays.

Hear the Silence, to be broadcast on December 15, is a rare foray by Five

into original drama. In her first major role on British television in five

years, son plays a mother who is sent into emotional turmoil by the

illness of her son and the dismissive attitude of the many doctors to whom

she is referred.

It shows her delight at discovering Wakefield, the scientist whose

1998 research at the Royal Free hospital in north London prompted the MMR

row.

Dr Wakefield is played sympathetically by Hugh Bonneville; the chief

medical officer, Sir Calman, and Dr Wakefield's bosses at the Royal

Free, who eventually blocked his research, are the bogeymen of the piece.

To satisfy television regulators, Five will follow it with a discussion

programme, hosted by newscaster Kirsty Young. Dan Chambers, the channel's

director of programmes, said at a screening to journalists in London

yesterday that the subject was " enormously controversial " .

son, who opted for single vaccines for her two-year-old son ,

said she was astonished at how Dr Wakefield appears to have been ostracised

by the medial establishment, and hoped the drama would provoke an

" enlightened " discussion about the issue.

She said: " I would like a calm and informed debate to come out of it. There

is a sort of hysteria coming from the government at the moment, and you

just can't go on telling frightened people that they are wrong. You have to

understand what the fear is. At the moment, people are just being told,

'Shut up and don't worry, have the MMR'. It's very patronising. "

But senior figures at the Royal Free are concerned that the film could lead

to a dangerous drop in immunisation levels, which are already low in some

parts of the country.

One of the doctors who has worked with Dr Wakefield wrote to Jane Lighting,

Five's chief executive, asking her not to transmit it.

The doctor, a co-author of the original Lancet paper that provoked the

controversy, says in the letter that the film is undeniably good drama, but

it unacceptably and dangerously blurs the border between truth and fiction.

" The acting was excellent, and the story was gripping. Unfortunately, the

fact that your programme is not accurate is a matter of the utmost

seriousness, and one which could lead children to die. You may seek to

justify the inaccuracies by invoking the notion of artistic licence.

However, there is no room for artistic licence when the lives of children

are at risk. "

The doctor, who does not want to be named but has the backing of other

colleagues of Dr Wakefield, gives 14 detailed examples of alleged

inaccuracies. The programme conflates ideas and events in a way that

" inappropriately indicates Dr Wakefield to be more reasonable and

thoughtful than the history would suggest " , he writes.

Dr Wakefield's colleagues have peeled away, the letter claims, because of

" our increasing concerns about the scientific quality of his work " . It says

he was not treated as a pariah either by the hospital or the medical school

- instead, he made himself a pariah by turning down offers to work with

other researchers if he felt they were not " of the faith " .

The programme-makers point out that elements have been fictionalised in

order to tell the story coherently. son's character, for instance, is

based on several different people. Bate, the producer, admitted the

film was emotionally positive towards the concerned parents, but insisted

it remained rooted in fact. " It is emotionally biased, but it's not

factually biased, " he said.

Tim Prager, the writer, said: " What we have tried to do is to say that

there should be a freedom to think and report what you discover without

fear of losing your career, and to show that much of what has been written

about the possibility of a link between MMR and autism has been based on

statistics - part of the point was to humanise the story. "