When we decided to publish Clarkson and Choonara’s paper we realised that the media might misinterpret their findings, whether unwittingly or mischievously. Consequently children and their families might reasonably be alarmed or unreasonably misled. They might even stop taking their prescribed medicine if it was one mentioned as associated with an adverse reaction. We had seen, and deplored, damage done to the public health by poorly informed publicity over alleged risks of MMR vaccine after the Lancet published a contentious paper.¹

We worked closely with the …